Person:George Corner (5)

Parish Christenings: Chelford, Cheshire, England:
Ellen, F-C, 12 Feb 1758, P012351-0160
George (Geo), M-C, 20 Aug 1769, P012351-0390
Mary, F-C, 14 Dec 1755, P012351-0108
Matthew, M-C, 4 Nov 1759, P012351-0192
William (Wm), M-C, 15 Nov 1761, P012351-0234

Buried: Wolf Creek Cemetery, Washington, Ohio

Washington Co. OH CORNERS: Quoting directly from letter by Frederick E. Corner [son of Geo(rge). Sanford Corner and Emeline Putnam Blancett], circa 1905.

"My father, George Sanford Corner, is living on the farm where he and all his family were born, on the Little Muskingum in Marietta T(ownshi)p., 5 miles from Marietta, O(hio). The place was settled by Grandfather George Corner and his brother William in 1807, and is called in their honor Cornerville, more in honor of Grandfather, however, than his brother, who was younger and led a more private life.

The father of the American Corners, George, came with his wife Martha and five of their children, about 30 all told, and a family of Thornily's numbering about 10, in the year 1795 from Cheshire, England. The Corners had purchased 1,100 acres of land on Green River, K(entuck)Y (where the city of Lexington is now), but on reaching Marietta, worn out with travel such as they had to endure in those days, they decided to remain there and take advantage of the Ohio Company's offer of 100 acres of land to every male of 21 years of age.

My great-grandfather having died in Penn(sylvania). on the way, his family alone could not 'draw' any of the land and so remained in Marietta where the children were put out into families and afterward married. My Grandfather George lived in the family of Gen(eral). Rufus Putnam, and afterward married Mr. Putnam's granddaughter, Susanna Burlingame. They had a large family of children, 10 of whom lived to marry and have families, my father's the largest.

Cornerville up to 1860 was owned almost exclusively by the Corners or their connections. Since that time, one after another of the family has sold and moved away so that much of the land is owned by strangers, and my father and his family are the only ones remaining of the name of Corner."

Source: Genealogy & History, Washington, D.C., March 15, 1943, query no. 7106. (Other births/surnames mentioned in article: Broadhurst, Dunnville, Horsman, Ashcroft, Havens, Thornton, Bassett, Mellor, Jourdon, Adams, Volney, Northrup, Thornily, Camp.

George Corner was born in 1734 in Cheshire, England.  At present, nothing is known about his early life in England or his marriage to his wife, Martha Dumville, except that they were of the middle class.  George acquired by purchase a tract of land on the Green River in Kentucky of 1,100 acres with a view toward emigrating and settling there.

George and his wife, Martha and their sons, Matthew, William, and George, along with daughters Mary Mellor and Martha Percy left their homes in Cheshire and set sail for the United States. In all there were about forty people making the trip. A family of the name Thorniley accompanied them. In March 1795 they set sail from Liverpool, England and landed in Baltimore, June 6, 1795. They were some nine weeks at sea.

From Baltimore the family trekked overland to Pittsburgh in 1795 when the roads were passable only with teams carrying small loads. The women and children walked instead of riding the wagons. Son William Corner was seized with a violent fever and died 10 days later and was buried in Pennsylvania on the banks of the Juniata.

The last of August found them in Pittsburgh where they purchased a boat and descended the Ohio River to Marietta, Ohio. The trip took them one month to complete.

At Marietta, learning that their lands were still far beyond and distant, they remained under the protection of the stockade there. George entrusted his title papers (to the Kentucky lands) to Harman Blennerhassett, then a noted lawyer in the area, for the purpose of perfecting their claim by such further measures as might be necessary. However, before this could be done, Blennerhassett's house burned and with it went the title to George's Kentucky purchase. As a result, most of the family settled in what was known as Washington County. The Ohio Company offered 100 acres of land to all males over 18 years of age. The Corners and Mellors located on the west branch of Wolf Creek, some twenty miles from Marietta, and near Waterford Landing, in Washington County, Ohio.

It is thought that George lived for eight or nine years after arriving in Marietta, dying about 1804. What occupation he had during those years is not known but he may have been a merchant or farmer. He donated forty acres for the construction of a Methodist church and cemetery. He and his wife, Martha, are both buried in this cemetery on Wolf Creek. It is located on Township Road, #141.

