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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY 53
The first blacksmith shop was started by a man named Wolverton.
lie fastened his anvil on a stump and rigged liis bellows between two
trees. It is claimed that this is the origin of a story that has been told
all over the West. A traveler, riding along the wilderness road, lost a
shoe from one of his horse's feet. He inquired of a man he met for a
blacksmith shop. "Stranger," replied the man, ."you're in it now; but
it is three miles to the anvil."
The first schoolhouse was built at Sprague's corners, on land oAvned
by John Brooks. The first teacher was Ruth Squire, and the school
Avas supported by subscription; the parents paying in proportion to the
number of children sent. This schoolhouse Avas aftenvard taken down
and rebuilt on the south side of the road. The .second schoolhouse was
built half a mile west of Birmingham, and the school first taught by
Rhoda Root. . A certain individual objected to her custom of opening
the school with prayer, so that a school meeting Avas called to consider
the matter. The teacher was sustained.
JOB FISH
As a teacher no man has exercised a larger influence on the life of
Krie County than Job Fish, who in his eighty-eighth year is enjoying
life quietly in his comfortable home in Florence ToAvnship. Hundreds
of men and women find a special pleasure in referring to that portion
of their school days spent under the instruction of this venerable teacher.
Tn the biographies of Erie County citizens found in this work, repeated
^reference is made to Job Fish's school; and the subjects of these
biographies have taken particular pride in referring to that important
influence in their early lives.
Job Fish, son of Elias Hicks Fish and Betsey Van Wagner, was born
March 17. 1828, in llartland Township, Niagara County, NCAV York.
lie traces his ancestry back through Elias, Job, Joshua, Thomas, Preserved
and Thomas—all Quakers—to that Thomas Fish who was living
in Portsmouth. Rhode Island, in 1643.
In 1836 Elias Hicks Fish moved with his family to Auburn Township,
Geauga County, Ohio, where Job attended the district school winters from
1836 to 1844. Good fortune gave him, among his teachers, Joseph W.
Cray, later founder and editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and his
older brother, Charles Lounsbury Fish, who became an eminent admiralty
laAvyer of Cleveland. In the summer of 1843, at the age of fifteen, he
made two round trips on the Erie Canal between Buffalo and Albany as
driver on the towpath. He attended the Western Reserve Seminary at
Chester, Geauga County, in 1845 and in 1846; and Doctor Lord's School,
at Kirtland, Lake County, in 1846 and 1847. He studied law in his
brother Charles' office in Cleveland during the summers of 1850 and 1851.
From 1S48 to 1854 he contributed numerous articles to neAVspapers of
Cleveland. Buffalo and Columbus. At the age of seventeen he organized
a debating school in his OAVII district and took an active part in its proceedings.
Its membership soon included middle-aged men, some of AA'hom,.
including Oliver Brown, a half-brother of John BroAvn, the martyr, Avere
from outside districts. From his youth to the present day Mr. Fish has