Category:Larwill St., Wooster, Ohio

Larwill Street. ^[1]

Larwill Street extends across the center of Wooster, lying east and west, between Beall Avenue and West Liberty Street at the Wayne County Fairgrounds.

Three Larwill brothers were among the first citizens of Wooster. Their father, William C. Larwill and his second wife brought their six children to Philadelphia from Deptford in the county of Kent, in England in 1791. A few years later the family moved to Pittsburgh, and in 1802 to Little Beaver Creek in Ohio Territory. When Ohio became a state, and New Lisbon, seat of Columbiana County, the elder Larwill was admitted to the practice of law. Then two years later afterward there was another move, this time to Fawcettstown (now East Liverpool) when the father became the first postmaster who served the river town. When he retired, he and his wife came to Wooster to live. Here he taught school occasionally, was elected a township trustee, and was also a trustee of the Baptist Church.

His son, William, who was born in 1786, came to central Ohio as a youth. Then in 1808 he bought a quarter-section of land on high ground near Apple Creek next to that of William Henry and John Beaver.

When the town of Wooster was platted by Bever and Henry with Joseph H. Larwill, his brother, William sold quarter-section to Reasin Beall and moved into town. He built a two-room log cabin on East Liberty Street where he lived in one room and operated the town's first store in the other. Furs were a medium of trade not only between young William and his customer, but with his eastern suppliers as well. He also surveyed lots for purchasers, and would sell them for his brother when Joseph was away from the settlement. Without enthusiasm he was forced to stake out a plat for Madison which was threatening to compete with Wooster as county seat and population center. When the county seat was moved from its first location at Madison into Wooster, William was named recorder and clerk of the records. He was also a township trustee, and cashier of the first financial institution, the German Bank at various times.

The actual found brother was Joseph Hart Larwill. When his family moved to Ohio from Pennsylvania he taught himself surveying, and gained experience as he worked with H. Heth near the state line, and later with John Bever at Fawcettstown. He obtained a contract the from Colonel Hared Mansfield, Surveyor General, headquartered at Cincinnati, to survey some of the Ohio lands. He began at the Tuscarawas River and worked his way west, completing the "sectioning" of the new territory in October of 1807, nine months later with the assistance of Heth and William Henry who were on his crew. He wanted to establish a town as the seat of Richland County because he thought there could be found more arable land than the soil of Wayne County, so he approached the Surveyor General for financing, promising to name the new community for him. The official declined the offer, but eventually the town was given his name after all.

Because of this setback, Joseph Larwill went after those who preferred Wayne County as investors, although he did conduct the first sale of lots at Mansfield. But most of the Richland County lots were sold by others so Joseph decided to do what he could here in Wayne County. He first bought some farm land along Apple Creek in East Union township, next to that owned by John Bever, but then when he saw that his brother William, and William Henry had adjoining quarter-sections a few miles west, he bought an adjacent quarter-section on July 9, 1808. The following month he, Bever, and Henry platted the townsite.

In 1809 Joseph was named district surveyor for an area of five counties. That year he narrowly escaped the death in an explosion at Stibbs Grist Mill. With the outbreak of the War of 1812, he got in military service as a sergeant but was soon commissioned an officer, and severed as first lieutenant of artillery. He fought in the siege of Fort Meigs at the rapids of the Maumee River near Perrysburg, Ohio, and then in Ontario at the battle of the Thames River. He was taken prisoner in Canada but escaped after a month by crossing the St. Lawrence River in a canoe with valuable data about the placement of British forces.

In 1815 Joseph Larwill was named county surveyor for Wayne County. He also operated a drygoods business with his brother John in Wooster, and a butter brokerage with his youngest brother Jabez in Bucyrus. (Jabez must have seen Wooster only on his way there.) In addition to serving at various times as recorder and cleark of the courts, he was also a county commissioner. He married Nancy Quinby, sister of Samuel and Ephraim Quinby Jr.

In 1826 he was elected to the state legislature, sitting in the Senate until 1829. That year Joseph was named Receiver of Public Monies at the District Land Office in Tiffin, Ohio. In 1839 he transferred to the Bucyrus office of that agency.

The youngest of the "Wooster" Larvill's, then was John who was born in 1791, crossing the Atlantic from England in his mother's arms. In 1806 when his brother Joseph was camped at Madison Hill, John and another youth, John Harris, supplied the surveying party over the Indian trail from Fawcettstown by means of pack horses. When he brough some cattle back in 1809 for John Bever, he stayed and planted the first corn and mowed the first grass or hay in the county. After working in Bever's paper mill in easten Ohio then for almost three years, he returned to Wooster to stay.

He went into business here, first with T. J. Jones then with his brother Joseph in Larwill, Girling and Company. John opened his own dry goods store in 1826, and operated it until 1862. But he wqas busy too with public office and unpaid public service. He served as Justice / Police order / and Safety of the Peace from 1820 to 1826, then was elected to the Ohio General Assembly in 1840, serving one term.

when sentiment seemed right for the building of a railroad from east to west across Ohio, and the needs of the merchants for improved shipping were pressing, John Larwill was one of the civic leaders who worked with Ephriam Quinby Jr. and others to make the Ohio portion of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad (later the Pennsyvania and now Conrail) a realty. Many meetings were held in Wooster and in Pittsburgh before financing could be achieved. In 1852 he was named resident director of the railroad.

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