GEORGE CORNER and his wife, MARTHA DUMVILLE, with three sons, Matthew, William, and George, and two daughters, Mary Kellor and Martha Percy - accompanied by a family by the name of Thorniley, in all some forty souls - left their homes near Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, in March, 1795, intending to go to Kentucky, having purchased 3,100 acres of land on Green River. Aiming at cultivating the soil, and having heard that farming utensils were dear and hard to be obtained in America, they provided themselves with axes, mattocks, spades, shovels, harrow-teeth, barn-forks, hedge-shears, iron wedges, scythes, saws, augurs, hatchets, hammers, &c. &c.

They took shipping at Liverpool, and landed in Baltimore, June 6th, having been nine weeks at sea. To think of some six families, each provided with a farmer's kit, as above named, leaving Baltimore for Pittsburgh in 1795 when the roads were passable only for teams with small loads. Teams then could be hired only at enormous rates. It had been the intention for the women and small children to have ridden in the wagons with the household goods, but it was soon found that, with them on board, the teams were too heavily loaded to make satisfactory progress, and then began the lightening process, by leaving articles by the way which could best be spared. Day by day witnessed the throwing away of more or less. But they clung to their farming implements, heavy as they were, even to the dismounting of the women and children, which was done on reaching the mountains. Those too small to walk were transferred to the arms and shoulders of their relatives. We had but just got underway, when my aunt Percy sickened and died. Her husband proving to be a bad man, had been left in England. The tolls and trials of the journey so far entirely overcame my father that he was seized with a violent fever and lived but about ten or twelve days. He was buried at the Old Crossing of the Juniata, at Mckee's Ferry. By this sad bereavement my mother was left a widow when about to enter the howling wilderness. There were six children of us, George, the oldest, eleven and half years old, myself, the youngest, then just two. It was my good fortune to be occasionally seated upon my brother George's shoulders, and to rest him, two sisters would take me by the hand, and so we worried along as best we could, scaling the rugged Alleghenies, sometimes cheerily, and sometimes with sobs and tears.

What a sight The old patriarchal pair, of about three score and ten years, and the others from forty-five down to sucklings at the breast, all tugging and toiling as for dear life - those that could, aiding those that needed help - hand in hand, arm in arm, babes peering over their parents' shoulders - thus the road-sides were strewed, day by day and week by week, by our traveling heroes of 1795, with their eyes fixed on old Kentucky. To skilfully sketch and jot down the interesting incidents, the thrilling scenes, and the peculiar novelties, the outgrowth of such a company on such an errand, would require m a more practiced pen that I can wield; but yet I must do the best I can. In those days when inns were few and far between, with a small sprinkling of private dwellings, the most of which were but squatters' huts, with now and then a house of two or three rooms, what could be done by these towards furnishing comfortable accommodations for forty weary travelers My mother, in narrating her trials and sufferings, her anxious forebodings in traveling from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, said at time she, with her little ones and the others also, were forced to lodge in stables and outhouses, and considered it a lucky hit to be furnished with sufficient straw; she, on such occasions, placing herself in a sloping sitting position, and her six children, as far as could be, using her lap for pillows; thus guarding her little flock during the silent watches of the night, and happy to find they were all in trim to rise and start afresh to wend their onward way when the morning sun proclaimed a new day. My mother was seemingly made of iron and polished steel, nerved to meet any emergency, never failed, met every obstacle with a firm self-reliance, with a will to conquer, her eye fixed and her purpose immovable, by which she overcame. She never failed to accomplish whatever she undertook. But to return, The company's nights were often the scene of much merriment, with out-breaking hilarity, all the men and large boys being turned into one small room, and when packed down for sleep looking very much like that many porkers.

My mother buried an infant sixteen days old at Pittsburgh, being the second infant that was born and died on the way, making four deaths after leaving Baltimore to this point.

We were detained some weeks in Pittsburgh in procuring and fitting up a boat by which to descend the Ohio river. It must have been near the last of August when the company's boat started, and such a boat's crew was perhaps never seen before or since. Of all on board, not one had any experience in managing a boat of any kind. Fortunately the weather and the water were warm, and the river low, which gave the men a chance to wade and manage the boat, leading her by the bow and stern, as farmers often do a large hog by the ears and by the tail; by this means they were able to pass the most dangerous shoals and ripples with safety. It is my impression they were near a month after leaving Pittsburgh before they landed at Marietta, 180 miles. Their own awkwardness caused much sport in breaking poles and oars; sometimes getting a plunge overboard, with the loss of a hat.

