Letter: A bit of Streetsboro history

"A 1916 article from the Kent Tribune which my grandfather had in his stash," writes Mac Clapp.

I was glad that Wendy gave my great-great-grandfather, Samuel Olin a mention in her Streetsboro’s 200th Birthday article, as he donated the land for the Evergreen Cemetery.

In actuality the Olin family held a lot of land in Streetsboro. Samuel owned all of the property on both sides of Diagonal Road from Streetsboro into Kent.

He originally built the brick home on the corner of state Route 14 and Diagonal as a stagecoach stop. He also built all of the brick houses on the north side of state Route 14 for family members. He built the big Victorian house on the west side of Diagonal right before you cross into Kent.

My own grandmother, Fern D. Olin Clark, was born in the house across the street from that house. It eventually became the pretorium camp, which is now part of the Akron water works property.

A lot of the land later was inherited by a son-in-law by the last name of Doolittle (whose wife wasn’t allowed to own property). Many people used to refer to the corner of Diagonal and state Route 14 as “Doolittle’s Corners.”

My information of course comes from family but also from my 1892 copy of a family chronicle, BiographicalSketches and Records of the Ezra Olin Family, by George S. Nye, “family historian.”

Some of the other familiar Kent names of relatives in the book are Haymaker, Green and Pratt.

Mac Clapp

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