ANOTHER PIONEER GONE.

Interesting Sketch of a Long and Eventful Life. The winter is still busy with his ingathering--how rich with ripe and rounded lives the harvest!

Mrs. Sally Curtis, a former resident of Berea, whose funeral was attended at the Stone Church, last Monday, was born in Lee, Berkshire Co., Mass., Jan. 1st, 1800--closing on the 26th inst. a long and interesting life which had for so many years run parallel with this most eventful century. At the age of sixteen in company with three brothers and a brother-in-law, she bade good-bye to her comfortable New England home, and in advance of the remainder of her father's family came to Ohio to lay the foundations of their new home in the then almost unbroken forests of Brunswick, Medina County. Their mode of conveyance was cumbersome wagons and over the rough almost impassable roads and swollen streams of winter, wearisome months were spent in making the journey.

Courageous, energetic, possessed of more than ordinary intelligence and domestic skill, she bravely faced the dangers and bore the burdens and discomforts of pioneer life the only woman in the rude log cabin from March till the following autumn.

Once, while going to the creek which ran back of the house for a pail of water, she set down her pail to gather some wild flowers just peeping from the ground, and straying farther than she thought, lost sight of the cabin with its small circle of "clearing." Conscious that she had gone but a few rods, she sought to retrace her steps, but only to wander farther and farther from home. After hours of bewildered wandering, she met an Indian, who in broken English asked her if she was hungry, but too alarmed to reply, she fled from him like a frightened deer.

At length she came upon a path which she reasoned must lead somewhere, she followed it and came out to a clearing about one mile south east of Hamilton's corners where lived Mr. Zenas Hamilton. With this kind neighbor as guide she reached her home just at night to find a company of men with dogs, torches and guns about to search the woods for her. Did space permit, incidents might be multiplied in which this brave, beautiful girl, displayed a dauntless energy and strength of character which, under the circumstances, must seem marvelous to the sweet sixteens of to day.

In 1818 she married Mr. Joel Curtis who died in Parma in 1845 leaving her the mother of eight children, six of whom are still living--four attending her in her last illness and to her final resting place beside her husband whom death took from her thirty three years ago.

Of the three brothers who came with Sally to Ohio,--Wesley, Isaac and Abijah, only Isaac is still living. The brother-in-law, Seymour Chapman, after assisting in the settlement of the young people in their speedily constructed log house, mounted his large white horse and rode back to Massachusetts after his family, who in the fall of the same year, settled in Brunswick. Captain John Hulet was the father of ten children. Achsa, the eldest daughter, was the wife of Mr. Chapin. As soon as practicable Capt. Hulet, with his wife and remaining five children, followed on to their Western home, arriving safely in the afternoon of a long still day in September, to the unspeakable delight of Sally and "the boys" who had not heard a word from them since the December previous--mails being unknown in the wilderness--and whose first intimation of their coming was the sound of children's voices, followed by the sight of jaded teams emerging from the woods with their precious freight of life and love. John Hulet and his wife Hannah Hulet, both lived to a ripe old age, leaving behind them the impress of noble Christian lives.

Of the five children who arrived in September, three are still living, Mrs. J. T. Porter of Ill., Fletcher Hulet and Mrs. B. Foster of Berea. Samuel Hulet a former resident of Berea, died in Ill., and John Hulet, Jun., many years since in Abbyville, O.

Mrs. Sally Curtis was a woman whose remarkable kindness of heart and active sympathies were manifested at every point of contact with suffering; long and gratefully will she be remembered for her gentle ministrations among the sick, sometimes gathering them into her own home that she might more efficiently nurse them back to health.

A faithful friend, dutiful daughter, true and loving wife, and most devoted mother, her labors of love and duty are over ended the tireless watchcare over her fatherless children now far from the green shores of childhood, for at last with tottering feet and dimmed vision she has folder her worn hands restfully, and sleeps in peace.

Grindstone City Advertiser, 31 January 1878


Sally is buried at: Parma Public Cemetery Parma Cuyahoga County Ohio, USA

Added: 8/30/2016 12:31:37 PM - Updated: 9/20/2017 8:23:01 AM