Lake County Ohio GenWeb

Wesley Trowbridge

This biography is taken from Biographical History of Northeastern Ohio, Embracing the counties of Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake; Lewis Publishing Company, 1893.

Transcribed and submitted by Becky Falin, 1996.

Wesley Trowbridge, a leading farmer of Johnny Cake Ridge, Concord township, Lake county, Ohio, is a native of Arcadia, Wayne county, New York, born November 28, 1834. He is of English descent, but several generations of the family have been residents of America. Great-grandfather Seth Trowbridge was a native of Connecticut and was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and Grandfather Minor Trowbridge was born in Rutland, Vermont. The latter was a farmer and lived to be ninety years old.

Seymour Trowbridge, the father of our subject, was born in Arcadia, Wayne county, New York, and in the fall of 1835 emigrated with his family to Solon, Cuyahoga county, Ohio. This part of the State was then a dense wilderness. He built his log cabin in the woods, and by dint of hard work and good management supported his family in pioneer style and cleared up a fine farm of 200 acres. When he first settled on this place he worked out at 50 cents per day to get money with which to buy provisions. In 1863 he sold his farm and moved to Brooklyn Village, Cuyahoga county, where he still lives, hale and hearty, at the age of eighty years. He has taken an active part in many of the leading enterprises which have materially advanced the interests of his county. With the building of the street railway on Pearl street, connecting Brooklyn Village with Cleveland, he was prominently identified, being a stockholder and director and the first president of the road. He served as Trustee of his township several terms, and two terms as Mayor of Brooklyn Village. He was married February 6, 1834, to Miss Sallie M. Johnson, a native of New York, who for sixty years has been his devoted companion. Both have been active and zealous workers in the Methodist Episcopal Church for many years. Their two children are Wesley, whose name heads this article, and Deborah, wife of John Thompson, of Solon, Ohio. Wesley Trowbridge attended the district schools until he was fifteen, after which he was for a few terms a student in the academy at Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The day he was nineteen he began teaching school, and taught four winter terms, the first being in the old schoolhouse in which he learned his alphabet.

In 1858 Mr. Trowbridge married Miss Elizabeth B. Foster, a native of Cuyahoga county, who died in 1877, leaving six children: Elmer E., deceased; George G.; Seymour D.; Armina M.; Alberta E., deceased; and Warner W. In 1878 Mr. Trowbridge wedded Susan F Galusha, his present companion, a native of New York.

Immediately after his first marriage, he located in Solon township, Cuyahoga county, and engaged in farming, which he continued until the fall of 1861. From that time until 1874 he made his home in Brooklyn Village, and since 1874 has been a resident of Concord township, Lake county. Upon locating here he purchased his present farm of 207 acres of choice land, to the improvement and cultivation of which he has since given his attention. During the troublous times of our late civil conflict, Mr. Trowbridge tendered his services to the Union cause. He enlisted in August, 1862, as a member of Company D, One Hundred and Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served almost three years, being mustered out in May, 1865. He was with his company and regiment at the front until 1863, when he was taken sick, and upon his convalescence was detailed for hospital duty, serving in hospitals in Frankfort, Lexington and Covington, Kentucky, and subsequently being transferred to the general hospital at Cleveland, Ohio. His chief duty was keeping books in the surgeon's office.

Politically Mr. Trowbridge is a Republican. He has filled minor offices in his township, but is not an active politician or office-seeker. He and his wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Painesville.