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Claridon Township celebrates 200th settlement birthday
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - July 15, 2011)
Claridon Township celebrates 200th settlement birthday
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
Claridon Township will come together Aug. 6 to celebrate its people, traditions and heritage.
Judi Maloney, one of the celebration's organizers, said the gathering will be considered a bicentennial celebration. But, it is 200 years from the time of the first settlement, not the official start of Claridon Township.
That first settler, Asa Cowles, trudged through the wilderness to make his home in the area of where Aquilla Road now passes through the township.
The Aug. 6 celebration will be held 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Claridon Township Administrative Building at 13932 Mayfield Road (Route 322). The Great Geauga County Fair Band will provide entertainment at 1 p.m. Visitors are also invited to walk down memory lane in a photo and memorabilia display. Also on display will be quilts and a quilting demonstration. Tractors, fire trucks and local railroad history will also be on display. Children also will have a variety of games to play and Banjo the Clown will entertain from 1 to 3 p.m. For the animal lovers, a pioneer woman will bring her team of oxen.
For Phil Adams, it will be somewhat of a homecoming. Mr. Adams, who now resides in Montville Township, knew of East Claridon for much of his life. He was born in 1927 in the Sperry Hospital in Chardon, he said, and that short time was about the only time in his young life that he was not in East Claridon.
He grew up on a farm that was the closest to the railroad tracks which carried commerce and passengers through what was once considered its own community, East Claridon. He said living next to the railroad "made life kind of interesting" because of the number of accidents between trains and automobiles. The crossing, where the Geauga Park District's Highland Trail now lies, was marked only with the cross-arms, not lights or gates.
He said the area does not have many more people than now, but East Claridon was a bustling commercial center for its time with two hotels, doctor and dentist offices, two blacksmiths and two creameries.
Mr. Adams said he attended a two-room schoolhouse with four grades in each. The township, at one time, had two schoolhouses, one in East Claridon and another in Claridon Center. The schools were eventually consolidated into one in East Claridon, he said.
Although it was one community, Mr. Adams said, there was a definite division. In fact, East Claridon had a greater attachment to western Huntsburg Township than to Claridon Center. He said it may have grown from their religious affiliations with East Claridon being primarily of the Methodist faith, while those in Claridon Center belonged to the Congregational Church.
Mr. Adams said it may also have involved a "little jealousy" over commercial boom that occurred in East Claridon.
"There was definitely a rivalry between the two towns," he said. "They didn't socialize much. It wasn't so much in my day, but you could feel it."
Jeannette Grosvenor, resident historian, said those divisions were drawn along Forest Road with those east and west of the road not socializing much with each other.
She said she often wondered why the first settlers passed through East Claridon to settle in what became West Claridon and Claridon Center. Her ancestors were among the first to come to the township. Lucy Kellogg arrived in 1816 and was a charter member of the Congregational Church. Born in 1747, she would live to 100. Her great, great, great, great grandson, Dennis Kellogg, still resides in the township. Kelloggs Center, at Taylor May and Mayfield roads, still testifies to that heritage.
Mrs. Grosvenor said the township, which was once part of Munson Township, was previously known as Burlington and Canton. She said she was unsure why Claridon was finally chosen as the name. It's motto is "The land of steady habits," but its origin also remains a mystery.
The name Claridon, which is shared with another community in Ohio, did once cause some confusion, she said. The other community received the ashes of a former resident who died in California who was meant for burial here. The mix-up was eventually resolved and the woman found her proper, final resting place.
Mrs. Grosvenor said her family still owns the home she grew up in that was built in 1833. She said she was brought up, like Mr. Adams, on a farm and was driving the big tractor by the age of 11. "If my dad gave directions, he only did it once, or twice if you were out of earshot," she said.
Unlike Claridon Center and East Claridon, which still retain some identity on maps or signs, West Claridon seemed to be the forgotten community, although it was the site of the first settlement.
She said a cemetery there still retains the name, but no one has been buried there since around 1956 or 1959.
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