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

In 1799, John Stark Edwards first arrived in what is now Trumbull County with very few possessions to his name, but with much land given to him as an inheritance to develop and on which to prosper. Twenty-two years old at the time and unmarried, Edwards surely fit the bill for what we think of as pioneering adventurers today.

Many people are familiar with the white frame home on Monroe Street that is now a testament to Edwards’ legacy in Trumbull County. The 1,300-square-foot home showcases items that reflect many generations of Trumbull County residents who have shaped our rich story. Many people, though, do not know the nationally significant family that Edwards was born into and how his lineage transformed New England thought, religion and growth in the pre-revolutionary period.

Professor George Marsden is deeply engaged with this dynamic. Professor emeritus at The University of Notre Dame, he has spent decades studying the Edwards family’s influence on American culture. He is the author of “Jonathan Edwards: A Life,” which explores the influential role of John Stark Edwards’ grandfather during the Great Awakening.

“Jonathan Edwards was a pastor in New England, and one of the leaders of the first great revivals that set the pattern for much of Protestant religion in America,” Marsden explains. “Not only was Jonathan a famed preacher, he was a great thinker. He still stands as America’s leading world class theologian and his books are widely studied today.”

Many will remember reading Edwards’ sermons in school, the most well known of which is arguably “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He became interested in science and philosophy at a young age, and drew upon the Enlightenment as a heavy influence in his theory. During an age when many European and some American clergymen were turning toward deism, Edwards argued that natural beauty proved God’s interference in everyday life. He was known for spending much time in the woods to find spiritual connection.

As Marsden notes, though, Edwards did not only study theology. Before he made ministry a full-time profession, he studied Isaac Newton, John Locke, and theories of scientific and natural philosophy. He was particularly fascinated with flying spiders, and wrote pamphlets on light and optics. Given his inquisitive and civic nature, it is not surprising that his grandson, John Stark Edwards, made his mark in Trumbull County in the early days by investing in the first Trumbull County Courthouse, sitting on the committee to build the first bridge across the Mahoning River, and becoming the first Trumbull County Recorder.

John Stark Edwards’ drive seems to be a family trait. Given his scholarly background, it is not surprising that Jonathan Edwards and his wife, Sarah Pierpont Edwards, raised academically minded children. Marsden notes, “the Edwards family produced scores of clergymen, 13 presidents of higher learning, 65 professors, and many other persons of notable achievement… John Stark Edwards was among their accomplished descendants.”

John Stark Edwards was not, however, the most well known of Jonathan Edwards’ family. John Stark’s first cousin, Aaron Burr, vice president of the United States and infamous for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, is no doubt the most well known.

Other relatives include Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, who married John Stark Edwards’ sister Henrietta, and John Stark Edwards’ father, Pierpont Edwards. A delegate to the Continental Congress and the first grand master of any Masonic lodge in Connecticut, Pierpont originally purchased shares in the Connecticut Land Company, giving his son the purchased land in Trumbull County as his inheritance.

Recently, “Hamilton: A Musical” has given the Edwards’ family story a bit of resurgence. A line detailing Aaron Burr’s family reads, “My grandfather was a fire and brimstone preacher,” referencing Jonathan Edwards. The musical also notes that Aaron Burr lost both of his parents. His mother, Esther Edwards Burr, was Pierpont Edwards’ sister. Letters that remain in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library tell us that after his parents passed, Aaron Burr looked up to John Stark Edwards’ father for advice. One letter from Pierpont to Burr even urges him to invest in “New Connecticut,” here in Ohio’s Western Reserve. For reasons lost to history, it seems that Aaron Burr did not take his uncle’s advice.

There is very little of the Edwards family left in Warren today. Although John Stark Edwards’ house still stands, only a few family artifacts remain. The Trumbull County Historical Society holds in itscollection two black and red chairs that belonged to Jonathan Edwards that came to Ohio with John Stark Edwards on his first trip here in 1799. Also in the collection are the original blue and white china dishes they ate from and letters written to and from John Stark Edwards. His unexpected death in 1813 and the subsequent sale of the home to Thomas Denny Webb, a lawyer and newspaperman, explains why so little has remained today.

John Stark Edwards’ home is open for public tours every Thursday and Friday at 2 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m .by appointment. Tours are $5 per person. For more information, visit our website at www.trumbullcountyhistory.org or call us at 330-394-4653.

Reed is the executive director of the Trumbull County Historical Society.