At the rate they had been traveling on the Ohio, it would take them into the dead of winter to reach Green River, Kentucky. The people of Marietta, being pleased with their appearance, did their best in persuading them to stop and settle there. It was during the time that the Ohio Land Company was offering one hundred acres of land to all male settlers of eighteen years and upwards. Every family except ours had a male head, and some had sons eighteen years old. Some eight or ten hundred acres could be drawn by the company, including the Thorniley family, which had no interest in the 1,100 acres in Kentucky. We had been over six months on our journey; tired and weary, and winter approaching, the 100 acres of land to those of 18 was a convincing argument with each family, save ours, in favor of stopping. Wise, or otherwise, a halt was made, our boat dismantled, and very soon each family was safely domiciled on terra firma, and in due time all that were old enough got their 100 acres, the Corners and Mellors locating on the west branch of Wolf creek, some twenty miles from Marietta, and near Waterford Landing, in Washington County, Ohio.

By stopping and settling in Ohio, our Kentucky land was neglected, and was sold for taxes and was utterly lost.

But few of the persons composing the company are now living. Of my uncle George Corner's family, Ellen Smith, some 75 or 76, and William corner, 73 or 74, are living. Of William Corner's family, (who himself died soon after leaving Baltimore) my sister Sarah Flagg, now near 82, my brother William Corner, now 78, and myself, Edwin Corner, in my 74th year, five of the party, as far as I know, are all that are now living. They all remain in Ohio. Some of the Corners of the third generation have gone west, even to Oregon.

I, too, could relate a wolf story, how, after settling on the Muskingum, ten miles above Marietta, surrounded by wolves - how they eat out the entire ham of a three year old heifer, after which she reached home. One of our neighbors suggested a novel plan of cure - the scraping of sufficient lint to fill the cavity, and the taking off a piece of living hide from another animal and sewing it over the wound, that the lint might turn to flesh and heal up sound. Well, I guess I will omit the wolf story for the present.

Columbus. Feb. 4, 1867 EDWIN CORNER

(Edwin Corner was the son of William and Mary Broadhurst Corner and served in the Ohio Legislature in 1827. He was twice married.)

George and Martha Dumville Corner are discussed in The compendium of American Genealogy - First Families of America - edited by Frederick A. Virkus, Vol. 7, 1942, pages 124-25.

Listed in the 1800 Census, Waterford Township, Washington County, OH Listed in the 1803 State Census, Waterford Township, Washington County, OH Listed in 1810 Census, Washington County, OH Listed in 1820 Census, Marietta Township, Washington County, OH Listed in 1820 Census, Wooster Township, Washington County, OH Listed in 1830 Census, Marietta Township, Washington County, OH

The Corner-MeIlor Family History (Extracted from The Tallow Light, Vol 3, #1, April/June 1968 - by: Ralph L Schroeder. Original spelling preserved).

"Out in Washington County, Ohio, you can visit various Burying Grounds. There, graven on stone, you are again told various things. Out in the western part of the county reposes the oldest members of the Corner Family. Stand there a moment. The hills are gentle. It is Springtime. The valleys are flooded with green. Violets plunder the fields. It was to these hills and valleys that these people, now seemingly long dead, came with trepidation. This was to become their land, long before we were born. They neighbored these fields with their log houses. The wrangled wit one another. More often than not they laughed together. Theft stories about the old country became tales for a winter's hush. Some came to stay. Others, after a brief spell, moved westward. Still others come to die.

When they left their homeland, Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, was ten already a most ancient town, more than a thousand years old. Its existance was before the coming of William the Conqueror. A walled town, with remparts and gates, Old Macclesfield knew well the call to war. Once its men went forth with Sir William Stanley (RIN:1746) to the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. On that field King Richard III (R[N:931 1) was slain, and Henry Tudor (RJN: 12974) crowned. For centuries Macclesfield had streets that were filled with the hustle of baking and buying, with sales of woven and pummeled ware. Nor was pageantry unknown. For example, to dispose of the body of Sir John Savage in 1597, there was a procession preceded by a trumpeter sounding the doleful note. Then came "80 poor people in gowns, 73 for the age of the knight, and seven added; then the colours and great ensign, then the knight's great horse covered with black cloth to the heels, with arms thereon on each side, then the body in a coach covered with velvet." It was not all nor always pageantry and charm, however. Old Macclesfield had its district of squalor known as the Gutters, while the butcher's space was called the Shambles. Yet the olden names of its streets mellow its history. There was Goose Lane, and the narrow way that let to Cuckstoolpit Hill with its sousing water, and Pudding Bag Street. Dog Lane was later called Stanley Street. Being situated in the center of the town, this thoroughfare was one of the busiest in Old Macclesfield. Here were important houses and taverns. In fact Public Houses at one time so populated this street, sat open all night to rowdiness, so that they dawned to an unsavory reputation. The Old Lamb Inn was one fo the famous houses along Dog Lane. It was a building of great antiquity, romantic in its appearance, on its front a stone was to be seen that bore the date, 1516. At one time the building had been used as a parsonage in connection with the old church, first named St. Allowes. An extensive garden and orchard had then surrounded the building. The Old Lamb Inn is no longer; and time itself draws it from remembrance.

