FOUNDING OF THE FINNISH SETTLEMENTS IN
OHIO
By JOHN I. KOLEHMAINEN
In the fall of 1886 the septuagenarian
Henry Howe returned
to Ashtabula on his second historic tour
of Ohio. Not the least
interesting innovation which there
captured the fancy of the be-
loved, white bearded chronicler was the
presence at the Harbor
of the "Fins," a "new
element . . . lately come into this region."1
The coming of the Finns to Ohio can be
traced with some
precision. About eighteen years before
Howe's visit to Ashtabula,
a tenant farmer, Aksel Sjoberg by name,
migrated with his family
from the parish of Ilmajoki in Vaasa to
Titusville, Pennsylvania.2
Sjoberg, as a result of experience
gained in a previous visit to
America, was soon rewarded for his
proficiency in laying track
by being made foreman of a section gang
on the New York Cen-
tral Railroad. He thereupon wrote
letters to his friends Andrew
Bloom (Antti Hegbloom) and John K.
Hilston (Johan K.
Helsten) of Isokyro parish urging them
to come to Titusville and
assuring them employment. The
letters aroused great interest in
the Old Country with the result that
within the years 1871-1873
some seventy Finns left their native
shores for the railroad con-
struction camps in and about
Titusville.3 These mobile labor units,
while penetrating into Girard, Niles,
Chardon, and Ashtabula
Harbor as early as 1872, did not leave
any permanent settlements
behind them in Ohio. In the fall of 1873
twenty of the original
1 Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Columbus, O., 1889),
I, 275.
2 S. Ilmonen, Amerikan Suomalaisten
Historia (Helsinki, 1923), II, 314-25.
3 Ibid. Immigrants listed as arriving in 1871 were: Andrew
Bloom Matti
Hedman, Peter Ylijarvi, John K. Hilston,
John Piltti, and Kalle Kotka; arrivals
of 1872 were Matti L. Beckman, Antti Anderson
(Huhtaketo), Kustaa Astrom
(Uusitalo), John Gustafson (Maunumaki),
Herman Hedman, Joseph Kippo, Antti
Kopsala, Emanuel Maunula, John Tuomaala,
Joseph Porkula, Matti Taipale; arrivals
of 1873 were John Bloom, Kustaa Hakala,
Charles Hilston, Jacob Kaukonen, Liisa
Kipley, John Talso, Kaarlo Smith
(Korpijarvi), John Salmi (Santalahti), Antti
Autio, Jacob Hautala, Jacob Johnson
(Ollikkala), Antti Kari, Jonas Kivela, Jacob
Kotila, A. Krigsman, John Marcus
(Markuksela), John E. Marjapori, John Mitchell
(Antti Hill), John Orjala, Jacob
Punkari, Leander Rusko, Gustaf Wakkinen, John
Lankila, Jacob Markkoo, Karl J.
Stenroos, John Taanonen, and Jacob Wainionpaa.
(150)
KOLEHMAINEN: FINNISH SETTLEMENTS IN
OHIO 151
seventy Finns left Erie, Pennsylvania,
where they had worked
the summer on the docks, for Astoria,
Oregon, under the leader-
ship of Sjoberg;4 others migrated
shortly to Minnesota and Michi-
gan. Indeed, less than a fifth of the
total number remained to
become more or less permanent settlers
in the State.5 Among
them
were Andrew Bloom, John K.
Hilston, and Matti Hedman
of the 1871 stream of immigrants; Joseph
Porkula and Antti
Peltola of the 1872 immigrants; Kustaa
Hakala, John Bloom, John
Lankila, Charles Hilston, Karl J.
Stenroos, John Taanonen, Jacob
Markkoo, Jacob Kaukonen, and Liisa
Kipley of the 1873 immi-
grants.
As early as 1872 one of the Finnish section gangs had been at
work in Ashtabula Harbor laying track
for the Ashtabula, Youngs-
town, and Pittsburgh Railroad.6 This
labor crew was composed
of twenty-five men and a female cook;
among their number were
Andrew Bloom and Kalle Kotka. The
latter, a lad of about
twenty, was killed by a train in the
gravel pit of the A. Y. & P.
