”The first murder committed in Geauga county, or the first trial for murder, was in the court of common pleas of Chardon, begun on the eighteenth day of March, 1823. Hon. George Tod was president judge, and Vene Stone, John W. Scott and Solomon Kingsbury were associate judges. James R. Ford was sheriff, and Edward Paine, jr., clerk. The grand jurors, who found the indictment, were Abraham Tappan, foreman; Samuel Collins, Caleb Sweet, Silas Newcomb, Merrick Pease, Shelburn Bostwick, Asa Wilmot, John Hubbard, John Bachelder, Cyrus Cunningham, James Ware, Jesse Ladd, Eleazer Patchin, Asa Cowles and Jonathan Brooks. On the first day of February, 1823, Benjamin Wright, jr., a blacksmith, who lived in Leroy (now Lake county), stabbed one Zopher Warner with a knife, upon the right side of his body, about two and a half inches below the pit of the stomach. The wound proved to be a mortal one, and, on the ninth day of February, following, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Warner died. …”

Reference Data:

Pioneer and General History of Geauga County, Ohio, by the Historical Society of Geauga County, Ohio, 1880, page 305