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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region's history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.
Kinsman Township, a quintessential community of the Connecticut Western Reserve, started as a dream in 1795 when John Kinsman and 35 other men formed the Connecticut Land Company in order to purchase and survey the land that became this township.
John Kinsman went on to make this town his home and encouraged his Connecticut neighbors to join the new settlement. One such Connecticut family was the Parkers.
Arriving in 1816, the patriarch Deacon Lovel Parker moved his family to join other hard-working settlers in the process of carving a town out of the wilderness. Situated between Stratton and Pymatuning creeks, the harnessed water power was an asset for many of the early industries and mills.
Lovel's son Linus established an axe and tool factory in 1818 and later began construction on a mill along Stratton Creek in the 1830s. Tragically, during the process of acquiring a part for the mill in Cleveland, he became ill and died shortly afterward.
His passing left his young wife Harriet to manage the household and take charge of the four children: Sarah, Rufus, LeMira and Hannah. Even more responsibility was placed on Harriet when Rufus left for California in 1852 to pursue his own fortune in the Gold Rush. Harriet and the girls were not completely alone, however. The Parkers were a large family who went on to become influential members of the surrounding communities of Gustavus, Hartford, Canfield and Poland. Although the family dispersed, the original homestead on Locust Hill in Kinsman was inhabited by the Parkers until 1934.
A later resident, coincidentally a member of the library board of trustees, uncovered a packet of letters in the Kinsman Historical Collection at the library, written from the original inhabitants of his home. The majority of the letters in the collection are between Rufus during his time in California and his sisters and mother in Kinsman.
The trustee, Richard Thompson, immediately recognized the need to preserve these letters, and entrusted them to Katy McKinnon, who began the arduous task of scanning and transcribing. Many challenges arose in deciphering the handwriting, phonetic spellings, lack of punctuation and unknown chronology, but through the process a narrative presented itself.
Writer and local historian Emily Webster Love then was enlisted to aid in the project. She discovered that the letters tell the story not only of the Parker family, but they offer a snapshot of Kinsman and the surrounding areas at this moment in time. From the War of 1812 to the end of the 19th century, they include descriptions of community events like typhoid outbreaks, the ill-fated Clinton Air Line railroad and the Gold Rush, as well as personal struggles with alcoholism, domestic abuse and illness. The letters give an honest and unique account of life from 150 years ago.
What started as a discovery of letters turned into a labor of love that will result in a book titled "The Parkers of Locust Hill: Connecticut Yankees on the Ohio Frontier" by Webster Love on behalf of the Richard and Rhonda Thompson Foundation. This privately published work combines the original letters with historical annotations gathered from family memoirs and genealogical research to add context to the narrative.
Webster Love succinctly states, "The correspondence among Rufus, his sisters, and their mother tells a story of hardship, hard work, moral strength, and above all faith." She goes on to say "you will not be surprised to feel their satisfaction as the story builds to a peak of accomplishment and hope until its surprising climax."
"The Parkers of Locust Hill: Connecticut Yankees on the Ohio Frontier" will be available soon.
The Kinsman Free Public Library is located at 6420 Church St. Kinsman. For more information, visit www.kinsmanlibrary.org.
Straub is the reference and adult services librarian for the Kinsman Free Public Library.