Railroad on November 8, 1872, and thus
became the first Finn
to find his final resting place in
Ashtabula.7 The Finnish laborers
remained in the Harbor for only a short
time but their presence
did evoke the following comment from the
Ashtabula Telegraph:
Fins.--Among our railroad operatives is
to be found a considerable
number of Finlanders--a class of people
that have but recently made their
appearance among us. Like their
neighbors, the Sweeds [sic], they are a
hardy set of men, steady of purpose and
habit, frugal, sober, and indus-
trious. Upon any rainy day they may be
seen in cloisters upon the streets,
always in the full possession of their
unclouded faculties, soberly and
orderly, and giving the best evidence of
their value as an accession to our
4 Sjoberg had evidently given up his
railroad work in 1873. In the summer of
that year he and a score of Finnish
laborers were employed on the docks at Erie,
Pennsylvania. Most of this company left
for Astoria, Oregon, in the fall of 1873.
A second fairly large group of Finns
left Ashtabula Harbor and Erie in 1877 for the
Far West. See Ilmonen, Amerikan
Suomalaisten Historia, II, 248-59, 319-22.
5 A study of the dispersion of the original
company of seventy Finns reveals
the following: twenty left Erie for
Astoria in 1873; six emigrated to Astoria in 1877;
two other immigrants went there but the
time of removal is not indicated; seventeen
remained in the Ohio-Pennsylvania area;
eleven migrated to Minnesota; four went
to Michigan; nine migrated to
unindicated regions of the West; and one returned
to Finland.
6 Kalle H. Mannerkorpi, Ashtabula
Harborin Bethania Seurakunnan 25 Vuotis
Julkaisu, 1891-1916 (Hancock, Mich., 1916), 16-26. This 25th anniversary
publication of
the Bethany Finnish Lutheran Church of
Ashtabula Harbor, compiled and written for
the most part by the Rev. Mannerkorpi,
is a trustworthy guide to the history of the
Finns in the community as well as an
interesting account of the congregation.
7 Ashtabula (Ohio) Telegraph, November
16, 1872. See also Ilmonen, Amerikan
Suomalaisten Historia, II, 320.
152
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
population, and hereafter to become good
and wholesome citizens. . . . If
the specimen among us is a fair sample
of the race, their emigration to the
country will prove highly advantageous
to the country.8
In the autumn of 1873 a second group of
migratory Finnish
laborers spent some time in Ashtabula
Harbor. Included in their
number was Matti L. Beckman.9 The
entire gang, as its prede-
cessor, departed when its work was
completed. Not until the fol-
lowing spring of 1874 was the first
permanent settlement begun.
At that time a section crew of fourteen
men and a cook arrived
in Ashtabula Harbor from Girard where
they had been employed
by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The
company of Finns was
led by Andrew Bloom and with him were
his twelve-year-old son
John, Joseph Porkula, Matti Kortesmaki, a
certain Kotka, and the
cook, Liisa Kipley.10 All
fourteen found employment as ore
shovelers at the Hanna unloading docks
and thereby became the
Finnish counterpart to Irish, Swedish,
and Portuguese gangs
already engaged in the backbreaking
toil.
Before this settlement of the Bloom
group at the Harbor there
had been a Finnish family and a few
Finnish laborers in Ashtabula.
The householder, by name Runtti, had
migrated with his family
from Erie in 1872 and was operating a
boarding house for a small
number of Finns working in a mill
located on the present site of
the Ashtabula Fork and Hoe Company.11
Runtti, however, shortly
removed his residence to the Harbor and
thence to Minnesota; the
fate of his boarders is not known.
With the development of the iron ore
trade and the subse-
quent increasing demand for shovelers,l2
the Lake Erie port re-
8 Ashtabula Telegraph, November
16, 1872.
9 Mannerkorpi, Bethania Julkaisu, 16.
10 Both Mannerkorpi and Ilmonen err in stating that the female cook in
Bloom's
gang was at the time the wife of Jacob
Kaukonen. The woman, Liisa Kipley, was
not married to Kaukonen until July 4,
1875; the ceremony was performed by the Rev.
Dr. Moore of St. Peter's Church in
Ashtabula. See Ashtabula News, July 7, 1875.
Another early wedding was that of Louisa
Ranta and Gustaf Wakkinen on December
3, 1877, also performed by Dr. Moore.
11 The name of the mill was perhaps the Phoenix Iron Works. Mannerkorpi
does not suggest the number or the
identity of the Finns living with Runtti in
Ashtabula. The real settlement of Finns
in that section of the city began in the
early 1900's.
