Lake County Ohio GenWeb

Erastus Root

The following article is from the Painesville Telegraph, 26 February 1880 page 2 and reprinted in Vol. 13, No. 4 page 3 of the October 1987 "LakeLines," the newsletter of the Lake County Genealogical Society, retranscribed here by Cathi Salmi.

PIONEER SKETCHES
ERASTUS ROOT

One that may be counted among the pioneers of Mentor is Erastus Root. As the results of an interview with him last July, he informed me that he was the son of Jonathon and Lovina Gillett Root, and was born in Hebron, Tolland county, Connecticut, April 11th, 1803. His ancestors, paternal and maternal were among the early settlers of Connecticut. Thomas Root was in Harford in 1638, and the name of Nathan Gillett is on the records of Windsor, Connecticut, in 1640, and probably were the ancestors referred to above. Mr. Root said his father removed his family from Hebron to Franklin, Delaware Co., N.Y. when he was young, or about 1806, and about 1811 or 1812 he moved his family further west, settling about a mile east of the then small village of Buffalo. He had his house burned by the British and Indians. This misfortune induced him to pack up his effects and move back to Hebron, his native place. Not feeling disposed to remain in his native township, his father moved his family to Syracuse, where his father died. Jonathan Root was in Lake county in 1808; he was a half-brother of Erastus. He settled in Mentor, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died in 1864. He was a quiet, peaceable, good citizen, and among his fellows he was known as Uncle Jonathan. Jonathan Root was employed by Abraham Tappan to assist in surveying a narrow strip of land between the east line of the Firelands, and the west line of the Connecticut Land Company, west of the Cuyahoga River and the Portage Path. This strip of land on the south line of the Reserve was less than half a mile wide, and on the lake 20 rods wide, 5400 acres, and surveyed into 200 acre lots; this surveying was done in October, 1808. Erastus Root with his brother Jesse arrived in Mentor May 12th, 1816; he was thirteen years and one month old. He lived with his brother Jonathan three years, and being 16 years old, as he expressed it, he went to work for himself. He worked two years for Elder Warren Goodell, Esq., Joseph Sawyer, and others, and cleared land by the job, and worked one summer for Isaac Baxter, and bought 45 acres of land for $2 per acre. He has since purchased of Uriel Holmes, Jr, an original proprietor of Mentor township, 145 acres. At the time of his purchase it was wild land, and is now his home farm, which he has cleared of timber and erected his buildings, and it can in truth be said of him that he has by constant attention to his own business, with his industrious habits and indomitable perseverance and prudence, become a successful farmer. He was married to Miss Rebecca Tuttle, and is now living with his second wife, and has a family of seven children.

C. C. B. [C.C. Bronson]

Tallmadge, February 14, 1880