Initial Surveying Party

The Larwill brothers, John Bever, and William Henry laid out the town center and main streets of Wooster in 1808.

William Henry was a prominent figure in Wooster’s early history as he was both an initial surveyor and served as a judge for the Court of Common Pleas.

 

William Henry’s obituary in theWooster Republican listed his numerous positions including judge, businessman, and member of the Christian community.

Many of Wooster’s streets are named after the early surveyors such as North Grant Street (pictured above), North Bever Street, and West Larwill Street.

The establishment of Wooster began in 1808 when a group of surveyors including William Henry, Joseph Larwill, and William Larwill, and Jonathan Grant, first laid out the town.¹  After acquiring land through the Treaty of Fort Industry, the United States Government sent the Larwill brothers and Henry out West to investigate and map out the region.²  The United States Government employed Grant, an expert hunter and trapper, to protect the early settlers, presumably against the threat of wild animals.³  The initial surveyors not only organized the town, giving them a considerable amount of power, but they also ensured their names would live on by naming streets after themselves.

¹ “Vast Estates of Larwill Family Fast Being Settled by Executors: A Short History of the Early Pioneers of Wayne County Ties of Old Friendship Shown by Will,” Wayne County Democrat, February 3, 1904.
² Ben Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio, From the Days of the Pioneers and First Settlers to the Present Time (Indianapolis, IN: Robert Douglass, 1878), 410.
³ Dorothy M. Kimbrell, “A Biographical sketch of Jonathan Grant Family from Beaver Co. Pa.”, available in the Wayne County Public Library Genealogy Department in the Grant Family File.