12 The shoveling of ore was not the easiest work in the world. A reporter
with
a flair for figures submitted the
following: "The shoveling of ore is an occupation
that requires quick movement. A shoveler
in order to make $5.00 a day at 10 1/2 cents
per ton must shovel 50 tons or
thereabouts. In other words, he must fill 50 ore
buckets, each holding 1 ton, which
quantity is a trifle below the maximum capacity
of the bucket. As 125 shovels are
required to 1 bucket, he fills and empties his
KOLEHMAINEN: FINNISH
SETTLEMENTS IN OHIO 153
placed Titusville as
the focal point at which the new immigrants
directed their steps.
By 1875 there were two Finnish gangs,
fourteen men each, at
work on the docks; one of them was under
the command of Bloom
and the other under Antti Peltola. Three
years later it was
estimated that the Finnish settlement contained
fifty men, three
wives, and seven young women. The population
reached well over 200
in 1884 but by this time Ashtabula Harbor
had become the
stopping off point for many immigrants who, after
a summer's toil with
the shovel, resumed their migration to the
West or South.l3
In 1897 four enterprising Finnish residents
made a house-to-house
canvass in the community which showed
the following:14
Families: 222 Foreign-born
children: 98
Foreign-born males:
439 Native-born children:
440
Foreign-born females:
325 Total foreign- and
native-born Finns:
1302
By 1900 the number of
foreign-born Finns in Ashtabula Harbor
had risen to nearly
1500.
The gradual diffusion
of the Finnish people throughout
Northeastern Ohio
(Western Reserve) had its rise in two condi-
tions. The first was
the concentration of immigrants in Ashta-
bula Harbor, which
provided a labor mart from which workers
were imported into
other localities. The other factor was the sea-
sonal character of
the iron ore trade which gave impetus to the vol-
untary migration of
the ore shovelers from the ice-bound ports. As
early as 1879 a body
of seventeen "Finlanders"15 was taken from
Ashtabula Harbor to
the Youngstown mills. While a number of
other Finns found
their way to Youngstown in the following years,
the real growth of a
Finnish settlement in that city did not begin
shovel 6,250 times,
with an average weight of 21 to 23 lbs." See Conneaut (Ohio)
Post Herald, May 31, 1899. The Ashtabula News, July 25, 1877,
remarked: "A person's
sympathies cannot but
go out to the dock hands in their hard lot. It does seem to
us that they are living a
life of death by inches."
13 Akseli Jarnefelt, Suomalaiset
Amerikassa (Helsinki, 1899), 68-80. See also
Mannerkorpi, Bethania
Julkaisu, 18; The Chautauquan (Chautauqua, N. Y., 1880-1914),
XLVIII (1908),
247-54.
14 Mannerkorpi, Bethania
Julkaisu, 20-21.
15 Ashtabula Telegraph,
December 12, 1879. See also Conneaut Post Herald.
October 28, 1898;
Painesville (Ohio) Daily Republican, January 4, 1899. The seasonal
flow of labor
continued well into the new century. The Post Herald, December 24,
1901, noted that over
one-half of the community's ore shovelers had left for Youngs-
town, Pittsburgh, and
Michigan.
154 OHIO
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
until the early 1900's. Indeed,
there appears to have been only
twenty-eight foreign-born Finns in
Mahoning County in 1900.16
A number of these early Youngstown
settlers left the steel-mills in
1885 to assist in the founding of a
permanent settlement in Fair-
port.
Fairport in the fall of 1885 and summer
of 1886 presented
a picture of teeming activity. The
narrow gauge of the Pitts-
burgh, Youngstown, and Painesville
Railroad (later the Balti-
more and Ohio) was being replaced by a
standard gauge track in
anticipation of a heavy movement of iron
ore; docks were being
built; and ore unloading machinery was
being put into place. A
number of Finns from Ashtabula Harbor as
well as a few from
Youngstown were drawn to the town by the
prospects of em-
ployment as ore shovelers. On the
eleventh day of September,
1885, a group of twenty-three Finns
arrived in Fairport and
founded the first permanent Finnish
settlement. Among them
were Charles Hilston, Pekka Antilla,
Jacob Tuoresmaa, Herman
Kukilla, Isaac Mattson, Alex Kinnunen,
John Ahonpaa, Jacob
Pikka, Isaac Ranni, John Forspakka,
Kusti Kaura, a certain San-
teliin, Mikko Manty, Niilo Katila, John
Katila, William Hirvi,
Mikko Pohto, Esa Poutto, John Lamu,
Matti Riipa, Isaac Alinen,
and "Iso Antti Karstulasta."17
These pioneers shortly erected their
simple dwellings along
the east slope of the Grand River and
within a few years the
population of "Finn Hollow"18
had increased considerably. By
1900 the number of foreign-born Finns in
Fairport had risen
to nearly seven hundred.
