EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

The following column was originally written by Leonard J. Clark in 1938 and was submitted for publication by the Mesopotamia Historical and Memorial Association:

Every newspaper has its oddity column these days. It sets us to recalling some of the remarkable episodes that have passed in our own town.

It is amazing to remember that 140 years ago, this land was unbroken forest and a gentleman from Connecticut bought it for 25 cents an acre. In 1798, the first road in northern Ohio was marked by girdled trees from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Grand River, and it ran through the northern part of Mespo. It is still called the Girdle Road.

There were many strange scenes in the building of the first homes. Corn was planted with a pick ax, between the roots of girdled trees. In the northwest corner of town there were brackish water springs where herds of deer came for salt. Beside theses springs, the Indians dug pits and hid in them, pulling brush over their heads, and waiting until the deer came to be shot from ambush.

Living in the sparsely settled woods, the people were forced into peculiar methods of making money. They collected wild honey and sold it in barrels. As they cleared up the timber, they burnt the great logs in heaps and sold potash and black salts that they leached from the ashes. Money was scarce and schoolteachers received only 62 cents a week. The school was kept in one room of Seth Tracy’s cabin.

1n 1806, a man working in the first gristmill caught his clothing in the machinery and was instantly killed. The corpse was carried on a bier made of two poles and buried in a forgotten graveyard, which is somewhere upon Mrs. Kate Kingdom’s farm.

The peculiar name, Swine Creek, has an interesting story behind it. The Pioneer History of Geauga County says, “About a year of 1802, a hog belonging to Seth Tracy wandered from the premises and for some time the owner could learn nothing of her whereabouts. Thinking that the Indians might discover her during their hunts, he caused them to be notified of his loss and asked them to report to him if they found the hog.

“One evening, an Indian came to the house. Not being able to speak English, he poked some ashes out of the fireplace onto the hearthstone and drew a winding line through them with his finger. Mr. Tracy recognized the course of the creek. At a certain bend, the Indian stopped and said “Coosh, Coosh”! “Papoose, Coosh!”

Mr. Tracy investigated the part of the creek the Indian had pointed out and there he found his hog with a litter of pigs. From that time, the creek has been called Swine Creek.

In the first years of our town’s history, shoes were so hard to get that the preacher walked barefoot carrying his boots until he came within sight of the little log schoolhouse where he preached.

Hezekiah Sperry, son of one of the first families in town, decided that making footwear was a coming occupation. He went to Connecticut and worked in a shoe shop. In a year he came back with a cobbler’s kit and went from house to house, sitting in the chimney corners, making cowhide boots and shoes.

“Whipping-the-cat” they called it then, because the sewing thread used by the cobblers was a great attraction to the cats and he had to be constantly whipping them to keep them from snarling his waxed ends and upsetting his tools. History tells us that wild boars from the woods of Bristol Township furnished Hezekiah the bristles for his blacking brushes.

By 1806, the town had a handful of families and a graveyard. It was now on the map. They started a post office using Seth Tracy’s, which was filled with mail once a week, by a man who came on foot from Warren. People were bothered about having their mail mixed, because at this time, the town (Mesopotamia) was known as the District of Troy and there were two other Troy’s in Ohio. In 1819, the taxpayers got together to pick a more distinguished name. Mesopotamia was chosen because it means “between two rivers.’ The town at that time included Middlefield and so lay between the Grand and Cuyahoga rivers. It is the only Mesopotamia, aside from the one in Asia, which anyone has ever heard of.

Every town has its Civil War stories, fast being forgotten. In Mespo, the people used to gather along Girdle Road to hear the war news from a messenger who passed that way. Howard Brigden of Mespo was a spy for Gen. Grant. Once some Southerners came on horseback, became suspicious and started following him. He walked slowly but with long steps to avoid arousing suspicion. When he went over a hill, which concealed him for a short time, he ran and hid under an overhanging bank. The Confederates rode right above his head. After they passed on, he swam across the river and climbed a mountain. Reaching the top, he saw the Confederates, still meandering around, helplessly far below. He gave them a hearty farewell shout. Outwitted, they barked back with a series of angry shots.

At the end of the march through Georgia, the Mesopotamia veterans brought home a little African American boy called Alfred English. This boy won the admiration of everyone. He educated himself, made a good living, and was leader of a Mespo band. But the northern climate was too cold for Alfred. He ate pounds of pepper trying to keep warm. Finally he became ill with consumption, returned south and died.

On a 4th of July soon after the Civil War, Bruce Tracy, one of the veterans, became so mighty with liquor and great battlefield memories, that he could not abide such petty stuff as boys running from firecrackers. Demonstrating true valor, he lit a cannon-cracker in his hand and ended up with a thumb and no fingers.

Half a century ago, one fine autumn Sunday afternoon, there was another remarkable episode in fireworks. A certain thrifty old gentleman hitched up his horse and went visiting. He left $800 in bills, well hidden under the kindling, in his parlor stove. While he was gone some unsuspecting relatives came to visit him and lit a fire to warm the parlor. When the old man came driving down the road toward home, he saw smoke rolling out of his parlor chimney. He flailed his nag, tore his beard and roared such curses on the “dunderheads” who had warmed their “snoots” on his $800, that his relatives beat a quick retreat.

Mespo has always been alive with original schemes and ideas. When our grandfathers were boys, going to the district little school, they built a playhouse in a fence corner and then hounded their teacher until she gave them big, colored schoolroom maps to adorn its crude walls. The next morning there was a furious teacher and a gang of flabbergasted boys trying to explain the unforseenness of a visiting hog that was wallowing in glory, upon a ruin of torn and trampled maps.

In the 1840s, a spiritualist society flourished in Mespo. A certain young villager by the name of Ed Anderson had gone West and never been heard of. The members announced abroad that they had seen a vision of his bones lying white in the Western sun. Then one day, young Ed put in his appearance back home. He had such a healthy poundage of flesh on his bones that it put an end forever to the Mesopotamia fad of hob-nobbing with spirits.

Of all the odd things that have come to pass in this town, as odd things usually come to pass by someone’s originality in meeting circumstances, about the most amazing was a fire that started from a tableaux-flare used in a school play in the Grange Hall. The crowd jammed toward the doors, ready to trample each other to death. Some flung open windows and got ready to jump. But one man did a little clear thinking for himself. He simply pulled off his coat and beat the fire out.