Newspaper article:Page 6 of Rittman Press,published in Rittman, Ohio on Wednesday, November 10th, 1965 - Rittman Press November 10 1965
- Article title
- Johnson Will Tell You-- Amwell Still Exists
- Newspaper title
- Rittman Press
- Date of publication
- 1965/11/10
- Page number
- 6
- Organization
Full text
"Tell someone you're going down the road a few miles to Amwell, and they may give you a funny look.
"Amwell! Where's Amwell>" they ask.
Many have never heard of Amwell, although the history of Amwell is tied in closely with that of Rittman. Both were settled by Johnsons.
It's understandable since Amwell doesn't really exist. Only in the heart and the memory of a few who knew her intimately, and a few who cherish the sight and the sound and the smell of her even yet.
She's an attractive little hamlet now and she must have been then. Big, old trees and bright flower gardens, and lush green lawns that run right up to the blacktopped road, well-painted, large, white homes and some barns needing paint, give it a rural look.
And King's Corner Story vintage 1924, set on one corner of the crossroads, designated Amwell by some but really a part of South Sterling.
Dave Johnson, 84, lives never to the store which also pumps gas for folks who pass by on Rout 504 or Route 60. Dave is Amwell. He's lived there for 51 years and his roots are deep.
He's jealous for the Amwell tradition, which he feels Sterling is gradually crowding out the picture. So he has studied it's history and recorded all that he knows of it.
Of medium height and build, with a little greying hair gone and a little still left, Dave Johnson lives in the white house with the generous, shaded, lawn just west of the store.
Trucks roar past his home, and cars and pickups and farm machinery. The corner, once known as Johnson's Corners, is a busy one with a pastoral setting.
In 1826 when Abner Johnson came from Southwick Hampton County, Mass. to settle there it was farm land owned by the government. (It was Jeremiah John who first came to Rittman in 1817.) Abner and Elizabeth Gates, his first wife, who came from Hartford, Mass., reared size children here, and Jerusha Nelson, who came from Connecticut to make a home for Widower Johnson; lived here too as his wife.
The Johnsons sold two lots from the farm land to Benjamin Ellsworth and a man named Hartshorn and Amwell was launched. Hartshorn started a distillery. Adane Peckinpaugh moved in next to the Johnsons, Dr. John Scoby came from Truxton, N. Y. to care for Amwellians and Goodsill Foster set up shop as the first postmaster.
Isaac Bessey put up a log house that same year, across the street to the East (Roy Swainhart lives there now) and Oliver Houghton opened the first store in the structure. Adna named the place Amwell, says tradition.
Dave Johnson is full of little stories about Amwell. One concerns naming of the place. "A blacksmith shop was located on the northwestern corner of 504 and 60 and at the end of the shop was a dug well," says Johnson.
"A certain man decided a neighbor had too many hams in his smoke house, so one night he removed some for his own use, and hung them in that well. When the facts became known,, the name (H)Amwell was born."
Folks around Amwell like to kid Dave. Especially do they like kid him about the ham. Says Dave, "I didn't do it and if I did, I ain't guilty!" (Dave is not a relative of the Abner Johnsons - came to Amwell in 1904.)
Naturally, the railroad came to the growing village of Amwell. In 1852, it came, along with the "Paddy" laborers, (an old nickname for railroad men,) and their picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. For some reason the line was abandoned before the track was laid. The embankment for years remained on the land west of King's Store where Phillip Jaquet now lives.
At that time the Joe Schultheiss family owned the property and later it was sold to John Rich. (It was Rich's daughter, Elva who became Dave Johnson's bride in 1904. Dave has lived at Amwell since.)
The railroads tried again in 1872. This time the Cleveland Loraine and Wheeling line passed through Sterling and Amwell from the north and ransouth of Rittman to Warwick. A dpot was erected on Route 94 where the Margaret Gettings (Rittman, RD) house now stands.
The CL & W track were laid along the Baltimore & Ohio line in 1908, and integrated with the B & O road. It passed through just east of Amwell, and back of present Sterling school. The depot was located in the section where the Sterling railroad tower now stands.
As Amwell grew, the need for churches grew. union Church was the first, put up in late 1871. According to a statement by one Squire Keeling, the contract was let Sept. 15, Baptists and United Brethren services were held on alternate Sundays with Rev. Dunn of Seville as pastor both. The church was a frame building, located south of Amwell.
It still stands on the Andrew Maibach farm. The land was donated by Amos Bessey, with the stipulation it should be returned to the owner when no longer used by the church.
Dave Johnson is exact about his history. Concerning Evangelical United Brethren Church says Johnson, it is this: The first EUB church burned in 1905. A wind storm took the second, same year, same location.
The third church also met disaster in 1913 when it was struct by lightning. The present brick edifice, still at the original location has stood since Nov. 30, 1913. Pastors at the church have been Rev. C. Whitney, first pastor; Rev. Kosht; Rev. S. W. Lilley, pastor when the brick building went up; and Rev. S. W. Ellis, who helped dedicate a new educational unit in May, 1953.
A Mennonite congregation built a church in 1906, after land was donated by E. H. Miller. They were forced to sell, for the lack of support, says Johnson, after a few years. The Brethren Church purchased the property and has used it since.
Schools, too, were needed in Amwell. A two-story brick school was built at the north end of Sterling in 1875, then torn down in 1893 and replace with a frame structure.
In 1922 it was pronounced unsafe. The present Sterling grade school went up that year, on land purchased from Miller. (An addition was built in 1942.)
Johnson knows Amwell through and through. And folks around Amwell know Johnson. You stand and talk with Dave a few minutes just outside his home and someone is bound to kid as they go by: "Don't take his word for it," or "You could find a better subject for a picture than that." Dave knows they're joshing.
He also knows that the Roy Wirth home, just down the street north, was once a shoe store. In part of the resident which Des Loreaux owned in 1885, shoes were sold.
Next to Maibach's of Sterling is a building that was once a saloon at Amwell, run by Christ Rich. Then it was located just north of the Ernest Beery residence. The Beery's live on the northwest corner of Amwell.
A blacksmith, name of Frank Wright, had a thriving business where the Beery residence now stands. But that was 1900. The shop was moved to Sterling when Wright's health failed. Pete Veney bought it.
Between Beery's and the Norton home next door was a log house John Rich owned it before he moved across the road where Dave now lives. Dave's wife was born in the old log home in 1884. John Ramseyer tore the house down and built a garage on the spot in the late 1800's.
Sterling Hatchery is really in Amwell, Johnson contends. Now owned by Herman Kneubuhle, it was once Mast Hatchery, owned by Clifford Mast.
He knows more stories about Amwell like the one about Jake Wells. Jake made a trip to Wooster by horse and buggy and found it necessary to stop several places on the way home for a few "warmer uppers."
By the time he made his last stop, the way Dave tells it, he was pretty frosted: Wells announced his intention to pound a stake in the center of the world. Nearly back to Amwell, he stopped at Jackson, west of there, and pounded the stake. He put it in the ground at the northeast corner of Route 3, declaring "this is the center of the world."
And if you're like Dave, that's what the sleepy, friendly, lovely crossroads at Amwell is -- "the center of the world."