Finding aid for the Abraham Skinner Papers

Biography of Abraham Skinner

Abraham Skinner (1755-1826) was born in Glastonbury (formerly Glastenbury), Connecticut. He served in the Revolutionary War and was from that time addressed as Captain. After the war he kept a stable and traded and bred horses in Glastonbury. In 1803 he went to the Western Reserve with Edward Paine and had a home built there, although he did not bring his family from Connecticut until 1805. He settled in Painesville township at the village of New Market which he helped make county seat for Geauga (including what are now Cuyahoga, Lake, and Geauga Counties). He was a co-founder of Grandon (now Fairport, Ohio) in 1812. He served as land agent and counsel to Henry Champion, an original shareholder in the Connecticut Land Company and owner of the land on which was founded the village of Champion (now Painesville, Ohio) in 1807.

In the Western Reserve he continued his horse trade and served as a land agent between the people of old and New Connecticut. He operated a public house which was used for the first sitting of the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas, served as supervisor of highways, practiced law, held a ferry license, owned half interest in the schooner Dewitt Clinton, and was a prominent local merchant.

Scope and Content

The Abraham Skinner Papers, 1786-1857, include material belonging to Captain Skinner and his sons, Abraham and Augustus. The papers include correspondence, accounts, merchandise orders and receipts, promissory notes, legal agreements, inventories of his estate, and documents relating to estates for which he was an executor. many of the letters deal with his horses and his trading of goods (flour, whiskey, salt, rum, cheese, and brandy); others detail his involvement in land transactions. Among the latter are the letters exchanged between Skinner and General Henry Champion in Colchester, Connecticut. The two men were partners in a number of ventures and their interests are recorded in this correspondence over a period of twenty-eight years. Skinner's papers touch on matters relating to the surveying of a road, and keeping of taverns. Correspondents include Calvin and Eliphalet Austin, William S. Avery, Henry Champion, Julius Demming, Zalmon Fitch, Edward Paine, Robert B. Parkman, Calvin Pease, John Pinney, Benjamin W. Russell, Thomas Skinner, John Walworth, and John W. White.

There is some correspondence containing very general comments on national political issues. In several letters written during 1802-1803, John White of London mentions the effects of heavy taxation on the middle class; he contrasts his situation with the promise of the American wilderness but rejects emigration because of his age; he comments also on the negative political influence of Tom Paine on the leaders of the American government. In letters to Abraham, his brother Thomas writes from Delaware and Maryland about business conditions. He also writes about the prevalence of fever in the area and in his family during 1802 and expresses his approval of President Jefferson's policy in the Embargo in 1808. A letter from Thomas' daughter in 1824 explains to her uncle that part of her father's reluctance to remove his family to Ohio came from the necessity of having to sell his slaves. Researchers studying the early history of the Western Reserve (particularly Painesville, Ohio), business and entrepreneurship in Ohio in the early-to-mid-nineteenth century, slavery, and national political issues will find this collection useful.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 1270 Abraham Skinner Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Processing Information

Processed by Carol Hull in 1971.

Detailed Description of The Collection