Our ancestor Charles Wall was born in Northampton
County, Pennsylvania on September 13, 1808.
He was christened "Carl" (the German
form of Charles) when he was baptized in the Ben
Salem Church on October 9, 1808. He was
about sixteen years old when his family left Pennsylvania
for Wayne County, Ohio. On December 17,
1829 Charles married Sophia Frederick in Baughman
Township of Wayne County. The Reverend G.
Henry Weygandt, pastor of the "Waltz"
or "High" Church performed the ceremony.
Both Charles and Sophia were about twenty-one
years of age. Sophia was the daughter of
Thomas and Elizabeth (Shank) Frederick, neighbors
to the Walls. Charles Wall is closely connected
to the early history of Sharon Township.
Sharon Township is directly north of Wadsworth
in Medina County. It was the last in the
Western Reserve to be offered to the public for
sale. William Hart and Samuel Mather, partners
in the Connecticut Land Company, were the original
owners and the township was first known as Hart
and Mather's town. For years after Wadsworth
was settled land in Sharon was tied up as part
of the estates of these two men. A few families
settled in the township before the land was available
for sale in hopes that they could gain title at
a later date. In 1820, when the forth U.S.
census was taken there were six families and a
total of thirty-four people living in the 25 square
miles of the township. The township was finally
available for sale in 1828.
Peter Moore and George White first surveyed the
township in 1829. Moore suggested the name
of "Gask" for his ancestral home in
Scotland. This name only lasted a few months
before the township was organized and the name
"Sharon" was selected. Most likely
the name was chosen to honor of the town of Sharon
in Connecticut and the Biblical Rose of Sharon.
Because it was a wilderness for more than a decade
after surrounding townships were settled Sharon
was a favorite hunting ground in Medina County.
It teemed with deer, bears, wild hogs, wild turkeys,
carrier pigeons, wolves and an abundance of snakes.
The names Wolf Creek and Great Bear Swamp give
evidence today of the early condition of Sharon.
There is a famous story of a bear from the early
years of Sharon. A group of men from Wadsworth
began the task of cutting a road north through
Sharon Township in 1819. Another group was
working its way south from Granger and the two
groups were to meet in the center of the township.
The road was badly needed as an outlet to Cleveland.
Several dogs accompanied their masters.
A large bear lumbered out of the woods and the
pack immediately attacked it. The bear reared
up on its hind legs and put up a desperate fight.
When Orin Loomis realized the hounds were getting
the worse of the battle he ran up and swung his
ax with as much force as possible and sunk it
in the bear's mouth. Another man ran up
behind the bear and struck the bear in the head
with his ax and the bear was finished. This
may sound cruel to us in this age of enlightenment,
but meat was scarce in those days and bear meat
was a welcome addition to the diets of those pioneers.
The stories of snakes in the township are many.
Rattlesnakes were abundant and very large.
The swamps and rocky ledges in the township were
perfect breeding grounds for rattlers and black
snakes. One night Doctor Cassidy of early
Sharon was riding in his buggy alone on Medina
Line Road. His horse came to a sudden stop
when it appeared there was a large log lying across
the road in front of him. The horse would
not move until the "log" slithered into
the ditch. Sometime later a snake skin was
found in the woods near by. The snake that
wore it was as
thick as a man's thigh and 16 to 18 feet long.
The skin was hung on a porch in Coddingville and
people from all over the area came to see it.
Entertainment was scarce in those days.
Joseph Fixler told of his experience with a rattlesnake
when he was a boy. He wrote, "Rattlesnakes
were numerous and dangerous in those early days.
On the farm of Uncle Sam Culp was located a rattlesnake's
den which was known far and wide, and the den
was avoided by all as much as possible.
I remember when quite young I was gathering nuts
in the vicinity of the den and was in the act
of stooping down to pick up a walnut when I discovered
a rattlesnake all ready to spring! I was
so alarmed that I perhaps jumped ten feet and
ran rapidly to the house, secured help and returned
with them to the spot. We succeeded in killing
the snake which had so frightened me, together
with several others, all large ones."
Rattlesnakes were extinct in Sharon by the time
I came along. But, black snakes and other
species were still abundant. I remember
once on my grandfather Wall's farm a large black
snake slithered across the road into his garden.
The road was perhaps fifteen to twenty feet wide.
The tail appeared on one side of the road as the
head disappeared on the other. The only
other time in my life that I have seen snakes
of comparable size was when I was stationed in
Thailand during the Vietnam War. I visited
a zoo in Bangkok that had several large boa constrictors
in pens and a pit full of extremely large king
cobras. My grandfather would not allow us
to kill snakes on his farm. They kept the
mouse and rat populations, the main diet of snakes,
in check and out of his granaries and chicken
coops.
There were several varieties of snakes in Sharon
when I was growing up. The most abundant
were garter snakes. These snakes were small,
docile and relatively harmless but their bite
can cause a serious infection, something I didn't
know at the time. My brother Art and I caught
them for sport and I don't remember hearing of
anyone bit by one. They lived in burrows
in the ground made by other animals. Once
we found a nest of them curled up in a withering
mass of newborns larger than a softball.
Regardless of how harmless they were I wasn't
about to stick my hand into that hole in the ground.
