Obadiah Gildersleeve

  Noted events in his life were:

• Miscellaneous. "History of Trumbull and Mahoning Counties" vol 2 page 473
The name is now abbreviated to Gilder.
Ovediah died at age fifty years and was the first to be buried in the township graveyard north of the center.


Husband of Chloe. (Chloe became the second wife of Josiah Pelton in Aug. 1811.)
Father of Bailey, Obed, Polly, Orril, Sally, Annis, Phebe, Chloe, and Betsy.

Additional info from Ashley:
"In 1804 fifty people came to Gustavus. Prominent among these was Obediah Gildersleeve. He obtained permission from the court to drop the last part of his name, and the family has since been known as "Gilder". Mr. Gildersleeve settled about one half mile east of the center. He had eight children when he arrived, and one was born afterward. He died in 1805, when he was fifty, and he was among the first to be buried in the graveyard north of the center. His wife lived to be seventy years old and throughout her whole life had great love for her children. Several generations have been proud to claim her as their Sunday school teacher. Like most of the strong women of her time, she was an ardent abolitionist and drove wagonloads of slaves to the lake where they made their escape. She had a great sorrow in the death of her daughter, Chloe, who while riding came upon quicksand near the bank of the Pymatuming which had undermined the crust, and was precipitated into the river. The horse and a cousin who was riding with her, escaped, but Chloe was drowned. Phoebe Gilder was one of the most intellectual of this large family. She studied at school and at home, reading everything she could lay her hands upon. She seemed to see, as she grew older, the disabilities which the law placed on women, and writes: "A Mrs. Ballard had the misfortune to marry a man of small intellect, who finally became idiotic. She procured, by an attorney, the right of government over a minor, and then she bought and sold and moved at her own will. She lived to be over eighty years old." Mrs. Gilder herself lived well up into the nineties."

-From "A twentieth Century History of Trumbull County", Vol. II, by Harriet Taylor Upton, 1909, pgs. 475-76

Obadiah married Chloe Bushnell, daughter of Captain Alexander Bushnell and Chloe Waite, in Aug 1811. (Chloe Bushnell was born on 22 Jul 1768, died on 27 Jul 1838 in Gustavus, OH and was buried in Gustavus, OH, Old Gustavus Cemetery.)