The Evening Independent from Massillon, Ohio • Page 46

FORTY SIX SATURDAY, JULY 3,1976 THE MASSILLON EVENING INDEPENDENT 1816 Indian trail led Henry Willard to Beach City Village named for railroader By AMY SHRIVER What is today known as Beach City has undergone several changes, both in name and character since the area was first settled around 1816. At thst time, Sugar Creek Township was separated from Canton Township. In this year, Henry Willard followed an Indian trail to a point overlooking today's village. He chose this to construct a gristmill, using stones for grinding corn and wheat. The settlement became known as Willards Mills.

LATER, F. V. BELL purchased the mill and made 'numerous improvements. Bell added a sawmill and machinery for carding, spinning, weaving and dressing cloth. Bell became so popular among local residents that Willard was forgotten and the settlement becatne Bell's Mills.

After Bell's death, the property was passed on to his son, Philip and George. The mill failed under their management due to bankruptcy of some eastern creditors and swindling on the part of two employes who reportedly lit out of town and headed west with full pockets. After passing through a long list of other owners, the mill was purchased in 1850 by Jonathan Barr, who rebuilt the properties. The fickle public began culling the area Barr's Mills. His grist and flour mills supplied a large merchant trade until 1934 when the buildings and land were taken over for the Muskingum Conservancy District.

With the advent of the first railroad, the Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling (later the Baltimore and Ohio), the village was recorded. The boundaries of the original village, consisting of 38 lots, were Bank st on the east, West si on the west, Ray st on the south a'nd the alley north of Mills st to the north. THE VILLAGE came to be known as Beach City in honor of a CLW engineer Allen Beach who headquartered in the village while in charge of the construction of the rail line from Massillon to Dover. The tracks ran along the banks of the Sugar Creek on the east side of town. The tracks of the old Cleveland, Canton and Southern railroad (later the Wheeling and Lake Erie) girded the village to the west.

In an additional 32 lots were added to the village. On Nov. 14, 1889, 44 citizens petitioned the Stark County Commissioners, and on Jan. 8, 1890, Beach City was incorporated. E.

R. Speaker, postmaster, was elected mayor of the village; A. B. Shaub, clerk; Harrison Brown, treasurer; Albert Gleitsman, J. M.

Ramsey, sealer of weights and measures. Councilman werer J. M. Shetler, William H. Raff, Nick Feller, C.

W. Spranklc, M. A. Robinett and A. A.

Hay. In the early years, one of Beach City's attractions was of a touristical vein. The railroads made the city easily accessible to those persons wishing to escape their "dry" counties. Saloons abounded Beach City. Two railroads and a street car line offered passenger service into the B.

the L.E. and the Northern Ohio Traction and Light. Numerous rather swank hotels were opened in Beach City during this era. ACCORDING TO Lawrence N. Bose, Beach City historian, Beach City was a busy place on Saturday night, as people crowded into the taverns and hotels for dances.

"As the hour of closing came near," he relates, "the customers filled their pockets, bellies, suitcases, sacks etc. with 'liquid refreshment' and tired to get on the last trains as they departed from Beach City. The happy customers were assisted by two or three others, pulling, pushing and finally boarding the train. Some stayed over night." The village enjoyed a boom in the industrial sphere in its early years as well. Surrounded by fertile plains, it became a center for marketing and transporting of grains as well as berries grown in nearby Plainsburg, a settlement two miles southwest of the village on route 250.

The settlement, now defunct, was located near the present Shisler's greenhouses. Village industries included: The Gordon Rubber Works, a glass factory, a canning factory, an agricultural implements works, a large ciderpress, a feed mill, lumber mill, popcorn factory and a cigar factory on the second floor of Horn's Bar. The Cheese Factory, a stock company owned by area farmers, burnt down in 1920 in a fire, which was suspected to be arson. Another stock company, The File Factory, closed down in 1918. There was a time, Bose Parade opens activities for Bicentennial festival A parade featuring antique cars and covered wagons will highlight the Beach City Bicentennial celebration to be held July 16, 17 and 18.

