Austin Badger walked from New York with a knapsack, and outlived four wives

Austin Badger was born in Chenango County, New York, on September 3, 1793.¹ He served in the War of 1812 under Colonel William Dobbins. He was on the militia rolls when Buffalo burned in 1813. In 1814 he was an Orderly Sergeant guarding prisoners at Greenbush, near Albany.

In the spring of 1818, he walked from Chenango County to Buffalo, took an open rowboat down Cattaraugus Creek, walked to Presque Isle, caught a schooner across Lake Erie to Ashtabula, and walked the rest of the way to Medina.² He arrived with a knapsack. He was twenty-four years old.

He was immediately handed the contract to clear the Public Square. He also took the contract to build the first courthouse, a two-story hewn-log building with court held on the second floor. He and a partner, Alonzo Hickox, opened the first tavern in the county in the lower story of that same courthouse.³

In 1820 he entered 100 acres in what is now Montville Township. His and Abraham Freese's entries were the first parcels of land ever registered in the township.⁴

In 1823 he built Montville's first sawmill on the Rocky River, with a substantially built stone dam. Two years later, an inexperienced settler was allowed to run it at night and mishandled the fire. The mill burned to the ground. He also planted a nursery that supplied most of the early orchards in the township, and he served as Trustee, Justice of the Peace, and militia adjutant.⁵

Then he buried four wives. Catharine Rouple, married October 1820, died July 30, 1822. She was the first recorded burial in Montville Township.⁶ Nancy Bell, married April 3, 1823, died March 5, 1849. Mary S. Sibley Wells, married October 22, 1849, died October 14, 1852. Elizabeth Whelock Loring, married November 29, 1854, died November 17, 1878.

He had one child, from the first marriage. Lucia. She grew up and married Charles Booth of Medina.

On the Fourth of July, 1820, Badger later told the county historian, every living soul in Montville Township hauled themselves to the Medina Public Square for the county's first Independence Day feast. Roughly twenty people, three ox-teams, a fat hog, a fat sheep, and a few chickens loaded up on the wagons. The square they arrived at was the same one Badger had cleared the year before. Sweetened whisky waited in a common tub. The more sturdy men, Badger said, took the whisky raw, "saying that the sugar took away its flavor."⁷

Austin Badger Park, at 5741 River Styx Road, is named for him. It has hiking trails now. The public square he cleared in 1819 is still the center of the city.