A member of Capt. Calvin Hoadley's Co. Ohio Militia organized in 1810.

The Bronson Family of Lorain, Ohio:

In September 1807, a company of 33 persons left Waterbury, Connecticut for Columbia, Ohio, and among them were Bela Bronson, son of Seba, with his wife and baby. Two months later they reached Buffalo where the company divided. One party started out by boat for Cleveland, the other by land. The part that went by boat, met with storms and were driven back, at one time to Canada, and later when they were in sight of Cleveland, a city of 3 log cabins-- they were driven back and went ashore at Erie. Some of the party again tried the water route and reached Cleveland. The others, Jared Pritchard, Levi Bronson, John Williams, Silas Hoadley, and Bela Bronson, with his wife Sally, and their eight month-old son Sherlock, went by land. Mrs Bronson carried her baby for 50 miles until they met some teams which had been sent out from Cleveland to meet them. Some of the company remained in Cleveland, while the others, among them Jared Pritchard, Levi Bronson, John Williams, Silas Hoadley, and Bela Bronson, with his wife Sally, and their eight month-old son Sherlock, pushed through to Columbia, arriving December 7, 1807.

Ohio Historcial Marker:
Near Columbia Station in Lorain County, Ohio — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)
Columbia Township, reads;
Founded in 1807 Columbia was the first continuously inhabited settlement in Lorain County. Harmon, Levi and Azor Bronson, Calvin Hoadley, Jared Pritchard and others formed the Waterbury Land Company to buy the township from the Connecticut Land Company. In 1808, Sally Bronson named the township and became its first teacher. In 1809, the first church society was formed and Hoadley built a log gristmill beside the Rocky River. A militia company was organized in 1810 and a two story blockhouse was constructed for protection during the War of 1812.

History of Lorain County, Ohio.
Excerpt p. 174

"Mr and Mrs Bronson
The first school in the county was taught in the summer of 1808 by Mrs Bela Bronson, wife of one of the original proprietors of Columbia Township, who, with her husband and child, and three others of the Waterbury (Connecticut) Colony, journeyed from Cleveland during the previous year and had just commenced family life in a brand new log house. Two other families had arrived with several children of school age and the young teacher had every reason to believe that more would follow. This first school in the Bronson shack was conducted with comparative comfort in summer, but in the winter of 1809-1810, Mr Bronson decided to take a hand himself as an educator and taught a class in a blacksmith shop, with all the heat the word implies."