Ohio Spirit Quest #61 - The 6th Family Traditional Cache

The Ohio Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by Buckeye Pioneers. This series is inspired by and a continuation of the Indiana Spirit Quest caches created by Six Dog Team. In just over three years, the SPIRIT QUEST has grown to over 550 caches, with the hiding teams growing as well. The Ohio Spirit Quest has grown to over 30 in Ohio, with five current caching teams, three each with A Man and His Dog, one with a Couple and Their Dog... and one with A Woman and her Dog.
Over 1,000 cachers have logged over 20,000 finds. One cache machine found 111 ISQ caches in a single day (daylight hours only).

Come with us now for a virtual tour of this burial ground via this page, then go out and find the cache!

Cogswell Cemetery

Bridgewater Township, Williams County, Ohio

OHIO SPIRIT QUEST #61
"THE 6TH FAMILY"

This cemetery is named after the Cogswell pioneers. They were the sixth family to settle in Bridgewater Township.



Below are excerpts about Curtis Cogswell, taken from County of Williams, Ohio. Historical and Biographical Copyright 1882

Curtis Cogswell, one of our early settlers, was born in Litchfield, Conn., May 20, 1805, and was one of eleven children of Joel and Tamar (Wright) Cogswell, natives of the same state. Curtis, when a small boy, was removed to Pennsylvania by his parents, and in that state they died. Here Curtis educated himself by the blaze of pine knots, and at the age of 20 had become one of the best teachers in the country, and for ten years following taught grammar and town schools in New York state. There he married Rebecca Truesdell, a native of Steuben County, [NY], and removed to eighty acres of not very good land near Toledo, Ohio, where he remained five years.

THENCE he came to this township [Bridgewater], where he entered 400 acres, built a log cabin and became a pioneer, with the only five families who had settled in the township before him. He now possesses but eighty acres, having presented a considerable part of the original entry to his boys and having sold the remainder. His children numbered ten, as follows: Joel, Charlotte, Albert, Daniel, John, Hiram, Erie, Mary, Eliza and Jane. Charlotte and John are now dead.



HE BECAME a Master Mason while in New York, but during the famous Morgan excitement he withdrew, and has ever since been bitterly opposed to the order. He joined the M.E. Church, but, on account of the prevalence of the Masonic element in that denomination, left it and affiliated with the United Brethren Church. He was the first man in the township to volunteer at the call of arms during the late war, but was rejected on account of his age. He is strongly Republican in his political views, and has served as Justice of the Peace, School Examiner and in more other town offices than he desired. He formed a resolution when young never to go in debt, and he has kept the pledge to a letter, although, strange to state, discouraged in it by his father.

The first few families in the Smith settlement were forced to undergo numerous trials and privations. they were many miles from any other settlements, and had to rely on what they brought with them; on their prowess as hunters and trappers; on the speed from which they could realize their first crops, and on long journeys to distant stores and mills. Many became expert hunters from necessity. Deer were abundant, and easily killed, although, at certain seasons of the year (as in the fall when the leaves and twigs are dry), they were difficult of approach.

CURTIS COGSWELL tells an interesting story of how he killed a fine deer, one fall, after his family had been without meat, and almost everything else, for a long time. He was in the woods near his cabin, without his gun, making fence, when the deer came from the forest, slowly walked up within six feet of him, and began licking the flat stone which he was using in the construction of the rail fence. He stood perfectly motionless for awhile, and then began to retire backward very slowly, intending, if possible, to get his gun from the cabin, and convert the deer to venison. After he had gone on thus about four rods, the deer approached within ten feet of him, stood still, and began to eye him with great curiosity. Thus the couple proceeded, until Cogswell called to one of the Sumner boys, who was digging potatoes for him, to bring his rifle and leave it at a certain spot. This was done, and Cogswell, followed by the deer, continued to approach, until he could grasp his rifle, when he quickly shot the deer through the head. This was very fortunate for the family, and was regarded as a God-send.

The cache container is small Lock & Lock.
If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out.