Lake County Ohio GenWeb
This biography is taken from History of Geauga and Lake counties; Williams Brothers, 1878.
Transcribed and submitted by Becky Falin, 1996.
Page 255, Willoughby Township, Settlement
Among the early settlers of Willoughby who made their location on what was then called the Genessee ridge we have been able to obtain the following names: Charles Worallo, Joseph Waldo, Lewis Miller (who afterwards moved to Painesville and there died), Elisha Abbott, Orman Butler, Luke Covert, Titus Freer, Abel Nash, Josiah Grant, Hezekiah Ferguson, John L. Ferguson, Thomas Ferguson, Silas Parker, and Peter Keezler.
Nicholas Cottrell settled on this ridge in October, 1823. He was a native of Worthington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, and was born August 17, 1766. Pending a proposition from the agent of the Connecticut Land Company to exchange certain lands on the Reserve for their Massachusetts farms, he and Azariah Lyman came into the then western wilderness on a tour of observation, walking the entire distance, except from Buffalo to Dunkirk, New York. Liking the country, they returned to their native State and made an exchange, Cottrell receiving some eleven hundred acres and a sum of money for his farm of one hundred acres in Massachusetts. His western lands lay in Willoughby and Warrensville, Cuyahoga county; Chester, Geauga County; and Northampton, Portage county. The exchange of property took place in June, 1823, and in the fall of that year he settled in Willoughby, as stated. He married Nabby Warner, and became the father of a family of eight children, four of whom are living, M. W., in Chester (see Chester); Addison and Eunice (now Mrs. Charles Curtis), resided in Vassar, Tuscola county, Michigan; and Norman, in Mason City, Mason county, Illinois.
Page 146, Chester Township, Settlement and Settlers:
M.W. Cottrell, son of Nicholas Cottrell (see Willoughby), was born March 3, 1807. He was sixteen years of age at the time of the emigration of the family to Ohio. After a residence of some six years in Willoughby he came to Chester, and commenced the improvement of his purchase, previously made, located in lot six, tract one. The first year he cleared twelve acres and sowed it to wheat, made one thousand pounds of maple-sugar, and also erected his cabin. He was then unmarried, and boarded with the family of Stephen Bassett, for whose uniform kindness and generosity he cherishes the warmest feelings of gratitude.
November 18, 1830, he married Mary R. Covert, of Willoughby (then Chagrin), whose parents, Luke and Dinah Covert, located in that township in 1816. The result of this marriage was eight children, only three of whom survive. Mr. Cottrell, by dint of industry and good management, accumulated a large farm, some five hundred acres, which he divided among his children as they married.
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