The parade, to be hel'd July 17 at 3 p.m., will also include several local bands and baton units. Also scheduled for the 17th are: a festival on the Beach City school grounds, featuring round and square dancing, and a dance contest. Slated for the 16th is the selection of a Beach City Bicentennial queen, a pioneer style show, and plays, all to be held in the A colonial community church service will b4 held on the 18th on the school grounds, with old-fashioned hymn singing. A steak dinner will follow, also singing quartets, a speaker and games for both children and adults. says, when strangers and salesmen who came to Beach City complained that they couldn't talk about anyone there "because the whole town was related." The first school in Beach City was started in 1830 in a remodeled home of an early settler.

This was moved twice before 1877, when a new four-room school was erected at the costs of $2,500 on the site of the present Charles Vuckovich residence. This school was later closed due to a flare-up between the residents of Beach City proper and those on the east side of Sugar Creek. FINALLY IN 1891, the school board bought the land where the present school stands for $900. After much hassling over the construction, a four-room brick structure was raised on the site in 1892 for $9,000. The high school was constructed in 1926.

It now serves as an elementary school. In 1960, the schools of Beach City, Wilmot, Justus, Brewster and Navarre were consolidated into the Fairless High School. The first graduating class from this school was in 1967. The Lutheran Church in Beach City dates back to 1812, when Michael Bose donated three acres to the church. A log church was build on the west end of the Bose Cemetery.

A- frame chapel was erected in 1847. Due to squabbling between sympathizers of the North and of the South during the Civil War, the church split and eventually was discontinued. In 1879, the first English Lutheran church, St. Philip's, had its first meeting. Services were held in private homes, until a church was dedicated in 1883.

Methodist Episcopal circuit riders held meetings in homes and camps beginning in 1812 in the Beach City area. The church also met in the Bose Chapel, until 1875, when a church was built. The United Brethren church also met in private homes and a log school to the 1808 Lawrence Township First settler was William Crites By MARYTRYON The first improvement in Lawrence Township was made upon Newman's Creek in 1808. The creek was named for Jacob Newman, a chain carrier and axeman for John H. Larwell who headed a corps which surveyed the land in the spring of 1807.

White men had gained access to the land from the Delaware and Chippewa Indians in 1805 through the treaty of Fort Industry. IN 1808. Henry Clapper and Adam Lower, brothers- in-law from Pennsylvania, came with horses, farming equipment and provisions to last five weeks. In that time they cleared and sowed three acres in whcnt and rye, then returned to their homes. The next March, Clapper returned with his brother Daniel and built the first structure in the township.

A number of other settlers arrived about the same time, including William Crites, who is sometimes designated as the first settler. The township was laid out in December 1815. The same year the first building for public worship was built by (he Presbyterians on (he site where Newman's Creek Cemetery now stands. (Church history records the year at 1813). The congregation was affiliated with another in Pigeon Run in Tuscarawas Township.

Both congregations were dissolved half the people i glf other half went to Canal Fulton and established whnt is now, through merger, the Trinity United Church of Christ. The first grist mill was built by Lewis Rogers on Newman's Creek in 1812. The village of Milan was laid off in lots and offered at auction in 1814 by Mathew Roland. The first building was erected by John Sturgeon, his son-in-law. The same year, Roland erected a sawmill on the Tuscarawas River, the first in the township, and about two years later, grist mill.

There was not enough power for both and the grist mill was abandoned and the building later moved to Fulton, (later named Canal Fulton). FULTON, LAID out in the spring of 1826, absorbed the village of Milan and the Canal Fulton post office was established in 1826. North Lawrence was platted in 1852 with Arnold Lynch credited as surveyor and Philip McCue, a farmer in the vicinity, as proprietor. Early settlers were mainly German or Pennsylvania Dutch. Canal and railroad construction brought large numbers of Irish laborers to the area who remained as settlers.

