The presence of the First Congregational Church of Freedom, at Ohio 303, 88 and 700, reaches out and causes passersby to stop and step inside. Inside the church are the original pews with boxes underneath where parishioners used to put coal to heat the church.

(The following information contains excerpts from an account of Freedom History by Paul Larkcom , 1830)

Situated nearly in the center of Portage County you will find Freedom, not far from the county seat of Ravenna. The original proprietors of the township were Ephraim Root and Thomas Lloyd of Connecticut. It contained dense woods of beech, whitewood and maple, under whose branches roamed the bear, wolf and deer. It was known for its swamp and
was the last township in the county to be settled.

This is where Charles H. (Harry) Paine, his wife, small infant daughter and his sister-in-law Parthenia Mason settled in 1818. They shrugged off the stories of the old hunters who said that the land could never be settled and built their cabin and planted the first orchard along the northern line of the township.

The Paine family grieved at the first death in the township, that of their daughter Emaline, in October, 1820. They also rejoiced when their daughter Amanda was the first birth recorded  in June, 1823.

Newell Day settled in 1821, followed the next year by Asa Wadsworth. In 1823 Amariah Wheelock traded his farm in Massachusetts for a tract of land in Freedom. (His grandson said in later years that he had a government award for some acreage for participation in the Revolutionary and 1812 Wars instead of the 'trading.') The father Amariah died on the
road west and the mother Hannah continued the journey with her family. Freedom history records state Amariah,(a son b. 1800) John, (born 1804), and Clarissa, (b. 1797) came in 1823.

Freedom was part of Hiram Township until it was organized as a separate district in 1825. Mrs. Paine was given the honor of naming the new township, she being the first female settler. She was a strong anti-slavery woman and declared the settlement be called "Liberty". But after finding that there was another township already so named, she chose "Freedom".

The settlers came by all available means of travel and suffered the long journeys and the accompanying hardships to settle in the new wilderness. They came by ox-teams and one-horse wagons; some came in covered wagons to the Erie Canal, and then by schooner from Erie, Pa., to Cleveland, Ohio where they left the boats on log gangplanks and were brought on to Freedom by ox-carts over blazed trails marked on trees.

Orsamus L. and Climena Strong Drake came from Massachusetts in a wagon. Mr. Drake bought their first dishes in Ravenna, and carried them home in his overcoat pockets! The Drakes settled at the crossroads one-half mile east of Freedom Center, where their own little community of Drakesburgh was established. The Hawleys made the journey in a one-horse wagon which carried her feather bed, brass kettles and silver spoons.

William Sherwood and Harriet Ranney were the first to be married here in 1825. Henry Humphrey and Electa Wadsworth followed soon after. They had never seen anyone married so they went to the next township of Shalersville to tie the knot, for fear they would appear awkward.

By the time of the census in November, 1830, there were almost 80 families, with the number of inhabitants numbering 242, and it was growing fast.  Quite an accomplishment for an area that was said to be undesirable by a few! When John Winegar moved into Freedom with his family in 1828, Mrs. Winegar (Hannah Crocker Davis Winegar) looked around on the mud and wilderness and said, "If this is the land of Freedom, I would like to know what the land of bondage will be!"

According to records, Thomas Lloyd of Connecticut gave five acres of land at Freedom Center for public use. There was built on it a Congregational Church, an Academy and a district schoolhouse. No records describing the Academy are available, but it probably preceded the district school.

The First Congregational Church of Freedom was organized as a Presbyterian body in 1828.There were twenty charter members of the church, who held their first meetings in a little log church building and later in a more commodious log schoolhouse. A frame building was erected in 1835, and ten years later the present building, a fine type of the
colonial church structure was erected.

Although instituted as a Presbyterian body, it became the "First Congregational Church of Freedom" in 1845, after withdrawing its application for membership in the Portage County Presbytery. Paul Larkcom, in his history, said, "there was a spot in the swamp cleared off and a log church built there. This historian has been there at singing schools when the wolves howled and snarled and snapped their teeth, and made so much noise generally, that we human beings had to wait 'till they got more quiet, before taking our lessons!"

In the early days the school building was usually built by common labor and generally was a festive occasion. The walls of the house were made of logs, the roof of clapboards, the door also of clapboards, and the hinges of wood. Miss Susan Goodrich recalled :"Inside, there were benches the whole length, and the desk was a slab fastened behind us. If a girl could do sums as far as multiplication, she was competent to teach school and was hired by the week. We had no blackboards, we used slates. We did sums instead of examples...some of the older children went only during the winter...a pot-bellied stove provided some heat in the winter..sometimes the water pail in the corner had ice on it. Usually the schoolyard had two outhouses..."

Paul and Comfort Norton Larkcom brought their family to Freedom from Berkshire County, Massachusetts in 1825. He was a Revolutionary War soldier and as cook served many a meal for General George Washington. A large debt of gratitude is owed Larkcom for recording a great deal of Freedom's history. In his own words: "...as I am one of the first settlers, I have thought of committing some things to writing ...so that our children may know what their fathers have done for them...it has often been lamented that there has not been more care taken of making records in new settled places...it is my duty to commit to (this) writing as I am the oldest man in town (1830) at the age of sixty-seven, lacking a few weeks."