Joshua Stow was the founder of Stow, Ohio

Stow, Ohio

Stow is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 32,139 at the 2000 census and 33,899 as of 2008. It is a suburban community that is part of the Akron metropolitan area. Stow is located adjacent to several other suburban communities in Summit and Portage Counties...

. His family originated from England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in the 17th century, and included the first minister in Middletown

Middletown, Ohio

Middletown is an All-America City located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Formerly in Lemon, Turtlecreek, and Franklin townships, Middletown was incorporated by the Ohio General Assembly on February 11, 1833, and became a city in 1886...

, a Congregationalist

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

. He married Ruth Coe in 1786; they had at least three children.

The main histories of the area tell of his early journey in 1796-1797 as part of Moses Cleaveland

Moses Cleaveland

Moses Cleaveland was a lawyer, politician, soldier, and surveyor from Connecticut who founded the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio, while surveying the Western Reserve in 1796.-Early life:...

's team, helping to survey the Western Reserve around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River

Cuyahoga River

The Cuyahoga River is located in Northeast Ohio in the United States. Outside of Ohio, the river is most famous for being "the river that caught fire", helping to spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s...

 at Lake Erie

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...

. The land to be surveyed was land that the state of Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 claimed as part of their original charter from the King of England. It was called the Connecticut Western Reserve and was given to the state as a settlement for that state's contribution to the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

. It is still referred to as the Western Reserve encompassing a number of counties in the northeast corner of the state. Stow was the company's commissary manager (in charge of distributing necessary supplies). In actual practice Stow, as Commissary, was responsible for seeing that the survey party was equipped with clothing, equipment, food, drink and lodging. He was also a financial holder in the Ohio Land Company which conducted the land survey of 1796 of which Moses Cleaveland was the Superintendent. When Stow saw the forested future township, he said it was "one of the prettiest and most romantic spots in the Western Reserve". He purchased the whole five-mile square of Stow Township as an investment, for $14,154.

After he returned to Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, he hired a relative, Judge William Wetmore, to travel to Stow and settle there. Wetmore would handle further sales of land in Stow. Wetmore took his family and several other men to Stow in the summer of 1804.

Although the township is named for him, Stow never lived there. He continued to reside in Connecticut. He made 13 trips here, the old stories say. Travel in those days was always arduous and frequently dangerous. People could either ride horseback through dense forests and over the Appalachian Mountains

Appalachian Mountains

The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...

, following Indian trails, or they could brave the waters of Lake Erie

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...

 in small boats and barges full of supplies. Either route would take them more than a month each way. Some of Stow's relatives did settle here, and a few of their descendants still live in Stow.

Back in Middletown (near Middlefield

Middlefield, Connecticut

Middlefield is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,203 at the 2000 census. The town includes the village of Rockfall-History:...

), Stow was appointed postmaster

Postmaster

A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...

 and tax collector

Tax collector

A tax collector is a person who collects unpaid taxes from other people or corporations. Tax collectors are often portrayed in fiction as being evil, and in the modern world share a somewhat similar stereotype to that of lawyers....

. He was also an associate judge of the court

Court

A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

. He was "at the center of the political troubles" there, according to A Pictorial History of Middletown. He favored Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 in the presidential race of 1800, and thus became an enemy of the local Federalists

Federalist Party (United States)

The Federalist Party was the first American political party, from the early 1790s to 1816, the era of the First Party System, with remnants lasting into the 1820s. The Federalists controlled the federal government until 1801...

, who wanted the social order to remain as it was: dominated by the Congregational Church

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

. For over a century, one had to be a member of that church in order to hold public office in Connecticut.

Stow's convictions that the church should not be the center of the government led him to take an active role in Connecticut's constitutional convention

Constitutional convention (political meeting)

A constitutional convention is now a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...

 in 1818. He wrote Article Seven of the state constitution

Connecticut Constitution

The Constitution of the State of Connecticut is the basic governing document of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was approved by referendum on December 14, 1965, and proclaimed by the governor as adopted on December 30. It is the second constitution that the state has had...

, making it a matter of personal choice as to which church a person could join. When he was branded an "infidel" by a newspaper editor, Stow filed a libel suit against the paper. At the trial, even his brothers and sisters labeled his behavior "ungodly". He did win his suit, but continued to be criticized for such things as bringing ministers of other denominations to preach at Middlefield's Congregational Church.

Stow died October 10, 1842, aged 80, and was buried in the "Old Cemetery" in Middlefield

Middlefield, Ohio

Middlefield is a village in Geauga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,233 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Middlefield is located at ....

where his tombstone still lies.