The Old Lamb Inn was still open for business in March of 1795, when George CORNER, (RJN:99) the Elder, with his wife, additional married members of his limnediate family, together with Samuel MELLOR, Sr., (RIN:44) and his family left their homes near Macclesfield and came to the United States. There were some forty persons in this party and they were intending to settle in Kentucky where, through some pre-arrangement, they had purchased 1,100 acres of land on the Green River. Moreover, they took with themselves, upon leaving England, the accouterments of farming. Having sailed from Liverpool, and after a voyage of nine(9) weeks, the CORNER-MELLOR family group arrived at Baltimore on the 6th of June.

The trip overland from Baltimore to Pittsburgh (Ft. Pitt), was a harrowing experience. It is not that this party was necessarily subjected to greater hardship than were other pioneering families, however they had more than their fair share. They had left Baltimore with wagons to carry their farm implements, with room to convey the women and children. As they came into the mountains the horses could not draw their burdens. The wagons had to be lightened and so certain implements were discarded along the way. For additional featheriness the women and children forsook the wagons and marched afoot with their men. The youngest were carried on the shoulders, or tugged between the older children. At times the journey went gladly. At other times it was made with sights and sobbings. Accomodations along the way were often of shanty and barn. By the time this party had reached Ft. Pitt it had lost three of its members. No doubt to recoup their wholeness and to make arrangements for the downriver journey they lingered in Ft. Pitt during most of the month of August. Eventually they reached the Marietta, Ohio settlement where they again paused. No wonder they feld as though they had reached their destination, Marietta was an English community in its beginnings. Moreover, the offer of land tendered to newcomers at this time by the Ohio Company of Associated seemed liberal. Journey-worn the CORNER-MELLOR group abandened their notion of Kentucky. Instead the CORNER and MELLOR families settled in Washington County, Ohio, in the Plan of Allotment N. W. of the Wolf Creek Mills, Waterford Township. Here George CORNER, Sr., (RIN: 99) and his wife Martha, NEE DUMYILLE, spent the remaining years of their life. They were buried in Wolf Creek Chapel, Watertown Township, Washington County, Ohio on land donated by George CORNER (RIN:99) himself.

There were apparently twelve members of the MELLOR family in the emigrant party. This family became increasingly difficult to determine. Apparently after they settled in Washington County, their neighbors declined to give their surname its nicety of pronunciation. Instead of MIELLOR, as often as not, it became MILLER.

The Ohio Company's Purchase was a tract of land containing about 1,500,000 acres lying along the Ohio River. The tract was purchased from the Federal Government on July 24, 1787 by agents for the Ohio Company which had been formed in Massachusetts for purpose of a settlement in Ohio. The "Donation Tract" (1792) on which the MELLORS and CORNERS settled is situated in Washington and Morgan Counties. It consists of 100,000 acres located off the northeastern corner of the "Ohio Company's First Purchase." In order to encourage the development of the land, and as a protection from the Indians, the "Ohio Company" proposed to donate to each settler 100 acres of "Ohio Company" land. Each donee was required to have arms and ammunition and to maintain upon each tract thus donated a man able to bear arms for a period of five years after which the donee was to receive a deed for the land.

The Indians resented the settlements as encroachments on their rights. The slender protection of Ft. Harmar at Marietta was further weakened by the transfer of troops to Ft. Washington near Cincinnati. As a result, the settlers at Marietta were required to protect themselves and this expense was borne by the "Ohio Company."

Watertown Township is the largest in Washington County, containing an area of 42 1/2 square miles. The name of the township was changed from Wooster to Watertown, December 6, 1824 in honor of the Waterman family, one of whose members lost his life in the early settlement.

Much of the early history of Watertown is embraced in the history of the expansion of the Ohio Company. The valley above Wolf Creek was settled first in 1797 by two families named MELLOR and CORNER."

Quoting directly from letter by Frederick E. Corner (son of Geo. Sanford Corner and Emeline Putnam Blancett), ca 1905 (Original spelling preserved)..

"My father, George Sanford Corner, is living on the farm where he and all his family were born, on the Little Muskingum in Marietta Tp., 5 miles from Marietta, 0. The place was settled by Grandfather George Corner and his brother William in 1807, and is called in their honor Cornerville, more in honor of Grandfather, however, than his brother, who was younger and led a more private life.

