Charles Wall was one of the early settlers in Sharon Township of Medina County, Ohio; a brief account of the life of one of the sons of Christian Wall who came from Pennsylvania to Ohio

Charles Wall

            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.

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            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 snakeskin 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 whisky 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:

1. Harriet Wall, his widow

2. John his son living in Sharon

3. C. F. Wall, son living in Sharon

4. Saloma Waltz, his daughter living in Sharon

5. Thomas Wall, son living in Grangerburg

6. Reason Wall of Sharon

7. Franklin Wall of Akron in Summit County

8. William N. Wall, grandson living in Akron

9. 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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            No one can discuss the history of Sharon without talking about the tornado that ripped through the township on the evening of April 8, 1890.  It touched the lives of several Wall relatives, killed a man and his dog and severely injured the man's wife.  Never before or since has there been a storm like it in Sharon Township.  The Walls and relatives that suffered damage from the cyclone were Uriah and Sarah Wearstler son-in-law and daughter of Isaac Wall, Frank and Gertrude LaCroix son-in-law and daughter of John Wall, Christian F. Wall and Reason Wall both sons of Charles, and Joshua Hartman an in-law.

            That morning there had been a storm with the sky becoming unusually dark, but with little rain.  About five in the afternoon distant thunder was heard in the northwest and a thunderstorm moved in the direction of Sharon, but stalled northwest of the village.  Just before seven P.M. it started to rain.  A few minutes later a black funnel dropped from the clouds on the Uriah Wearstler farm.  Witnesses described it as resembling a large (hot air) balloon swaying side to side.  Jacob Derr, later mayor of Wadsworth living on the old Isaac Wall farm, was milking in his barn with his hired hand when they noticed the approaching storm.  Derr sent his hand to the house to tell his wife and daughter to get in the cellar.  He joined them for a few seconds and then foolishly went upstairs to see what was happening.  It almost cost him his life.  He stepped to the back porch just in time to have the door blown out of his hand, throwing him through two rooms and over a sewing machine, badly bruising him.  The kitchen and back porch were completely blown away and the house moved from its foundation.  The west end and roof of the barn were torn away and Derr's buggies were wrecked.

            It next hit Joshua Hartman's barn tearing the roof off one end.  The funnel traveled east and laid an orchard flat.  It then lifted and moved towards the southeast and again touched down in the woods.  It laid flat more than 500 sugar maple trees, twisting them off or blowing them over, and destroyed Arthur Beech's sugar house.  It swept along towards the southeast taking fences and trees until it reached the Crane farm where it leveled the orchard and blew down the north part of the house, crossed the road, took the south roof off R.M. Brown's house and demolished the barn, covering the livestock with debris.  Dick Brown was in his barn with Eugene Fulmer and seeing the barn begin to give way told Gene to "git."  The wind carried them along until Brown caught onto an old stub and held on until the storm was by.   Later, several large timber beams of the barn had to be sawed apart to free the animals that were still alive. 

            The tornado then struck Frank and Gertrude (Wall) LaCroix's barn, crushing it and destroying a buggy and wagon.  It hit Isaac Brown's place blowing a lumber pile to pieces and ripping slate tiles off the roof of his new barn.  The twister continued southeast and cut a swath of destruction down back of the Chandler, Conrad, Bodine and Joseph Waltz farms.  It then turned east up over a hill and swept down on Christian Wall and destroyed everything on the farm except the house.  Christian's new bank barn was blown into a pile of rubbish and pieces of it were distributed over a half a mile around.  The funnel turned northeast, swept up over the hill tearing down trees and everything in its path and hit Reason Wall's house, moving it from its foundation and causing it to lean so that no one could stand up straight in it and destroyed several buildings on the place.  It next hit Mathew Bramley completely wrecking everything except his granary.  Near by Frank Bramley and his family got into their cellar just as the storm hit their house tearing it away from over their heads and setting it on fire.  It swept on towards the last house in Sharon, gathering itself as if for a last dreadful act of devastation.  Mowing a narrow swath of trees up the hill in back of the Hughes Franks house.  It tore the house from its foundation and what seconds before had been a place of peace and comfort was a pile of rubbish 70 feet wide and 200 feet long and barely three inches deep.  It exited Sharon Township and next hit the Henry Wall farm in Copley Township blowing over his barn before lifting and doing no more damage until it was well east of Akron. 

            Residents of Sharon outside of the storm track were startled to hear the church bells of the town ringing immediately after the storm passed.  To them the storm seemed only unusually heavy.  As the people of Sharon came running to the town center they were told that Richard Brown's barn was down and all of his stock inside.  Someone came from Doctor Cassidy's with the news that Matthew Bramley's barn had blown down had he was badly hurt.  Someone else brought the news that Christian Wall's barn was down and all his stock inside.

 It seemed bad news was coming from all over but the worse was still to come.  Soon someone arrived saying that Hughes Franks' house was blown away and Mr. Franks could not be found.  Men immediately mounted horses and rode east toward the Reason Wall and Matthew Bramely farms where they were met with the terrible news that Mr. Franks had been found dead in the road and terribly mangled.  His wife was found several yards away from where the house had been, badly injured and their dog dead beside her.  Mrs. Franks survived but was crippled the rest of her life from her injuries.

Children of Charles Wall

Ronald N. Wall
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Revised: August 22, 2004 .