Lake County Ohio GenWeb

Capt. Silas Pepoon

The following article is from the Painesville Telegraph, 2 February 1860 page 3 and transcribed here by Cynthia Turk. It was reprinted in the April 1983 "LakeLines," the newsletter of the Lake County Genealogical Society. There is no byline but it appears to be part of the series by Spencer Phelps.

Sketches of the Pioneers -- No. 5.

Capt. JOSEPH PEPOON, as we learn from his eldest son, Silas Pepoon, now living near Warren, Jo Davies Co., Ill., was descended from French and English an-cestors-his father, Silas, being French, and his mother, Nancy Pepoon, being English-and was born in Hebron, Tolland, county, Conn., August 2d, 1749. His father, Silas, and a brother and one sister were Hugenots, and left France and came to this country in order to get away from the persecutions of that people. Silas, the father of the subject of this sketch, alone transmitted the name of his family.

Capt. Pepoon had three brothers, Silas, Benjamin, and Daniel. Gen. Silas Pepoon lived and died in Stockbridge, Mass. Benjamin settled in Charlestown, South Carolina. Daniel lived in Stockbridge, and then in Pittsfield, and afterwards in Hudson and Al-bany, N.Y., and finally died in Stockbridge. Capt. Pepoon lived at the old homestead in Connecticut until 1800, when he moved to Stockbridge, Mass., and died some four years afterwards. Capt. Pepoon lived with his parents, a bachelor, until 1791, when he married Eunice Ayers, daughter of John Ayers, a neighbor. Eunice was the ninth daughter of a family of ten children. After his marriage, by frugality and industry, he purchased some land, piece by piece, until he found himself in a few years in possession of a good farm, 100 acre of it being interval land.

Capt. Abraham Skinner, who came into Ohio about 1800, and purchase land, was brother-in-law of Capt. Pepoon, having married his wife's youngest sister. The glowing accounts that he gave of the New Con-necticut, induced Capt. Pepoon to make it his home. Accordingly, in 1802 he sold a part of his farm for money, and early in the Spring started on horseback for this Western world. He purchased of Judge John Walworth 500 acres of land, extending from a point near Geauga Bridge one mile down the river to the South part of what is now Col. Julian C. Hunting-ton's farm-thence East far enough to make the mea-surement, for the sum of $2000, cash in hand-a pretty good price for land at that time. But the location was deemed an excellent one. The deed was acknow-ledged by David Abbot, whose sketch we recently published. During the season he was busily engaged in making improvements upon his land, boarding in the meantime with Judge Walworth. Late in the Fall he returned again to his family. Early in the Spring of 1903 he started back for Painesville, then in Trumbull county, with some dry goods, peach pits, apple seed, and some apple and pear scions for en-grafting. The pits and seeds were planted, and the scions were inserted in thorn and crab apple trees. One pear tree, the result of engrafting in a thorn bush, lived over forty years, and bore abundantly. It was engrafted so low down that the roots grew out above the engrafting, and sundry pear trees sprang up from these roots. In 1857 there were in Farmer, Defiance county, Ohio, twelve large bearing pear trees grown from these sprouts. Many peach trees were grown from the pits that blossomed and bore in 1805.

In this trip in the Spring of 1803, Capt. Pepoon was accompanied by Jonathan Root, now living in Men-tor, and known to many of our citizens. During this season (Summer of 1803), Capt. P. with the assistance of Root, carried on his improvements-building him a log house, clearing up land, and sowing some wheat in the Fall. Late in the season he again started on horseback for Connecticut, leaving Root to chop through the Winter, and to commence farming ope-rations in the Spring, whilst he should be settling up his business to return. He traded off more of his farm in Connecticut for [illegible, 10?0 could be 1000 or 10.0] acres of land in New Lyme, Ashtabula county.

But the trying time was yet to come. All arrange-ments had been made, and about the first of June, 1804, his journey commenced with his family and ef-fects for his new home. Nearly 55 years he had lived in Connecticut, and associations had been made, old acquaintances and friendships established, and there were near relatives to part with. His wife was to leave aged and beloved parents. But the claims of consanguinuity and the latter torn asunder, and the jour-ney of 600 miles commenced, much of the way being a wilderness. Two two-horse teams constituted the train, and the party consisted of himself, his wife, four sons, and one daughter-the eldest 12 years, and the youngest 2-a young man by the name of Avery Hill, and a young lady by the name of Lois Isham. At Buffalo a part of their goods were left, to be sent on in open boats by Lake. After lightening his load, Capt. Pepoon was enabled to drive the first day to Cattaraugus, 36 miles; but it was night when they reached that point, and they found the stream at flood height, and there was but one house, and that on the West side of the stream. The family was fer-ried over in a common skiff, but the teams were left on the east side of the stream.

