Shadrack Ruark (@1756MD-@1820IL) married Rebecca. Shadrack was born in Worcester County, Maryland, but he and Rebecca lived in Geauga County, Ohio, as early as 1804. Shadrack was an ininerant Methodist Minister. He was one of the earliest settlers of Hambden Township, Geauga County, Ohio, but later moved to Mentor Township.
(page 359)
HAMBDEN.
BY L. G. MAYNARD.
The township of Hambden, with other portions of the Reserve, was purchased by Oliver Phelps, of Suffield, Connecticut, November 8, 1798.
The township of Hambden contains fourteen thousand, three hundred and twenty-three acres, twelve thousand acres of which were sold by said Oliver Phelps, on the twenty-fifth day of February, 1801, to Dr. Solomon Bond, of Connecticut, it being all the township, with the exception of a strip of land on the north side, about a mile wide, which had previously been sold to a man by the name of Parker. Hence we have what are known as the Bond tract and Parker tract.
Hambden was formerly called Bondstown, after Dr. Bond, who was the largest proprietor. It was also known as No. 9, in the seventh range of townships.
Dr. Bond first came to Hambden in the summer of 1801, to look over his farm of twelve thousand acres, and see how it was situated. At that time it was but little known, except by the savage Indian, and the wild beasts of the forest. Dr. Bond made himself a shanty, on the farm now owned by Philo Pease, in the southwest part of the township, about half a mile east of the village of Chardon, on about the spot where the house of Mr. Pease now stands, where he resided alone most of the time during the summer, and did not see a white man once a week, and, according to the doctor's own statement, he milked his cow in a bottle, and baked his bread on a chip.
In 1802 and 1803, Hambden began to be settled, and in those years some eight or nine families moved into the township. The names of the first settlers were: Shadrack Ruark, James Rawlins, Joseph Bond, Joseph Bond, jr., Thomas Evans, William Evans, Thomas Evans, jr., Stephen Bond, and Andrew Cooey. All these had families except Stephen Bond.
The Bonds settled in the south part of the township, near what is known as Sisson's corners. Ruark settled near the large spring, north of where Hiram Gardner now lives, and on his farm. Ruark chopped down the first tree that was ever felled in Hambden for the purpose of improvement. The Evans family settled by the spring on Mr. A. Calhoun's land, east of his house, and Cooey on the east side of the public square, near Mrs. Grist's.
In the early settlement, a man, in chopping down a tree, fell it on the top of his house, in which were his wife and child, breaking down the roof, but without doing much other damage, except giving them all a good scare.
Some of the early settlers did not like the township very well, and moved away--Rawlins and Ruark to Mentor, and Evans to the southern part of the State, which left only five families in the township.
In those days there were no roads, except a girdled road, which run through the southwest corner of the township. The State road was run out in the year 1804, or 1805, and a short time after was chopped out so that people could get along with wagons.
In the spring of 1808, six families moved into the township. Their names were: John Quiggle, Stephen Higby, John Brown, Alexander Brown, Abednego Davis, and Robert Cunning. In July of the same year, John Elliott and Ichabod Pomeroy, with their families, and Chester Elliott, a single man, came to Hambden.
(page 364)The first Methodist minister that preached in Hambden was a young man by the name of Ruark. His congregation consisted of six women, three men, and four children. The words of his text were, "Seek the Lord and ye shall live."
During the year 1818 two ministers, Revs. Green and Collins, who were circuit Methodist ministers, preached in Hambden once in two weeks. Some time in the summer some man requested Mr. Collins to preach a sermon about "Sampson's foxes," and he agreed to do so, but not on the Lord's day. At the time appointed, everybody turned out to hear a sermon about foxes, for the people at that time had wild animals on their minds quite as much as ministers and preaching, for the reason, perhaps, that they were much more plenty. Mr Collins gave them an excellent sermon. He said that the foxes were caught by Sampson's order, he being judge in Israel at that time. But he said he had no doubt but Sampson was a good trapper of foxes, and also the devil was a good trapper of souls, and had no doubt but what the devil's prospects for catching souls in Hambden were better than Sampson's were for catching foxes in Israel. At this time there were no Methodist people in Hambden, and therefore those ministers discontinued preaching. In the year 1822 Augustus Sisson moved into the township, and a Methodist church was soon formed, consisting of four members, viz: Augustus Sisson and wife, Charity Stebbins, and John P. Bosley; and from that small beginning the present Methodist church has arisen.
(page 282)John Quiggle was a good farmer. He first stopped at the Evans place, on Mr. Calhoun's farm, where he stayed a short time, then moved on to the Ruark place, where he remained a year or two, until he could build himself a house, and make some improvements on his farm, which was situated in the east part of the township, and the same farm that Samuel Hathaway now lives on, and where he lived and died in a good old age of about ninety-one years.
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