A Short Story of the Terrell Family History

Olivia Terrell Healy (not mentioned in this article)

***History of Lorain Co., Ohio, 1807-1879, Williams Brothers, page 157-166***

Ridgeville, Ohio is a township known as number six, in the sixteenth range, and was drawn by Ephraim Root, of Hartford, Connecticut.

In the fall of 1809, Oliver Terrell, Ichabod Terrell and David Beebe, Sr., of Waterbury, Conn., exchanged their New England farms with Mr. Root for something over one-fourth of the township.  Having the privilege of selecting their land, they chose the northeast quarter, with some additional territory on Butternut Ridge.

In April of the next year, a company of men, some twelve or thirteen in number, on foot and with their knapsacks on their backs, set out from Waterbury for the western purchase.  Their names were David Beebe, and two sons, David and Loman, Joel Terrell, Oliver Terrell, Philander Terrell, Elihu Terrell, Lyman Root, Sheldon Wooster, Mansfield Webb, Amos and Orrin Hotchkiss and Ira B. Morgan.

At Buffalo they bought an outfit consisting of axes, saws, planes, chains, and some other articles for their use in the Ridgeville woods.  A man with a small sail boat was engaged to carry the tools to Cleveland, one of the men, Lyman Root, accompanying to take charge of the valuable cargo on its arrival at Cleveland.  The rest of the company resumed the journey the next morning and reached Cleveland only a day after the arrival of the vessel.  From this place, then a little settlement of only a few cabins, they proceeded to Ridgeville, by way of Columbia, carrying in their knapsacks some of the lighter implements and leaving the rest to be brought afterwards on pack-horses.  They reached the end of their long journey on Tuesday, May 10th.  As they approached the Ridgeville line David Beebe, Jr., quietly passed ahead of his associates, and arriving first on the ground, cut down the first tree.  The first improvement was made on lot fifteen, on land now (January 1879) owned by John Lonsby.  Here the men erected a rude log cabin, the roof of which consisted of bark and the floor of mother earth.  In this the men kept bachelor's hall, while on their selected locations they prosecuted the work of clearing and preparing for the arrival of their families later in the season.

In the later part of October 1810, the families of David Beebe, Sr., David Beebe, Jr., and Lyman Root who arrived under the care of David Beebe, Jr., and Ichabod Terrell, his family and his aged father, Oliver Terrell, were added to the infant colony.  There were in the party some twenty-two persons, the oldest eighty-two years and the youngest five weeks.  Two wagons, three yokes of oxen and one horse, brought the emigrants and their effects.
At Cleveland Ichabod Terrell bought a barrel each of flour and salt, paying therefor the snug sum of forty dollars.  Instead of going around through Columbia, as did their predecessors had done, they took a more direct course, and from Rocky river to the place of destination, had to cut their own road.  This part of the journey , only twelve miles in extent, consumed nearly four days.