Biography from the Firelands Pioneer, Vol XVI, May 1907.
Response given by Thomas Stratton (born Norwalk, OH 1821) in the proceedings of the organization.


"My father came to the Firelands in 1821. He bought 100 acres for $ 2.50 an acre and built a log cabin about twenty-four feet square. We went into it and lived there without any floors or windows. We were a family of eleven.
There were very few settlers here then. The woods were full of deer, wild turkeys and small game, wolves and some bear. There were plenty of Indians. They built huts here and there in the woods, covered the huts with hides, deer and bear. I can remember of seeing only four bears. I remember one night I had gone with my father to a neighbor's a mile and a half away. As we were going through the woods, right in the path stood a big black bear. Father put me on his shoulder and we lit out for home. After that I saw two more at sundown playing around the roots of a tree.

There was no provisions for school whatever. There were no schoolhouses, no place to go to school. Finally there was a man moved into the neighborhood who had a good common school education. He told the citizens that if they would get a house, he would teach a free school. They finally succeeded in getting a log house, fixed it up, and he taught a free school, and that was the best school I ever went to. He was an excellent good teacher. "Squire" Dounce (John Dounce, Esq) was his name. After that they built a log school and hired a teacher. Each man who sent scholars to the school must pay their proportion and the teacher generally had to collect the pay. The girl I married taught school two summers for $ 1.50 a week and had to collect her own pay. I have a granddaughter teaching school now, and every thirty days she has to go to the Township treasurer and draws her $ 40.00. There have been great changes, some for the better and some perhaps not. I do not know.

Let me tell about the first funeral that was held. One of the early settlers that came was a man by the name of Barker. I think they had four children. A girl about ten years old soon died. There was no possible chance to buy a coffin anywhere. He had a box he brought his goods in. He took that box apart and made a box himself and called it a coffin. He went four miles to dig a grave. He had no team to get to the graveyard. Father had no horses, but had a yoke of oxen. He had a wagon. I was a boy of nine or ten. I took the oxen a mile and a half through the woods, and he and I put the coffin into the wagon and we went to the grave, four miles away. The family all went with us. The oxen could hardly stand the trip. The grave wasn't long enough for the box; the man dug it longer. The way we managed to get it in, we got a rail and put the coffin on that and then slipped the rail out and let the other end down. We waited until it was done; then we all got into the wagon and went back. The oxen were so tired when we got to our place, they got all out and went home without anything to eat since early in morning. After that, I and one of my neighbors made the coffins for the neighborhood, even after I was a man grown. I think we never got over $2.00 apiece for them, buying black walnut lumber and generally about $ 1.00 or $1.50 and carry them to the grave, always in a wagon. You see what a difference there is now.

I could go on with this a long while. I have had great experiences. I have helped clear up four farms. I have often wondered how my father could go into that old log house in the shape in which it was and raise a family of nine children, but somehow or other he did it. I do not know how.

In the early days all those old pioneers would drink whiskey to keep from having fever and ague, but I and my brothers, five of us, I do not think any one of us ever used tobacco or whiskey in any form. I always thought falling into a bad habit would never do me any good in the future life, and it is so much easier to fall into a bad habit than a good habit and so much harder to get out. I have lived to be an old man. I have enjoyed perfect health. I have never employed a doctor, never employed a lawyer. Today I stand here in perfect health, but just ready and willing to go whenever the Lord shall call me. I was eight-five years old the twenty-sixth day of last July."
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Obituary from The Daily Reflector, Norwalk, Ohio, Wed. Dec 28, 1910, Page 3:

"Almost Ninety Years of Age -- Thomas Stratton, Well Known Resident of Huron County, Dies in Hartland Township

Thomas Stratton, all his life a resident of Huron county, died Tuesday night at his home in Hartland, his death being caused by old age. He was 89 years and 6 months old.

Mr. Stratton was born in Norwalk township on a farm southeast of town, now owned by A. Knapp. In 1843 he married Mary Ann Manahan, and two children were born to them: a daughter, Augusta Stratton, and a son, Edward Stratton, both of Hartland.

The funeral will be held in the Methodist church at West Hartland Friday afternoon at one o'clock."