On the following morning the wagons were upload-ed, taken apart, and the wagons and goods ferried over; whilst the horses swam the stream. Thus, sometime in the afternoon, the travelers were in readiness and resumed their journey. The night after the one following their departure from Catta-raugus, as the company journeyed towards Erie, getting belated, one wagon was driven into the mud, and one wheel locked by a tree; all efforts to get out of this difficulty that night proved unavailing, and with flint, jack-knife and tinder, what they had, all efforts to kindle a fire were alike fruitless; so crowd-ing into a covered wagon the movers fought mosque-toes all night long. In the morning the wagon was got out of the mud, and the journey resumed. Reachin-ing Erie on the 4th of July, a new trouble came upon them: one of the best horses was taken sick, and one wagon was, consequently, left at Erie, and the journey resumed still again. The sick horse was led as far as Conneaut, and there left, where it died soon after. From Erie to Painesville the beach of the lake was followed nearly all the way, and the movers camped out two nights between the two places, the weather being pleasant.

Gen. Edward Paine's was the first house they reached in Painesville, and their cordial treatment by the old General aroused in them a grateful feeling that never subsided in life. Those of this little band of pioneers who still survive, speak with a quickened pulse of the old General's kindness and generosity.

When the family reached their new quarters, they found wheat and corn, and a flourishing garden; and inasmuch as the Captain was an admirer of the beau-tiful, he had caused flowers to be planted, and these were blooming-to dispel by their presence the gloom which otherwise might close around a new home in these wilds. The family brought white roses and pe-onies with them, and these were alive on the old homestead as late as in 1850.

Our authority remembers twelve families who were living in Painesville then (1804), and we give the heads of them as follows: Gen. Edward Paine, Ed-ward Paine, Jr., Col. Joel Paine, Judge John Wal-worth, Lemuel Fobes, Joseph Rider, Mr. Pollock, Jesse Phelps, John Smith, (Is not this Ebenezer Smith?) Capt. Ebenwood, Mr. Ferris, and Mrs. Col. Eleazer Paine, her husband having died the winter previous. In addition to these there were unmarried men, in number and name as follows: Jonathan Root, Anson Sessions (who kept bachelor's hall), and Abram Tappan (who, the following year, kept the first school known in Painesville), and John Danforth, whose family was still in the State of N.Y. These heads of families have all long ere this been gathered to their fathers. Of the unmarried men, Jonathan Root alone survives.

Capt. Pepoon built in 1905 the first saw mill in Painesville, on Mill Creek, above where the "Mud Mill" is now situated." We have understood that the irons were packed from Pittsburg to build this mill.

Living at the crossing of Grand River, and where the emigrant was in want of a ferryman, Mr. Pepoon became such ferryman. A large canoe was used for the ferrying, and the same process had necessarily to be gone through with as we have related above in Capt. Pepoon's case at Cattaraugus. His house was also necessarily made a house of entertainment, by the delays that the crossing of the river occasioned. It is said that at one time he kept over night thirty persons, who were traveling to the West.

Capt. Pepoon, although surrounded by an abun-dance of game, which at that time roamed in the forests, was not much of a hunter. He used, how-ever, in conjunction with his sons, to take a good many raccoons. These were troublesome creatures in the corn fields, making sad havoc with the "lusty" ears. Turkeys were very abundant, and frequented the corn field, and the family used to kill a great many of them. They had, however, one bear hunt. Some raccoon hunters treed an old bear and her cubs, and the family turned out to dispatch them. Old Bruin had climbed high up the tree, and stretched herself out on a limb, and one of the cubs crawled up on the back of the old bear, and there seemed to feel perfectly secure. Capt. Pepoon's share of the game was one cub, which was thought to be excellent eat-ing.

The family lived together until June, 1811, when the head of it departed this life. His ailment was pleurisy. He so far recovered from the first attack as to walk out in his garden, but he relapsed, the disease settled in his knee, and he died. He had led his family from what might be called the old world of the East, in to the new one in the wild West. He went before them and prepared the way. He left them for still another place, from which, most men declare, no traveler ever returns. His family then consisted of the wife, and five children, the eldest being 19 years of age the day of his father's death, and the youngest in the tenth year. At the time of Capt. Pepoon's death there was no burying ground, and the people came together and selected the spot, very nearly where the Methodist Church now stands, for such purpose; and, if we understand our au-thority, Capt. Pepoon's grave was the first exca-vated therein. We well remember when the dead peopled that ground. Capt. Pepoon was nearly sixty two when he died.

Many of the characteristics of Capt. Pepoon must be already understood by the reader. He was a man of a great amount of perseverance and industry. He is said to have been something of a writer, whilst Silas, his brother, was a speaker. He was a kind pa-rent, and a man of strict integrity. He never was a professor of religion, but his sentiments nearly coin-cided with the Baptists. His wife became a Baptist in 1911, and died January 30th, 1840, aged 77 years.

The rest of the family are still living: Silas in Illi-nois; Benjamin and Augustus on the original farm in Painesville; Joseph A. resides in Munson, O.; and the daughter, now a widow, in Farmer, Defiance Co., Ohio.

Thus ends the chapter of another of the Pioneers of this County. Some there are whose life has been made up with more varied scenes; but there are none, perhaps, whose characteristics, those that go to make up the man, for both this world and the one to come, that were more worthy.