Colonel Alexander Harper

On June 28, 1798, Colonel Alexander Harper landed at the mouth of Cunningham Creek three miles north of here at the head of a party of 25 and founded the first permanent settlement in Ashtabula County. At the time of his arrival, only 15 other white families were settled in the Western Reserve, at Youngstown, Cleaveland, and Mentor. Born in Middletown, Conn. in 1744, Harper and his brothers founded Harpersfield, Delaware Co, New York, in 1770. He served as a captain in the Revolutionary War, was captured by the Indian Chief Joseph Brant, and spent three years as a prisoner in Quebec. In 1797 he formed, with his relatives, a company that purchased six townships in the Western Reserve from the Connecticut Land Co., and that same year on his first trip selected this as the most promising one and named it Harpersfield. Colonel Harper selected and gave this site for a burying ground, and after dying of malarial fever on Sept. 10, 1798, he was buried here in a hollowed out log. His is the oldest marked grave in the Western Reserve.

Ohio · United States