James Norton
James Norton, real estate, insurance and collection agent, and Notary Public, Garrettsville, was born September 9, 1833. His parents were then living in a log-house on their farm, on the west part of Lot 29, in Hiram. At an early day the homestead was changed to a farm on Lot 49, in the south part of Hiram Township, Here the subject of our sketch passed his childhood and youth, except four or five of his earlier years. When thirteen years of age a great misfortune came upon him, the result, as supposed, of being thrown from a horse about a year before. For several months his life hung upon such a slender thread that the community were in daily expectation of hearing that he had passed away. A surgical operation was performed upon the injured limb December 31, 1846, by Dr. De Wolf, of Ravenna. Not until the spring following did it appear that he could possibly survive the fearful attack disease had made upon him; an iron constitution alone was in his favor. For three years his health was so poor, and his disability so great, that he did not attend school at all. At sixteen, his health being still very far from good, he recommenced his studies at the district school in Freedom, about one and a half miles from home, to and from which he walked with crutch and cane. The advancement of those who had been his class-mates and associates before his sickness, caused a very dark cloud to envelop him. To hear them recite about numerator and denominator, reduction ascending and descending, and use other terms which it seemed to him he could never comprehend or understand, brought humiliation, sorrow and weeping. Energetic and determined application to his books soon dispelled the darkness and gloom, and at the close of the term he was fully up with his class. Thereafter every resource available for improvement was made use of, and at the commencement of the autumn term in 1851, he was permitted to enter the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, well advanced in the common branches. During this term a physician, learning of the existence of an unhealing and dangerous sore of some years' standing, upon an arm of our subject, engaged with his father for a stipulated price to effect a cure. After about six months the doctor's efforts were rewarded with permanent success. The acquaintance with young Dr. Smith (who died the next year) our subject looks back upon as being of the highest importance to him. About a year later, after three terms' attendance at the Eclectic Institute, he engaged as teacher of a district school in Freedom, on the Freedom and Ravenna diagonal road. After this and until the close of the year 1861, his time was occupied in attending school and in teaching. Most of the time he attended school at Hiram, but one term he attended the academy at Shalersville. He took a commercial course at the college in Cleveland, and took lessons in penmanship of P. R. Spencer, Sr. , at his log-writing academy in Geneva, Ohio. He taught the district school at the center of Shalersville three terms, taught two terms in different districts in Hiram, and in 1858 commenced as teacher in Garrettsville, and there remained as teacher of the fall and winter terms until December, 1861, when he resigned as teacher to enter the Recorder's office at Ravenna, to which the citizens of the county had elected him in October by a proud majority. Much of his day school work was supplemented by evening lessons given in penmanship. Of his services as Recorder we find the Portage County Republican-Democrat of January 8, 1868, speaking as follows: "Mr. James Norton retired from official connection with the County Recorder's office on Monday, after a six years' term of service. Mr. Norton has proved himself a model Recorder, and there is no risk in pronouncing his records as handsome and accurate as any in the State. Mr. Norton entered upon the duties of this office January 6, 1862, and up to January 6, 1868, has recorded 6,302 deeds, 2,039 mortgages, 134 leases, 409 soldiers' discharge papers, and released 1,705 mortgages. When it is taken into consideration that every deed, mortgage, etc., contains, say, 700 words, some estimate of the amount of work performed may be arrived at. In the entire six years Mr. Norton has not been absent from his office one single business day, and has made nearly all the records himself." Our subject declined to go into the convention as candidate for a third term, because there were several disabled soldiers seeking the place at that time. The suddenness of the change from years of close application to business to days of leisure, subdued the anticipated enjoyment and comfort of the latter. A line of business did not readily open up to our subject. He therefore spent the summer and autumn of 1868 in reviewing his studies at the Commercial College in Cleveland. It was his desire and purpose to go into the real estate agency business in the city, but as no satisfactory opportunity presented itself or was found, he engaged with others, in the winter of 1868-69, in organizing a banking institution at Garrettsville, and for a time was its Cashier. The perils incident to banking in those days, added to other harassing features then existing, were a severe strain upon his undisciplined and overly sensitive nerves, and he withdrew from the business, one of the acts of his life, as he says, upon which he looks back with regret. A vacancy having occurred in the superintendency of the Garrettsville schools in the midst of a school year, he engaged as Superintendent and occupied that position four terms. Subsequently he has twice been elected Justice of the Peace, twice as Mayor of the incorporated village of Garrettsville, four times as member of the Board of Education, and has also been Clerk of the Board many years. He has often acted as Executor, Administrator, Assignee and Guardian in the settlement and management of estates. In politics Mr. Norton is Republican. In 1848 he united with the Disciple Church at Hiram, and had his membership with that denomination at Hiram and at Ravenna. There has been no Disciple Church in active working condition in Garrettsville for several years, and he has therefore worshiped with the Baptists, the church wherein his wife was reared. For five years he was Superintendent of the Baptist Sunday-school, and for many more years was teacher of the Bible class. December 17, 1859, he