A crew of forty laborers and several
female cooks from
Ashtabula Harbor in the employ of the
Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
16 U.
S. Census office, Twelfth Census, 1900, I, 776. It is difficult to get
accurate
statistics on the number of foreign-born
Finns in Youngstown, Warren, Girard, and
other interior settlements. During the
winter months the population was swelled
considerably by the in-migration of ore
shovelers from the lake ports; during the
summer months the reverse movement
occurred.
17 The names of the pioneers as well as the date of the founding of the
Fairport
settlement are from an unpublished MS.
of Mr. Matti Lahti. There is a different
version of the coming of the Finns in
Niilo Killinen, "Fairport Ennen Ja Nyt,"
Suomi Kirkko (Hancock, Mich., 1925), 46-51. See also Mannerkorpi, Bethania
Julkaisu,
28. Among the early Finnish women in
Fairport were Mrs. E. Kinnunen and her
sister. The first marriage was that of
Mr. and Mrs. Herman Kukilla in 1886.
18 Painesville Telegraph Republican, July 30, 1907.
KOLEHMAINEN: FINNISH SETTLEMENTS IN
OHIO 155
road had worked in Warren during the
early fall of 1883.19 It
was not, however, until 1889 that a
permanent Finnish colony
was established in the city. In the late
summer of that year, a
number of Finnish immigrants, attracted
by the possibilities for
permanent employment in the recently
constructed Paige Tube
Mill as well as in the Warren Rolling
Mill, settled in the com-
munity.20 Among the early
Finns in Warren were Herman Hart-
vig, Fred Johnson, Johan Karhunen, and
Erkki Pellinen. Prior
to 1910
the growth of the settlement was very
slow. In 1900
there were probably about a hundred
foreign-born Finns. Their
residences were for the most part in the
"Flats," an area bounded
by Main Street on the west, Williams
Street on the north, Pine
Street on the east, and Walnut Street on
the south, with the
heaviest Finnish settlement on Clinton
and Fulton streets.21
About the same time as the Finns were
entering Fairport, a
masseur by the name of R. C. Stone
settled in Cleveland with
his family to become that city's first
permanent resident Finn.
The years following 1885 brought four
score or more Finns,
chiefly from Ashtabula Harbor, to the
Cleveland ore unloading
docks. A Finnish settlement took form on
Detroit and Clinton
avenues between West 25th and 38th
streets but the growth of
the foreign-born population was slow
before 1900.22 The census
of 1900 showed only seventy-nine
foreign-born Finns in Cleve-
land and eighty-six in the county
(Cuyahoga).
As had been the case in Ashtabula Harbor
and Warren, the
town of Conneaut was visited by
migratory groups of Finnish
laborers several years before a
permanent colony came into ex-
istence. A company of sixteen Finns from
Ashtabula Harbor
came to Conneaut in October, 1890, to
excavate water mains
19 S. Ilmonen, "Warrenin Suom. Ev.-Luth. Seurakunnan Vaiheista,"
Kirkollinen
Kalenteri Vuodelle 1913 (1912), 144-48; W. Rautanen, "Warrenin
Seurakunta," Kirkol-
linen Kalenteri Vuodelle 1927 (1926), 110-14.
20 Warren (Ohio) Western Reserve
Chronicle, July 31, 1889; February 12, 1890.
21 The names of the older residents are
given in Raittiuskalenteri 1918 (1917),
201-02. During the war years the Finns
were forced to yield their original settlement
before the steady encroachment of
Negroes.
22 W. Rautanen, "Piirteita Clevelandin Seurakunnan Historiasta," Kirkollinen
Kalenteri Vuodelle 1925 (1924), 117-23; Charlotte M. Parker, comp.,
"Immigration to
Cleveland," Western Reserve University Bulletin (Cleveland, O.), XIX
(1916), 34;
Twelfth Census, 1900, I, 776, 797.
