Thomas Rotch (1767-1823)

Thomas Rotch was born on July 13th, 1767, the 6th of 8 children of Quakers William and Elizabeth Rotch. William was a partner in the firm of Joseph Rotch & Co. (later William Rotch and Sons), with headquarters in Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts, and later a branch in Dunkirk, France. The firm was involved in the whaling and shipping industry, and also owned a rope walk and candle factory.

The Rotch goods were of very high quality and were sent around the world. On December 16th, 1773, two of their ships, the Beaver and the Dartmouth, which were owned by William and Francis Rotch (uncle), were returning from Europe when they were boarded during the Boston Tea Party.

The Revolutionary War caused William Rotch considerable financial losses through the capture of his ships and the interruption of the whaling industry. Despite this, William had a large warehouse and counting house built in Nantucket in 1775, which still stands. Although he tried to maintain a strict neutrality in accordance with his Quaker beliefs, many non-Quakers accused him of being a Loyalist.

After the war, William went to England in 1785, then to France to try to establish whaling factories there. While he was gone, William left his son-in-law, Samuel Rodman, in charge of the Nantucket business and his son, William Jr., in charge of those in New Bedford.

Charity (Rodman) Rotch (1766-1824)

Charity was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on October 31, 1766, the youngest daughter of Thomas and Mary (Borden) Rodman. Her father, a ship captain, was lost at sea when Charity was less than a month old. The Rodman and Rotch families had known each other for some time, for Charity’s oldest brother, Samuel, had married Thomas’s sister, Elizabeth, in 1780, and her sister, Elizabeth, had married Thomas’s brother, William, in 1782. Quakers from all over New England came to Newport to attend the Yearly Meeting, so the two families would have had much opportunity to become acquainted. On May 6, 1790, Thomas Rotch and Charity Rodman were married.

New Bedford, Massachusetts

In 1791, after being married for about a year and living on Nantucket, Thomas and Charity moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Thomas joined his older brother, William, at the whaling firm. That year, Thomas and Charity had a son, Thomas (Tomy), who was born on July 29th, 1791. Unfortunately, Tomy would die on November 19th of the same year of quinsy, a severe form of tonsillitis, which was often fatal.

The following year, Charity contracted smallpox. While she would recover, she seemed to become chronically ill due to this, as her journal notes that she often had long periods of time when she felt good and others when she could barely move. The medicines and treatments prescribed to her also often complicated matters further.

While Charity was at home, Thomas quickly became involved in New Bedford’s affairs. He also began to focus more on spreading the Quaker faith and made several missionary trips, including one to Nova Scotia in 1794. In 1796, Thomas joined his brother William on the Proprietors of the New Bedford Bridge, which set out to raise enough funds to build a bridge across the Acushnet River. Thomas served as Treasurer and managed the finances throughout construction.

Despite their financial success and growing reputation, Thomas and Charity began to consider moving again. This time, they were looking to move to the nearby community of Hartford, Connecticut. Thomas Rotch noted that he wanted to spread the Quaker faith and become a missionary. He also stated that he was looking to get out of the whaling and shipping businesses. Thomas and Charity Rotch moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in October 1800.

Hartford, Connecticut

In Hartford, Thomas owned a store, a linseed oil pressing mill, a rolling and slitting mill, and a woolen mill. After Merino sheep were introduced into the U.S. from Spain in 1802 by Col. David Humphrey, Thomas became interested in breeding them for their fine wool.

While the Rotches were living in Hartford, Charity developed an illness known as spotted fever, and repeated attacks were making her weaker. She was also still dealing with residual attacks of smallpox. Just like in New Bedford, her doctors tried many different remedies, but without effect.

Thomas decided that he needed to help Charity find relief for her several illnesses. Upon the advice of her doctor, Eli Todd, they traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1808 to see physician Dr. Benjamin Rush. There, Dr. Rush prescribed bloodletting and opium, which again weakened Charity.

Upon returning to Hartford, Thomas, frustrated, looked to hire farmhands to care for his growing flock of sheep and the several acres of land they owned, so he could devote his time fully to helping Charity. In June of 1809, Thomas Rotch hired Arvine Wales to help out on their property. Arvine, who was originally hired to fix fences, appears to have quickly been put in charge of the Merino sheep, as many of the records relating to them are in his handwriting after 1809. To view Thomas Rotch and Arvine Wales’ book about Merino sheep, click here to view the Massillon Public Library’s digitized version.

This entire time, and despite visiting many doctors and trying various remedies, Thomas and Charity still could not find a solution for Charity’s illnesses, and by 1810, her health began to decline. As a last resort, her doctor, Eli Todd, recommended that they move away from New England in search of a more suitable climate for Charity.

The move to Ohio

Thomas and Charity set out in January 1811 to find a place to settle. They had heard of a place called Ohio and wanted to see if it would work for them. They crossed the Allegheny Mountains to Pittsburgh, traveled along the Ohio River to Cincinnati, and then northeast between the Great Miami and Little Miami Rivers and over the Pickaway Plains, near where Columbus is. Thomas was looking for good pasture land for his sheep and a site for a woolen mill. He also knew that the resources in Ohio were cheap and plentiful.

During the trip, he also gave out samples of his high-quality Merino wool to merchants in cities such as Zanesville. Many of these merchants would write to Thomas to try to entice them to settle near their communities. While Thomas was managing business prospects, Charity Rotch kept a detailed journal of the trip, which can be read here. She also assisted Thomas when possible, but was still often confined to the wagon.

After returning home in May, Thomas and Charity decided to move to Ohio and had several locations in mind. Thomas instructed Arvine, who had agreed to move to the Rotches, to leave first, as he had several business matters to finish. Arvine agreed and left in September of 1811. With him were six other men and the flock of Merino sheep, which had grown to 408.