was married to Miss Ann Eliza Taber, at the home of her parents in Garrettsville, which was also the home of her birth. Her father, John Taber, was born in Providence, R. I., April 29, 1798, and died suddenly when on his way to worship, March 12, 1871. Her mother, whose maiden name was Mary Henrietta Greene, a relative of Gen. Greene, of Revolutionary note, was born in Barre, Mass., June 21, 1799, and died June 2, 1884, in Garrettsville, in the house where she had lived a little more than half a century. John Taber and Mary H. Greene were married in Providence, R. I., October 19, 1819. Mr. Taber was carpenter on board of ship, and made some very long sea voyages. His ship was at Callao when Bolivar entered Peru with his Columbian Army. They took a ship load of royalists to Cadiz, Spain, with immense quantities of gold and silver. This was a six years' voyage, mostly in South American waters. The next was a three years' voyage, chiefly doing a coasting business in European seas. In early life Mr. and Mrs. Taber were members of the First Baptist Church of Providence, which was founded by Roger Williams. They moved to Ohio in 1829, and after a residence of four years in Mogadore, Summit County, they moved to Garrettsville. Mr. Taber spent about three and a half years among the gold mines of California, starting for that then far-away country in the spring of 1850. Mr. and Mrs. Taber were the parents of four children: Mary Henrietta, born November 15, 1829; John Herman, born August 10, 1832; James Hunter, born June 21, 1835, and Ann Eliza, born September 23, 1837. The first three, after living to mature years, deceased before their parents. Mary Henrietta (Mrs. Dr. A. M. Sherman) died in Garrettsville, October 26, 1853; John Herman died in Council Blufifs, Iowa, November 8, 1856, and James Hunter died in Adrian, Mich., December 5, 1866. Three sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. James Norton. The first born died in infancy and is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Ravenna; James Edgar was born in Ravenna March 18, 1866; John Herman was born in Garrettsville February 12, 1869. James Edgar graduated from the Garrettsville High School in 1883; the subject of his graduation oration was "The Heirs of the Ages." He is now upon a classical course at Hiram College. John Herman is still (1885) in the Garrettsville High School. There is a chart and record of the Norton families reaching back nineteen generations. Originally the name was Norville, a corruption of the French "Nord-Ville" (North-Villa or North-Town), and Nor-ton or Norton was subsequently adopted. The family have published a pamphlet showing the Norton families back seven generations. This is as far back as most people care to trace the ancestral line. To those, however, whose curiosity may lead them, the chart and record is accessible, although but few copies are known to the families here to be in existence. Thuel Norton was born at New Hartford, Oneida Co., N. Y., March 10, 1801. He was third son of Peter and Elthina (Thompson) Norton. He died in Hiram, April 2, 1880, in a few hours after, and from injuries received by, being thrown from a buggy by a runaway horse. When he was six years old his parents moved to Ohio, stopping two years in Vernon, Trumbull County, a short time in Tallmadge, and then located permanently in Springfield, then in Portage County, but now Summit Coanty, a short distance east of Middlebuiy, the old home farm being still occupied by his brother Thomas. Here Thuel grew from childhood to manhood. Where the city of Akron is now was dense forest then. He shot his first deer upon the hillside in the vicinity of where Howard Street is now. At hunting large game, however, he was never as successful as his older brother, Almeron, although for a close shot he had no superior in those days. He learned the carpenter's trade, and put up many buildings in and about Middlebury and Tallmadge. He was an expert at scoring and hewing timber, and in "bossing raisings." He was a man of powerful muscle, and often would astonish the people at "raisings," by picking up and carrying to its place a stick of timber that ordinarily would require two men to carry. As a framer of timber he was notably a close workman. At Hiram, August 4, 1822, Thuel Norton was married to Harriet Rebecca Harrington, who was born July 15, 1803, at Salisbury, Litchfield Co., Conn., but the most of whose childhood and youth was passed in Utica and Rochester, N. Y. Her father's name was John Harrington, and her mother's maiden name was Asenath Marvin. Her father was a boot and shoe-maker, and lived in Hiram a short time, nearly sixty years ago. Her mother is buried in the family lot at Hiram. John and Asenath Harrington were the parents of a large family of children. One year Mr. and Mrs. Norton resided in Rootstown, this county, nine years in Springfield, Summit County, and in 1832 they moved to Hiram, first locating on a farm on the West center road, but subsequently moved to the south part of the township, and there lived upon a farm many years. Although Mr. Norton preferred the carpenter's trade to farming, he gradually quit the former and took up the latter. But his fondness for timber work was somewhat gratified by operating a saw-mill which he had upon one of his farms. It was more of a diversion, however, than a money-making business. When old age had come upon Mr. and Mrs. Norton, they left their home farm and lived the remainder of their years at the center of Hiram. In August, 1880, Mrs. Norton went to visit a son and a daughter in Garrettsville, and while at the home of the latter she became worse and died in the evening of August 30. Their remains rest in the family lot in Hiram Cemetery. Thuel and Harriet R. Norton were the parents of ten children, as follows: Anna, born October 21, 1823; Seth D., born August 19, 1825; Edwin, born July 16, 1827, and died September 8, 1827; Amelia C, born January 4, 1829; Julia M., born April 24, 1831; James, born September 9, 1833; Lois E., born November 28, 1835, and died in Trenton, Mo., April 27, 1866; Emily E., born May 6, 1838; Richard C, born June 16, 1840, and Harriet R., born January 28, 1846, Seth D. is an attorney-at-law, living in Ravenna. Richard C. is President of South East State Normal, at Cape Girardeau, Mo.
From History of Portage County, Ohio, Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885