A Quick Road Story

In 1816 David J Stearns and Calvin Greer built a road between their two houses It basically followed old Indian trails.  First from the Greer house it followed the river down to the first ridge that went west. At the same time Stearns started at his house in the top of that ridge toward the river. If you go by the oral history they met up with each other at end of that day.  That section on top of the ridge was called Butternut Ridge road it was later continued  on by other settlers all the way to Elyria. When Ashur Miller Coe Sr. came to settle in what was Dover Township at the time. He went to church that was on bend of Butternut Ridge road.  So Mr. Coe made a road from his house to the church.  That road was called Coe Ridge Rd. Understand that at this time the roads wide enough for a buggy or ox cart. Greer's road continued to follow the edge of the valley. It then turned south and went to Mr. Coe's House over the years it was called, on the south end, Coe Road or Bush Road at various times. At the intersection of Coe Ridge and Butternut was a path that went toward Dover This became Porter Rd as on the northern part of the road lived the Porter families,  Stearns and Fitch roads came about in the same way. In about he 1890's Lorain Road in Cleveland, which was the main road to the Central Market, became the Lorain Rd as we know it now. It replaced Coe Ridge Road and the western part of Butternut Ridge Rd in Cuyahoga County. In Lorain county it is still called Butternut Ridge Rd.