52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week #2 Theme - Origins

As we keep searching further and further back in the generations of our families, we can never hope to find the origins of our ancestors. But at every level we discover clues about immigration, occupations, and family history. In a couple of cases, I've found origins of places where my ancestors had an influence in exploration or naming, etc.

When the area of Cleveland, Ohio, called Columbia Station, was being surveyed, our Frost and Paine ancestors from Connecticut were among the first settlers. Elias C. Frost, son of our ancestor, Isaac Frost, is mentioned as one of the first surveyors of the Columbia Station in 1807. These first men came from Waterbury, CT to Buffalo, NY, then spent 21 days on the rough waters of Lake Erie to reach Cleveland. Elias C. Frost and 4 others, as ax and chain men, "set out from Cleveland taking a southwest course until the northeast corner of the town was reached. From this point they proceeded west two and a half miles, thence south a like distance to the center of the township. The party made their encampment here, on the west bank of the Rocky River. A daughter of Levi Bronson, (possibly a cousin of the Frosts) Mrs. Oliver Terrell, accompanied the party to do their cooking, to whom must be accorded the honor of being the first white woman that ever set foot on the soil of Columbia.” History of Lorain County, Columbia Township (Part 1).

Father, Isaac, and sons, Elias C. and Lyman J. Frost (our direct ancestor), are shown to settle on lot #28 of the Columbia Station Township in 1808. Another direct ancestor, Seth Paine, helped survey the town of Brecksville, OH, where he was the first settler, in 1811. Streets in the area are named for Seth Paine and his daughter Oriana (our 3Gt Grandmother,first teacher in Brecksville, OH), and the first post office was Frostville.

Thus, our family was influential in the origins of what has become the metropolis of Cleveland and suburbs.

FIRST TEACHER IN BRECKSVILLE, OH

About 1814, Oriana PAYNE (sp.), the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Seth PAYNE, taught the first school in the township at the center in a log house, near where the town hall now stands, with the HOADLEY, ADAMS, BRADFORD and WAIT children attending the school. The nearest schoolhouse at that time was in Newburgh. Oriana PAYNE married Lyman FROST and settled at the center of Brecksville in 1815, the year her father died. This information from "A Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve" by Mrs. Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham published in 1896.

Our 3Gt Grandparents, Johnson Lyman Frost and Oriana Payne Frost were members of a Congregational Church. From History of Cuyahoga County on Ancestry.com.

“In the summer of 1816, the Rev. Wm. Handford, in the employ of the Connecticut Missionary Society, began preaching in Brecksville. And on the 13 of July organized the First Congregational Church of Brecksville, with 16 members, namely : John Adams, Lemuel Hoadley, Chloe Hoadley, John Wait, Bolter Colson, Harriett Colson, Hannah Paine, Lyman J. Frost, Oriana Frost, Zelpha Wait, Lucy Wilcox, James Dixon, Mary Dixon, Joseph Rice, Orrin Wilcox, and Abigail Wilcox. These elected Lyman J. Frost as the first clerk. The church had no regular pastor until 1840…..” A later text mentions that J. Lyman Frost was a “self styled” minister.

Between 1816 and 1820, the Frost families moved to Cuyahoga, Middleburg District, in the area of Berea. Lyman J. and Oriana had 4 children (dates from family Bible):
Luther Paine Frost b. 1817,Berea,OH
Harriett Amelia Frost b. 1820, Berea,OH
Celina Calista Frost b. 1825,Berea,OH
Elias Carlos Frost b. 1826, Berea, OH

In Brecksville, OH, today, there are streets named for Seth Payne and his daughter, Orianna Paine/ Payne. There is also a shelter or treatment center named Oriana House in the area. I do not know if it is named for our ancestor.

Seth Paine and Hannah Nash from Massachusetts to Ohio

PAINE, SETH , of Williamsburg, Massachusetts, was a land surveyor who surveyed what is now Brecksville, and the first permanent white settler in the Township. [Seth and wife Hannah were our 4th gt grandparents, their daughter Oriana having married Johnson Lyman Frost, mentioned previously.]
From "The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History" - "Paine came to the Western Reserve in 1810 as an assistant to Alfred Wolcott, a surveyor from Boston, employed by John Breck, the person for whom Brecksville was named. Paine and Wolcott surveyed Brecksville Township and returned to Northampton, Massachusetts, with their report. Paine liked the area so well that he returned in June, 1811, from Williamsburg, Massachusetts with his wife, and children, Oliver, Spencer, Almira and Lorina [Oriana], and a young unmarried man named Melzer Clark. Seth and Hannah Paine settled in the southwest corner of Brecksville Township on lot 64, at what became known as Carter's Corners. Soon afterwards Melzer Clark and Almira Paine were married, this being the first marriage in Brecksville.

As land agent for John Breck, Paine had power of attorney to grant title to land sold. Paine's compensation for services rendered was to choose 200 acres anywhere in the township, with the exception that it should not be bottom land and should not include a mill site. Paine chose the southwest part. He left his family at a settlement in Newburgh, near the corner of Walker and Broadway in Cleveland, during the winter of 1810-1811, while he proceeded to Brecksville to build a log house."

As the first settler, something of his family is of historical interest. He was of the sixth generation from Stephen Paine, who came from Great Ellington, Norfolk County, England, to America in 1638 on the ship “Diligent” and first settled in Hingham, Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts. In 1661 Stephen and his two sons, with others, purchased a large tract of land near Rehoboth, Massachusetts from Wamsitta, son of Massasoit. …. [much more about Stephen Paine and his descendants can be found in online searches.]
"At the breaking out of the war of 1812 the few inhabitants of Brecksville, OH, for a time, kept up a little garrison at the house of Seth Paine, but as rumors of Indian hostilities became more alarming most of the people fled to Hudson, where they remained until the danger was over. After the war only a few straggling Indians were seen, and these soon abandoned the country, leaving the settlers in undisturbed possession of their homes. Seth Paine and son in law Melzer Clark both died in 1815, four years after their arrival. And their unfinished work was turned over to other agents of the land company. Their families, left without their care, remained in the almost unbroken forest. The oldest son of Paine, Spencer, had to take his father’s place in supporting the family when he was only fourteen years of age. ” [From “A History of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland” by William Coates]