By Oscar E. Olin, L. L. D.

 A Centennial History of Akron 1825-1925

Summit County Historical Society, Akron, Ohio 1925, p 652-654

 SINCE the days of language development the great source of history is to be found in written records. What was noted at the time of happening—contemporary writings—while too close to give a good perspective, will usually be found accurate as to facts. 

Official records, the king's secretary, court procedures, the priestly chronicles, are most valuable as original sources. Not only official writings but private contracts and friendly letters are often of the greatest value to the historian. 

We can reconstruct the life of buried nations by the ruins of their temples and public buildings, and the inscriptions upon tombs and cliffs and monuments. So are we reading the story of Egypt and Persia and Chaldea today. A clay tablet, a marble slab, a weapon or a coin—each has a meaning. 

Oral tradition, folk lore, and the folk songs of a people embody much of their history. The memory of the old is a rich storehouse of material. A connected memory of seventy years with a "My father has told me," make more than a hundred years of intimate knowledge. And tradition is made up of just such recollections, but seen through the haze of years.

All these the historian must gather and value and classify to make clear his story of the doings of men. 

In writing the history of Akron we have the advantage of previous research. We have access to seven his­tories of Akron and Summit county, some of them by eye witnesses of the important events.

The first of these was a small volume, written by Gen. L. V. Bierce and published in 1854 by Horace Canfield. In this he gives the history of every township in the county, at a time when the pioneers were still living to verify nearly all events. This work is of great value to the local historian, and its only fault is its brevity. It was republished in serial form by the "Times" in 1910.

Howe's History of Ohio in 1890 gives considerable space to Middlebury and Akron and Summit county. One gets a good idea of early Summit county in its connection with the rest of the state. 

Perrin's History of Summit county comes next in 1881. This is a substantial volume with much valuable material concerning the whole county of Summit. 

Next, and perhaps most important of all, is "Fifty Years of Akron and Summit County" by S. A. Lane, who came into Akron in 1835 and was part of its history for the next seventy years. His book, which is a mine of facts, interestingly told, was published in 1892. 

A finely executed "Portrait and Biographical Record of Portage and Summit Counties" was issued in 1898 by the A. W. Bowen Co. This is an extensive work and gives much valuable information of both the early and later days. 

Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton's History of the Western Reserve in three volumes has put into enduring form many of the facts of the settlement and development of the Connecticut lands, of which Summit county is a part. 

In 1908 William B. Doyle, Mayor of the City of Akron, published a Centennial History of Summit county which carried Lane's history, twenty years farther on. All of this time Akron was making history faster than it was recorded. 

The latest history "Akron and Environs" was written by O. E. Olin of the University of Akron, and published in 1917 by the Lewis Publishing Co., of Chicago. 

There are thus seven published works that are accessible to the student of Akron's history. 

Next in importance to the printed histories are the newspaper files which go back within a few years of the founding of the city. 

Then there are court records, and transfers of land, from the Connecticut Draft to the present time. 

Of great interest also are the occasional articles in newspaper and magazine by such men as Cherry, Braden and Botzum and the earliest pictures of the city. There are occasionally found journals or diaries of the pioneers where things are set down as they daily shaped themselves, and these are of utmost value. 

Another and a great source, is the family history of the chief actors in Akron's growth. There are still liv­ing here the descendants of many of the City's pioneer men of business—the Perkins', Spicers, Kings, Howards, Sumners, Seiberlings, Howers, Millers, Schumachers, Hills, Robinsons, Howes, Crouses, Buchtels, Halls, and many others. These can give the connnected story of fifty or seventy-five years. 

The lately formed Summit County Historical Society has already entered upon plans for gathering up all this material and putting it into enduring form and classifying and filing for future references. When this is well under way we hope the Historical Society will be of great help to those who would become better acquainted with the history of the city and county. 

These, then, are the sources of our local history and all of them have been laid under tribute by those who have written the story of our hundred years.