The journey on foot took them two months. While crossing the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania, they had to improvise leather muzzles and hired three additional men to keep the sheep from eating mountain laurel. Throughout the journey, they lost only about 10 sheep. Thomas and Charity, coming in a carriage, met Arvine near Bedford, Pennsylvania, before the entire party arrived at Steubenville in November.

While there, Thomas and Charity connected with a man named Bezaleel Wells. Wells, a fellow Quaker and the founder of Steubenville, was one of the men Thomas wrote to during their original sightseeing trip earlier in the year. He and Thomas discussed the possibility of settling in Steubenville. While on the topic of raising sheep, Bezaleel told Thomas of an expansive tract of land nearby another community he started in 1805 called Canton.

Thomas and Charity, who were interested in this prospect, were shown around the area by Bezaleel Wells. They learned that nearby Canton was an area called the Plains of Sippo, which were less densely forested because the Indigenous peoples had cleared the land for hunting. Thomas and Charity realized this would make it easier to plant crops, pasture sheep, and build a settlement. Thomas also liked the waterways, especially Sippo Creek, because it would provide power for his woolen mill. Thomas decided this was where they would settle and purchased 480 acres from Bezaleel Wells and nearly 2,000 acres from the Steubenville Land Company.

That winter, Charity went to Wheeling to spend the winter with friends, and Arvine took half the flock to winter at Cross Creek near Steubenville. Thomas and the other men proceeded to Sippo with the rest of the flock. They built folds for the sheep and a small log cabin for themselves. A friend wrote to Charity that they had plenty of food and blankets, but the cabin’s space was so limited that there wasn’t enough room for all the men to sleep. Thomas would rig a hammock about five feet off the ground, which he accessed by a rope.

Kendal’s Foundation

With his Merino sheep farm coming along, Thomas Rotch decided to plat out a community he called Kendal, based on a New England design with a focus on the wool trade. The town was named after a renowned textile center of Cumbria, England. Thomas Rotch aspired to make Kendal the textile center of Ohio with his woolen factory on Sippo Creek and merino sheep flock at Spring Hill. Click here to see Thomas Rotches’ original plat of Kendal. Click here to learn more about Kendal in detail.

While laying out Kendal, Thomas laid out two main roads that he called Front Street and State Street. Front Street (Wales Road), ran along the Sippo creek, and State Street ran through the center of the town and connected to the state road that would link Kendal to Canton to the east and Wooster to the West.

Thomas began operating a general store in Kendal, and by 1813, a post office had been established with him as postmaster. By the end of 1816, the town had 40-50 houses, a powder mill, a pottery, two saw mills, a flour mill, and a woolen factory. People brought wool to be made into cloth from as far as fifty miles away. A Quaker Meeting House was built near the woolen mill and later replaced by a brick one.

By 1817, Kendal was beginning to grow again, and wool products were easily reaching locations such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh. This also appears to be around the time that they began to open up their home and farm as a station on the Underground Railroad, which you can read more about here. In 1820, Kendal had a population of 140, and in 1821, Kendal grew again.

Thomas, who was satisfied with how Kendal was progressing, began planning a larger home to replace the log cabin he and Charity had been living in since 1812. He would call his new home Spring Hill. Construction of the house began around 1821 and was finished in the fall of 1823. Click here to learn about Spring Hill Farm.

Deaths of Thomas and Charity Rotch

In 1823, Thomas was attending the Yearly Meeting in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, when he became ill with a “bilious fever,” and died unexpectedly on September 14th at the age of 56. As was the custom with Quakers, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Quaker cemetery at Short Creek, six miles from Mt. Pleasant, Ohio.

Charity died at Spring Hill on August 8, 1824. She is buried in the Quaker cemetery on Seneca Street NE, and though not confirmed, researchers believe her grave is marked with a small sandstone marker bearing the initials “C.R.”

The Rotch Legacies: The Charity School of Kendal

Among her bequests, Charity left funds to establish a school for orphans or children of indigent parents. Twenty children of each sex would be taken for a four-year period, and in addition to receiving a good basic education, the girls would be taught cooking and sewing, and the boys farm work. The school was established in one of the buildings at Spring Hill in 1829, and moved in 1844 to a building constructed for it.

The Charity School of Kendal continued in operation until 1910. It was then leased to Summit County as a children’s home until 1924, when the property was sold for an allotment. The building was razed in 1926. The funds from the school became the Charity Rotch Foundation, which provides scholarships for students to this day. The Massillon Public Library has information about the school, as well as a student database available here.

Indigenous Peoples

The Sippo Valley area was used for managed game hunting by the indigenous Delaware people (Lenape). Because the Lenape had cleared the forests to make hunting easier, American settlers found the land easy to cultivate and develop. In response to the settlement of their land, and with British troops encouragement during the War of 1812, the Lenape and other Nations harassed the settlers of Kendal and West Massillon.

Thomas Rotch acted as an intermediary between American settlers and the indigenous people. On one occasion, he was given power of attorney to return a horse that the Lenape believed had been stolen from them. Thomas wrote that he helped out of “fearful apprehension of consequences that are well known to await the families of those that the Indians believe they have just cause to retaliate upon.” He did, however, come to believe that the Lenape were mistaken about the horse, convincing them to let the matter go.

The Underground Railroad

Like many other Quakers, Thomas and Charity were opposed to slavery, and Spring Hill Farm became a station on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers were hidden in the upper story of the Spring House, before moving to other stations. On one occasion Thomas received a letter of gratitude from a freedom seeker named George Duncan. The entire letter is preserved in the archives of the Massillon Public Library. You can view it here. To read more on our Underground Railroad research, click here.