156
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
for the waterworks then being
constructed on the lake front.23
Their stay in Conneaut was brief; near
the end of December the
entire gang left the community to seek
work elsewhere. A sec-
ond labor crew, among them Charles Potti
and Mikko Asikkala,
was employed there during the following
year but it likewise de-
parted when its work was done. The
construction of the iron
ore unloading docks by the Pittsburgh
and Conneaut Dock Com-
pany in late 1892 and early 1893
provided the necessary affinity
which drew Finns into the town for
permanent settlement. In the
fall of 1892, a William Maki, who had
migrated that year from
Fairport with his family, was authorized
by the dock officials to
procure Finnish laborers for unloading
iron ore. As a result of his
efforts there were some twenty men, two
wives, and six children
in the community at the end of April,
1893. A group of thirty-
five Finns remained in the harbor
through the winter of 1893-94.
The demand for laborers on the docks
continued so that by 1895
it was estimated that there were 150 Finns at work
shoveling iron
ore, most of whom had come from
Ashtabula Harbor, a few from
Fairport, and others directly from the
Old Country. By the close
of the decade the number of foreign-born
Finns in Conneaut was
very nearly double the 1895 figure. As a
result of the increasing
flow of Finns into the town two
settlements took form: one on
the very north end of Harbor Street and
the other on the western
extremity of the harbor along Park
Avenue and Erie Street.
In addition to the larger settlements in
Ashtabula Harbor,
Warren, Cleveland, and Conneaut, a
number of Finnish families
were scattered throughout northern Ohio
during the years 1872-
1900.
The most conspicuous of the Finnish lodgements were in
Girard, Burton, and Chardon.24 The
real growth of these settle-
23 There are two excellent accounts of the coming of the
Finns to Conneaut:
Kalle H. Mannerkorpi, "Conneautin
Suomal. Ev.-Luth. Seurakunnan Historia 20
Vuotisajalta, 1895-1915," Paimen
Sanoma (Hancock, Mich.), XXVII (1915), 529-64; and
Kustaa Kujala, Kilpi Raittiusseuran
2Onen Vuotisen Toiminta Historiaa Kirjoitettu
Sen Kahdenkymmeneenteen Vuosijuhlaan;
Tahan On Myoskin Liitetty Conneautin
Alku Historiaa Ja Osia Kansamme
Kansalaistemme Pyrinnoista, unpublished
MS.,
Conneaut, 1915.
24 Henry Howe observed the rural
movement of the Ashtabula Harbor Finns:
"Fins, young men and women are
scattering on the farms of the State." Historical
Collections I, 275; however, the drift of Finns from the cities to
the rural areas has
assumed no significant proportions in
Ohio. For miscellaneous items on Girard, see
Western Reserve Chronicle, January 2, 1889; Conneaut Post Herald, August
21, 1899;
Kirkollinen Kalenteri Vuodelle 1913 (1912), 156-59. For Burton, see Raittiuskalenteri,
1914 (1913), 170-73; Painesville Telegraph, July 14,
1887. For Chardon, see Painesville
Telegraph, September 23, 1886, and the Telegraph Republican, May
21, 1900. (There
were a few Finns living in Sheffield and Kingsville in
the 'eighties.
KOLEHMAINEN: FINNISH SETTLEMENTS IN OHIO 157
ments as well as the more effective diffusion of the Finns through-
out the area did not take place until the first decade of the twen-
tieth century.
The year 1900 found some 2,814 foreign-born Finns in Ohio,
2,753 of whom had settled in
the Western Reserve. The growth
of the Finnish population after 1900
was steady but not phenome-
nal; the number of foreign-born Finns at the close of each decade
in the Western Reserve counties and in the State is indicated in
the following table:25
County 1900 1910 1920 1930
Ashtabula ................... 1713 2039 2708 2115
Cuyahoga ................... 86 577 1362 1303
Erie ........................ 0 4 2 4
Geauga ...................... 100 137 141 133
Huron ...................... 0 0 0 0
Lake ........................ 689 638 859 929
Lorain ...................... 0 3 7 8
Mahoning ................... 28 152 49 81
Medina ..................... 1 0 7 7
Portage ..................... 15 54 60 44
Summit ..................... 3 34 96 43
Trumbull .................... 118 176 723 692
Western Reserve............. 2753 3814 5384 5359
State ........................ 2814 3988 6406 5633
Living conditions in the pioneer settlements were deplorable.
