Charles Ridgway

biography

Charles Ridgway, a millwright, came from Brownsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, to Titusville, June 20, 1799, at the age of twenty years, having been born in 1779. After looking about the primitive country, and building a mill for the Holland Land Company at East Titusville, he returned to Brownsville, and brought with him, the second time he came, Samuel Griggs, and selected the spot now known as Newtontown, as a site for a mill. Griggs was also a millwright. He bought two hundred acres of land at Newtontown and built the mill. After living there three years he sold the property to Major Alden, and moved to Franklin. There he bought ten lots and built a house and barn. He married Fanny Titus, the daughter of Peter Titus. He sold the Franklin property, bought several hundred acres of land at Hydetown and came to live on it. He was a miller, as well as a millwright. He built at an early date, a mill above Hydetown, on Little Oil Creek, and operated largely in lumber, as well as clearing land and cultivating a farm. He had nine children. They were Susan, who married William Witherop; Peter, who lived and died at Hydetown; Charles. who died in Oil Creek township a few years ago; Jane. who married Robert Witherop; Ruth, married Dr. Fisher; Alexander, who died at Madison, Iowa; John, Samuel and Titus, of Hydetown. Charles Ridgway, the father, died in 1854, and his wife in 1836.

Our county and its people: a historical and memorial record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania by Samuel P. Bates, 1899, page 703.