Captain Aaron Olmsted (May 19, 1753 – September 9, 1806), erroneously spelled Olmstead, was a wealthy sea captain in the China trade out of New England, and one of 49 investors who formed the

Connecticut Land Company The Connecticut Company or Connecticut Land Company (est. 1795) was a post-colonial land speculation company formed in the late eighteenth century to survey and encourage settlement in the eastern parts of the newly chartered Connecticut Western ...

in 1795 to purchase a major part of the

Western Reserve The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. Warren, Ohio was the Historic Capital in Trumbull County. T ...

from the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. He became the owner of thousands of acres from his $30,000 share of the $1,200,000 total land deal. The land encompassed the areas of

Northeast Ohio Northeast Ohio is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that comprises the northeastern counties of the U.S. state of Ohio. Definitions of the region consist of 16 to 23 counties between the southern shore of Lake Erie and the foothills ...

now known as North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls, and Olmsted Township (originally known as Lenox) in what is now

Cuyahoga County Cuyahoga County ( or , see ) is a large urban county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. The county seat and most populous city is Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,264,817, making it the second ...

, as well as Franklin Township, named after his son Aaron Franklin Olmsted, and most of the city of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

in what is now Portage County. Olmsted traveled west on horseback to visit the land in 1795, but never settled there. A native of

East Hartford, Connecticut East Hartford is a New England town, town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 51,045 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. The town is located on the east bank of the Connecticut River, directly across from ...

, he was born 19 May 1753 as the eighth child of General Jonathan and Hanna (Meakins) Olmsted. Olmsted served as Adjutant general of the 4th Connecticut Regiment during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. He married Mary Langrel Bigelow on 10 December 1778 and had fourteen children, of which only five lived to adulthood. He died 9 September 1806 in East Hartford.

References

External links

Portrait

Portrait of Olmstead's wife

Bio Sketch

Genealogy

Marriage details"> Marriage details
* People from East Hartford, Connecticut Cuyahoga County, Ohio Portage County, Ohio History of Kent, Ohio 1753 births 1806 deaths Connecticut Land Company American sailors Sea captains {{US-business-bio-1750s-stub