The father of the American Corners, George, came with his wife Martha and five of their children, about 30 all told, and a family of Thornily's numbering about 10, in the year 1795 from Cheshire, England. The Corners had purchased 1100 acres of land on Green River, KY (where the city of Lexington is now), but on reaching Marietta, worn out with travel such as they had to endure in those days, they decided to remain there and take advantage of the Ohio Company's offer of 100 acres of land to every male of 2l years of age.

My great-grandfather having died in Penn. on the way, his family alone could not 'draw' any of the land and so remained in Marietta where the children were put out into families and afterward married. My Grandfather George lived in the family of Gen. Rufus Putnam, and afterward married Mr. Putnam's granddaughter, Susanna Burlingame. They had a large family of children, 10 of whom lived to many and have families, my father's the largest.

Cornerville up to 1860 was owned almost exclusively by the Corners or their connections. Since that time, one after another of the family has sold and moved away so that much of the land is owned by strangers, and my father and his family are the only ones remaining of the name of Corner."

Source: Genealogy & History, Washington, D.C., March 15, 1943, query no. 7106. (Other births/surnames mentioned in article: Broadhurst, Dunnville, Horsman, Ashcroft, Havens, Thornton, Bassett, Mellor, Jourdon, Adams, Volney, Northrup, Thornily, Camp.

History of Marietta, Ohio

In 1770, a young surveyor, named George Washington explored large tracts of the land west of his native Virginia. His journals record the great beauty of the Ohio valley. During the revolutionary war, he shared his ideas of settling this vast territory with his friend General Rufus Putnam. After the war, the young country, which Washington was destined to lead, had vast natural resources but very little money. Men who had served in the revolution received bounty land warrants for land in the Northwest Territory instead of cash.

However, the Federal Government did not own the land which it offered. Not until the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 was the ownership of the territory ceded to the federal government. This historic document contained provisions written by the Ohio Company of Associates which planned to buy 1 1/2 million acres of land from Congress under the plan. Part of the ordinance allowed veterans to use their warrants to purchase the land. Marietta was founded in 1788 by a group of 48 men of the Ohio Company led by General Rufus Putnam. These hearty few began carving from the densely forested wilderness a community which they had planned. Before they left Boston, they had laid out streets, parks and planned for schools and churches. Across the Muskingum river lay Fort Harmar, a military outpost which had been established three years earlier. Around them lived Native Americans who were not pleased with the arrival of white settlers in the region but the 48 member of the Ohio Company brought to the Territory the first government sanctioned by the new United States. The settlers began immediately to clear the land and build two forts, Campus Martius, which was located at the site of the current museum which bears its name and Picketed Point, near the confluence of the two rivers.

Within a few months, the wives and children of the settlers began to arrive as well as Governor St. Clair, who officially presided over the new territory. By the end of 1788, the population was 137 people. In 1795, the Treaty of Greenville was signed with the native people and the settlers moved out of the fortresses and spread out to fill the surrounding territory.

From these austere beginnings grew a busy 19th century center of religion, education, commerce, industry, and transportation. Tough religious services were held in the settlement on a regular basis beginning in 1788, it was 1796 before a church was chartered. The first church was Congregational but its charter unusually inclusive as many of the members were of different religious backgrounds and the founders wished to serve all of the believers in the community. For a few years, the congregation met in a variety of locations. In 1807, it built the first church building in the community at 318 Front Street, the current site of the congregation's second building. Other denominations soon followed and by the end of the first century, at least 10 faith groups had churches in Marietta.

Many of the settlers were officers of the revolution who ere highly educated. These men, who ere alumni of some of the best schools in the east, were concerned for the education of their children. Basic education began for the children of the settlers during the first winter at Campus Martius. Education continued to be a ardent concern of community leaders who in 1835 founded Marietta College.

The location of Marietta on two major navigable rivers, on which products could be transported, made the community a center for commerce and industry from its earliest beginnings. Boat building was an early industry with even ocean going vessels being built and sailed down river to the sea. Brick factories and sawmills provided the materials to build homes, businesses, and public buildings. An iron mill and several foundries provided among their products rails for the burgeoning railroad industry and cast iron stoves for homes and businesses. Marietta Chair Factory produced a variety of kinds of furniture as well as a number of skilled wood workers. The large number of Victorian era homes with ornate gingerbread, even in working class neighborhoods, has been attributed to the training received by so many men at the chair factory.

Oil was first drilled in the Marietta region in 1860. Two oil booms, in 1875 and 1910, created a great deal of wealth for investors. Many of the large homes in Marietta were built with the oil fortunes made during this period.