by Marilyn Fish
In September 1810, a group of 16 Becket and Washington men met at Thatcher Conant’s Becket house to consider purchasing and moving with their families to “a township of land in the state of Ohio,” more specifically Town 4 on Range 6 of Portage County (at that time part of the upper tier of the Western Reserve originally claimed by Connecticut). Their town would later be named Windham, after Windham, Connecticut, the home of many Becket ancestors. The effort was hardly surprising given that westward migration from New England had begun years earlier. In 1793 the federal government began giving free acreage on the Western Reserve to those who had suffered property losses during the Revolutionary War. The government also sold thousands of acres to speculators who subsequently sold “survey townships” to settlers. One such speculator was Massachusetts Governor Caleb Strong who, as part of the Connecticut Land Company, owned 92 % of Town 4.
Although the Connecticut Land Company frequently published exaggerated reports of their property, the Becket group was most likely familiar with the harsh realities of dangerous travel and primitive conditions from first-hand accounts. In 1800, Becket brothers Thomas Delaun, Asahel, and Isaac Mills had traveled 600 miles in covered wagons from Becket to Portage County, where they became the founders of Nelson Township, only 5 miles north of Windham. They worked as ax-men for the surveyors to earn the price of their 100-acre lots and were the only settlers in Nelson until 1803, when they were joined by seven other families. Isaac returned for a time to New England. However, a stream of New England pioneers trickled in to settle other Portage County towns, including Ravenna, Aurora, Mantua, Deerfield, Palmyra, and Atwater.
(1757-1846), was the first missionary
sent to the Western Reserve.
In addition, Conant’s group was well-acquainted with Reverend Joseph Badger, Blanford’s full-time and Becket’s part-time Congregational minister and the brother-in-law of Becket’s doctor, Oliver Brewster. In 1800, Badger had become a missionary on the Western Reserve. Having set out on horseback on November 15, 1800, crossing the Hudson at Newburgh, the Delaware at Sussex Court House, New Jersey, and the Monongahela into the Reserve, he arrived just in time to preach in Youngstown on the last Sabbath in December. After a strenuous year of itinerant missionary work, he returned to Blanford to fetch his wife and children. He loaded a horse-drawn wagon with household possessions and set off to Buffalo, New York and south on Lake Erie to Ohio. Once settled in Austinburg, he served wherever Ohio emigrants had established communities, hoping to rebuild their Congregationalist principles. Badger returned to Blanford for reassignment in 1808 and was back on the Reserve within two years.
All of those who attended the September 1810 meeting were Congregationalists who had lived, worshiped and governed in Becket for many years. Over time the population had become more diverse and traditionalists found themselves increasingly at odds with changing customs, particularly as they pertained to Church matters. In fact, the men had formed the First Congregational Society in the Town of Becket to express their wish to freely practice their form of religion without hindrance or controversy. It seems that by 1810 they thought that they had a better chance of accomplishing their personal, civic and spiritual goals elsewhere. The Mills brothers and Reverend Badger were able to provide information on the best routes and places of settlement. Now the interested parties just had to work out the details.
The group formed the Beckett [sic] Land Company and appointed Dillingham Clark, Conant’s nephew and the owner of a tavern in Washington, to meet with Governor Strong to discuss the terms of purchase. Soon afterward they dispatched Clark and Jeremiah Lyman to explore their proposed township. After receiving a favorable report, it was agreed that the purchasers would turn over to the sellers some of their Massachusetts property at its appraised value. The sale was then consummated at $1.76 per acre for 14,845 acres. The deed was made to “Dillingham Clark, Esquire, Alpheus Streator, yeoman, and Thatcher Conant, gentleman.” Soon thereafter, the families began to say their farewells. See the June 2024 issue for Part 2.
Sources: Cathaline Alford Archer, “Eighteenth Century Becket,” A Bicentennial History of Becket, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 1765-1965, Becket Historical Society, 1964; E. G. Holland, Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger, C.S. Francis and Co., New York, 1854; History of Portage County, Ohio, Chicago, Warner, Beers & Company, 1885; various online genealogy sites and entries on Ohio history.