In such localities as Ashtabula Harbor, Fairport, and Conneaut,
where the coming of the Finns antedated the installation of urban
improvements, they became almost repellent. The lack of decent
living quarters and the heavy demand for accommodations of any
sort drove the Finnish immigrants into the so-called boarding
houses. There is extant a contemporary description of one of
these:
The house is located two doors from the corner of Lake Street and the
road running east and west by the Lake Shore, and is occupied by a party
of thirteen Finlanders, among whom are two women. It is a small two
story
structure, about 16 x 20 feet, and was originally designed for a store.
In
this dirty, little house, destitute of furniture and all the comforts of
life
were housed and fed these men and women.26
25 The statistics are from the census reports for the indicated years.
26 Ashtabula Telegraph, March 17, 1876. The Ashtabula News, March
15, 1876,
supplies additional information: ". . . James Hulce's old store
building, which has
158
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Similar institutions, but hardly as
repulsive, appeared early
in Fairport, Conneaut, and elsewhere.
Among the larger boarding
houses in Fairport before 1900 were
those of Charles Hilston and
Gus Rantilla; the first in Conneaut was
operated by William
Maki. The number of such communal homes
increased rapidly in
the first decade of the 1900's; a few
have survived to this day.
Despite the presence of the boarding
house system, a con-
siderable number of Finnish immigrants
constructed or owned
their dwellings prior to 1901. The
January 5, 1902, issue of the
Amerikan Sanomat published the results of a survey of Finnish-
owned homes in Ashtabula.27 There
were eighty homes in the
Harbor and one in Ashtabula proper owned
by the Finns, sixty
of which had been built within the
decade 1892-1901. Thomas
Maki in 1894 was the first Finn to erect
a dwelling in Conneaut,
a two story frame building on the west
end of Park Avenue.
Three years later a second house was
built on Broad Street by
Antti Laituri. Many Finns found quarters
in the eight houses
built in 1899 by the Pittsburgh and
Conneaut Dock Company on
its property near the waterworks; two of
the eight were boarding
houses accommodating twenty persons
each.28 Two Finns at least,
Salomon Joopinoja and A. F. Lundberg,
purchased lots in Con-
neaut Harbor in 1899.29
Lack of facilities for the proper
disposal of sewerage and
wastes, the absence of pure drinking
water, and overcrowded
quarters gave early Finnish immigrant
life an unhealthy character.
In the large settlement at Ashtabula
Harbor, for example, the
immigrants did not have a sewerage
system on Bridge Street
(where a great many Finns lived) until
1886, or palatable drinking
water until 1887.30 The prevalence of
typhoid and diphtheria with
their heavy toll of human life can be
readily surmised in con-
been lately used as a boarding or
messing house for the Finnish laborers employed
in various ways at the Harbor. These men
board and lodge there, doing their own
cooking--as many as eighteen having
stayed there at one time."
27 Mannerkorpi, Bethania Julkaisu, 20.
Henry Howe was perhaps stretching the
point when he spoke of the Finns and
Swedes of Ashtabula Harbor as "a thrifty
people, most of them owning their
homes." Historical Collections, I, 273.
28 Conneaut Post Herald, January
13, 1897; August 11, 1898; January 17, 1899.
29 Ibid., January 22, 1900;
October 16, 1902. An assessment of property owners
made in 1902 for the paving of Day
Street from Park Avenue to Lake Road showed
22 out of a total of 71 lots owned by
Finns.
30 Ashtabula Telegraph, October
1, 1886; Mannerkorpi, Bethania Julkaisu, 15.
KOLEHMAINEN: FINNISH SETTLEMENTS IN
OHIO 159
ditions such as described in the
Ashtabula Telegraph on August
15, 1885: "The houses on Bridge
Street are built on a side hill
and are crowded with inmates, as many as
forty living in some
of the houses. Directly in front is a
ditch and into it flows the
filth and refuse matter from these
houses."31 Conditions were
not much different elsewhere. A heavy
rain usually flooded Finn
Hollow in Fairport and left
"obnoxious"32 and disease-bearing
ponds of stagnant water throughout the
settlement. Of the im-
migrants, a few were not too fastidious
in their habits. One
Finn, for example, raised the ire of a
Conneaut board of health
by permitting a nuisance on his premises
in the form of "a water
closet, pig pen, slops, etc., all of
which emptied into the gulley
which runs past the pump
station."33 It was, thus, no difficult
matter for a careful observer to account
for the frequent epidemics
of typhoid and diphtheria which were the
scourge of early im-
migrant life.
