By CARL E. FEATHER - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon
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In just four months, Ashtabula County will turn 200 years old — the county was officially formed out of Trumbull County on Jan. 11, 1811.
Very few structures that were standing at that time still remain, says Barrie Bottorf, a board member for the Ashtabula County Historical Society. Bottorf says there are a few extant buildings with sections of them dating back to 1811, to his knowledge, only one building is in its original location, on its original foundation and looks much like it would have appeared when the county was formed.
That building, the Blakeslee Log Cabin at the intersection of Route 11 and Plymouth Ridge Road, Plymouth Township, turned 200 this year. It has been an Ashtabula County Historical Society property since 1989, when society volunteers began the long and physically demanding task of restoring the cabin to an original state.
Some of the logs had to be replaced where a kitchen was added to the west side of the cabin by one of the three previous owners. Other logs had disintegrated from rot and insect infestation. Nevertheless, the cabin is predominantly original and provides a ticket to the county’s pioneer times.
Its builders, the Blakeslee family, were not the first to settle in Plymouth Township. Indeed, when John G. Blakeslee and his family arrived from New England in 1810 and settled on a small plot of the 840 acres he owned, Plymouth Township did not exist — the land was part of Ashtabula Township. Plymouth Township came into its own in 1838, being named after Plymouth, Conn.
In 1805 William Thompson built a cabin on lot 5 of the future township, but he did not stay. Thomas McGahhe was next to arrive — and leave.
The honor of being the first permanent settler goes to Samuel White, who settled in 1806 on lot 19. More families from Plymouth Hollow, Conn. followed — those of Zadock Mann, Joseph and Warner Mann, John and Asher Blakeslee, Lynus Hall, Titus Seymour, David Warren, Elias C. Upson and others — by 1810.
The settlers held the first Episcopal church service west of the Allegheny Mountains in the Blakeslee Log Cabin. Zadock Mann was the lay leader. The group would go on to form St. Peter’s Church in Ashtabula. A branch of that, St. Matthew’s, was formed in Plymouth, but died out in the early 1900s.
Julia Whalen, a descendant of the Blakeslee family, purchased the property in 1871 for $700. In 1902, an immigrant, Micheli Sorbo, acquired it. His family members owned the cabin until January 1989.
Amazingly,, the cabin survived construction of Route 11, railroads and, more recently, a highway garage and residential development. For two centuries, it has been part of the Plymouth Township landscape, to the point of absorption.
Ray Clark, a volunteer with the historical society, says he can recall driving by the cabin in the 1970s and never recognizing its cabin nucleus. The weathered, modified structure looked like an old farm building converted to a residence.
Volunteers have done extensive renovation to the cabin and built new structures on the property suggestive of what might have been there in pioneer times. That includes a barn constructed by Ashtabula County Vocational School students and the spring house, which would have been the pioneers’ only form of refrigeration. A summer kitchen was added near the cabin, and there is an herb gardens, vineyard and gazebo. The grounds includes a nature trail and boardwalk.
Tours are by appointment and school groups can be accommodated. A small band of volunteers maintains the property, and Clark says there is a great need for more volunteers to assist them with both routine maintenance and barn construction. Saturdays and Mondays are the volunteers scheduled work days.
The Blakeslee Log Cabin is on the National Register of Historic Places.