Coal mining and iron works brought in the Welsh. Transportation eased with the opening of the Ohio-Erie Canal in 1827, and the area began to flourish with the advent of the railroad and the discovery of coal. Oldsters say the first ine in (he township was opened in the area of YoungstoWn Hill, four miles west of Massillon. Youngstown Hill was named for Cyrus Young, a farmer, coal operator, saw and grist mill owner. The name of the community which sprung up in this area was changed to Chapman in 1875 in honor of a teacher who succeeded in establishing a post office in the local grocery store owned by William Findlay.

(Findlay became one of the organizers of the United Mine Workers). At the turn of the century, the post office was closed, the name of the village changed to Newman and rural free delivery was inaugurated. In addition to mining in the 1850's and 1860's, there was a whetstone quarry at Newman and later Jacob Coxey opened a sandstone quarry in the 1870's. Today the residential community has a Baptist Church and one business the Lindsay grocery store. THE COMMUNITY of Pleasant View south of North Lawrence originated when Mennonites homesteaded land in the area about 1611.

In 1837 a colony from Farmersvilie, Lancaster County, settled in the vicinity. Church services were held in private homes until 1856 when a church was built. Preaching was in German until the beginning of a Sunday School in 1889. A new church now stands at the same site at the northwest corner of the intersection of Alabama ave and Wooster st NW. The community of Urban Hill, a name which coincides with one of the many coal mines which existed in the area, grew near Newman's Creek Chapel, the church built in 1864 at the site vacated by the Presbyterians.

The church is now the Chapel of the Cross United Methodist. Road maps 'revolutionary' NEW "YORK American road maps were a revolutionary idea literally. According to the 1975 Rand McNally Road Atlas, George Washington informed the Continental Congress in 1777 that, "The want of accurate maps has been a great disadvantage." If a mapmaker were appointed, he said, it would be of the Greatest Advantage." After much deliberation, the Congress finally named an official Geographer. His maps did prove quite advantageous during the latter stages of the war. Using them, Gen.

Washington made his way to Yorktown in 1781, where, on Oct. 19, Cornwallis surrendered the British to him. Ohio's contribution to the Jamestown, Exposition in 1907 was a replica of "Adena," Ohio Gov. Worlhington's home at Chillicothe. west of the village limits.

In 1835, the Weimer Hill church was built. The Centenary chapel served the congregation until 1925, when it was razed and the present church built. Today, with the consolidation of the Methodist and the United Brethren church, Beach City is left with two churches, the United Methodists and the Lutheran. Today's businesses operating in the village include two railroads, the Norfolk and Western and the B. 0., a potato chip factory, a feed mill, an auction sales barn, three groceries, a paint and body shop and numerous small shops.

We're Not 200 Years Old Yet- BUT PFAFF IS 114 YEARS OLD AND STILL 1862 the first PFAFF sewing machines were produced by hand by George Michael Pfaff. This was soon followed by the installation of steam- powered machinery and the serial production of the first long-shuttle handicraft and household sewing machines. Standardized, interchangeable parts already came into use in 1869. If you're really serious about your sewing, there's only one machine to CPFAff) EXPLANATION OF PFAFF FEATURES -4( DUAL FEEDING SYSTEM NUMBER OF BUILT-IN STITCHES WITHOUT ADDING CAMS SPECIAL LEVER FOR BASTING AND NEEDLE POSITIONING Jf BOTH OPEN-ARM AND FLAT-BED MODELS REVERSE CYCLE STRETCH STITCHES FOR TODAY'S FABRICS TJ FULL ROTARY HOOK FOR PERFECT STITCH FORMATION i ONE MASTER DIAL FOR STITCH LENGTH, WIDTH, AND NEEDLE POSITION -if ELECTRONIC SPEED CONTROL BUILT-IN BUTTONHOLES NEEDLE THREADER NO 22 NO YES NO NO NO NO YES NO NO 6 NO YES YES YES NO YES YES NO NO 4 no NO YES YES NO NO YES NO NO 17 NO NO YES YES YES NO NO YES NO 13 NO NO YES NO NO YES NO NO NO 10 NO NO YES YES NO YES YES NO YES More than 150 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES 1 Pfafl with built-in dual-feed mechanism matches plaids, stripes, checks -qf perfectly. Eliminates slipping of material.

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