The years after 1900 witnessed
great activity in the con-
struction of new and commodious homes
and in the amelioration
of unsanitary, pioneer conditions. The
overcrowded boarding
houses gave way to private dwellings;
the open sewer was re-
placed by a lawn of green grass; a
garage has appeared where
once stood the proverbial cowshed;
comfort and health instead
of wretchedness and disease.
With the passage of pioneering days, the
Finnish immigrants
were able to devote their undivided
attention to the development
of their family and institutional life.
Their indefatigable activity
in many fields--religious, educational,
temperance, journalism--
has resulted in an immeasurable
contribution not only to immi-
grant history but to the history of
their adopted state, Ohio.
31 Ashtabula Telegraph, August
15, 1885.
32 Painesville Telegraph, July
21, 1887; May 17, September 6, 1888. See also
Painesville Daily Republican, May
4, 1899.
33 Conneaut Post Herald, August
4, 1896; October 13, 1897.
FOUNDING OF THE FINNISH SETTLEMENTS IN
OHIO
By JOHN I. KOLEHMAINEN
In the fall of 1886 the septuagenarian
Henry Howe returned
to Ashtabula on his second historic tour
of Ohio. Not the least
interesting innovation which there
captured the fancy of the be-
loved, white bearded chronicler was the
presence at the Harbor
of the "Fins," a "new
element . . . lately come into this region."1
The coming of the Finns to Ohio can be
traced with some
precision. About eighteen years before
Howe's visit to Ashtabula,
a tenant farmer, Aksel Sjoberg by name,
migrated with his family
from the parish of Ilmajoki in Vaasa to
Titusville, Pennsylvania.2
Sjoberg, as a result of experience
gained in a previous visit to
America, was soon rewarded for his
proficiency in laying track
by being made foreman of a section gang
on the New York Cen-
tral Railroad. He thereupon wrote
letters to his friends Andrew
Bloom (Antti Hegbloom) and John K.
Hilston (Johan K.
Helsten) of Isokyro parish urging them
to come to Titusville and
assuring them employment. The
letters aroused great interest in
the Old Country with the result that
within the years 1871-1873
some seventy Finns left their native
shores for the railroad con-
struction camps in and about
Titusville.3 These mobile labor units,
while penetrating into Girard, Niles,
Chardon, and Ashtabula
Harbor as early as 1872, did not leave
any permanent settlements
behind them in Ohio. In the fall of 1873
twenty of the original
1 Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Columbus, O., 1889),
I, 275.
2 S. Ilmonen, Amerikan Suomalaisten
Historia (Helsinki, 1923), II, 314-25.
3 Ibid. Immigrants listed as arriving in 1871 were: Andrew
Bloom Matti
Hedman, Peter Ylijarvi, John K. Hilston,
John Piltti, and Kalle Kotka; arrivals
of 1872 were Matti L. Beckman, Antti Anderson
(Huhtaketo), Kustaa Astrom
(Uusitalo), John Gustafson (Maunumaki),
Herman Hedman, Joseph Kippo, Antti
Kopsala, Emanuel Maunula, John Tuomaala,
Joseph Porkula, Matti Taipale; arrivals
of 1873 were John Bloom, Kustaa Hakala,
Charles Hilston, Jacob Kaukonen, Liisa
Kipley, John Talso, Kaarlo Smith
(Korpijarvi), John Salmi (Santalahti), Antti
Autio, Jacob Hautala, Jacob Johnson
(Ollikkala), Antti Kari, Jonas Kivela, Jacob
Kotila, A. Krigsman, John Marcus
(Markuksela), John E. Marjapori, John Mitchell
(Antti Hill), John Orjala, Jacob
Punkari, Leander Rusko, Gustaf Wakkinen, John
Lankila, Jacob Markkoo, Karl J.
Stenroos, John Taanonen, and Jacob Wainionpaa.
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