Other types of snakes I know of were hoop snakes
and blue racers. Our grandfather's barn
had a chute, or silo, used for fodder to feed
the livestock. In a crack in the wall lived
a blue racer, a snake of dazzling colors.
We loved to jump from the hayloft down the chute
where we landed on a soft bed of cornstalks and
straw. This fellow would stick his head
out of the crack to see what all the commotion
was about. Hoop snakes were so named because
of a myth that they could take their tails in
their mouths and roll like a hoop. Almost
all wild game was gone from Sharon by the close
of the nineteenth century. This was largely
due to the popularity of ring hunts in the early
days. Men and boys in the hunt would encircle
an area and drive any wildlife within the circle
towards the center. Experienced marksmen
would shoot the animals suitable for meat or those
considered a menace. Not many decades passed
until all the bear, wild turkeys and pigs were
extinct in the township. The last ring hunt
was held in the western portion of Wadsworth and
Sharon Townships in 1835. That may be unfortunate,
but we should not be too harsh in our judgment
of hunters in those early years. Wild game
was an important source of meat and the bears,
wolves and carrier pigeons were destructive to
the farmers whose livelihood was threatened by
them. The bears were said to attack domestic
pigs, wolves loved lambs and carrier pigeons could
strip a farm of all its grain in a very short
time. The carrier pigeons that nested in
the Copley swamp east of Sharon are said to have
flown in flocks a quarter mile wide. They
were so numerous that often the birds in the rear
of the flock landed on those in front crushing
them while they fed. The birds were also
considered delicacy and were hunted to extinction
by the early 1900's. Joseph Fixler described
the last ring hunt in the township. "The
news came down to the south part of the valley
of the Styx, that bears and wolves had destroyed
some sheep and pigs, and it spread like wildfire.
A great hunt was organized with every man and
boy requested to join. I was one of the
party. There were between 400 and 500 gathered
together. They started at the confluence
of the Chippewa bottom. The men and boys
were arranged ten feet apart and every four rods
was a captain and they marched north through the
dismal valley of the Styx. We started early
in the morning and came back to Wilson's Corners
and passed around the Great Bear Swamp.
To make a long story short, no bear came out."
Land in Sharon was quickly snapped up when it
was finally put up for sale. Christian was
among one of the earliest pioneers to buy land
there, purchasing a piece of land on lot 38 in
1830. Charles first bought land in the southeastern
part of the Township in 1831 and was one of the
earliest pioneers in Sharon Township. Six
years later he purchased land on Lot 42 just south
of his father's. After the death of Christian,
Charles bought the land on lot 39 from the other
heirs. He apparently sold the land in Lot
42 in 1859 to Isaac Ebbert and moved his family
to his father's old land where he spent the rest
of his life.
Charles is credited with locating and cutting
the road through the woods from the Montville
Township line to Sharon Center. Once a hunter
was chased up a tree by wild hogs on Charles Wall's
place not long after the first settlers arrived
in township. Charles possessed the first
wagon in Sharon. In the early days a wagon
was considered a great luxury and was only used
on Sundays. Charles paid thirty-five dollars
and gave seven good three-year-old steers in exchange
for the wagon. On January 29, 1859 Orren
B. Chatfield made an entry in his diary.
He wrote, "I went to Mr. Wall's to a venture
attended by nearly 300 people. They wrestled
and jumped and sold whiskey and had a good time."
This event was held either at Charles Wall's farm
or at his brother Isaac's place near by.
Charles and Sophia had ten children. All
except the oldest were born in Sharon. They
were: Jonas, John, Christian F., Saloma, Thomas,
Reason (our ancestor), Charles who died a month
after his birth, William, who died when he was
three years old, Margaret who died before reaching
her first birthday, and Franklin.
Sophia died on August 23, 1886 at the age of 78.
She is buried beside her three small children
in the Wall plot of the Sharon Center cemetery
on Ridge Road. Charles remarried Harriet
Luke a widow with four children of her own.
Charles died on January 10, 1893 in the flu epidemic
of that winter. He was 83 years of age.
He is also buried in the Sharon cemetery next
to Sophia and the children. Charles made a will
on May 4, 1886 shortly before the death of Sophia.
His son Christian F. Wall presented the document
in probate court immediately after his death.
The application to admit the will to probate lists
the living heirs of Charles as:
Harriet Wall, his widow
John his son living in Sharon
C. F. Wall, son living in Sharon
Saloma Waltz, his daughter living in Sharon
Thomas Wall, son living in Grangerburg
Reason Wall of Sharon
Franklin Wall of Akron in Summit County
William N. Wall, grandson living in Akron
Lusetta Rasor, grand daughter living in Golden Corners, Wayne County
Grandchildren are named as heirs on probate documents
only when specifically mentioned in the will or
when their parent is deceased. William and
Lusetta had to have been the adult children of
Jonas who died in 1887. In his will Charles
is very specific about how the debts of his children
to him should be repaid to the estate. Any
money left unpaid was to be deducted from the
amount that heir received when the estate was
settled. The will appoints Christian, the
oldest living son, and Reason as administrators
of the estate. Christian died the same year
as his father and before the estate was settled.
The other heirs then asked the court to increase
the bond of Reason Wall due to the amount of money
he was handling. Christian F. Wall of Sharon
is buried in the cemetery of the Emanuel Church
of Christ, the same cemetery where his grandfather
and namesake is buried.
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