Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Ezra Trim, pictured here, donated his estate to the county for the betterment of the poor of Eldred Twp. This portrait hangs just inside the front doors of the Warren County Courthouse.

The August 2, 1893 Warren Evening Democrat carried an obituary on its front page under the headline “Death of a Warren County Pioneer.”

“Ezra Trimm, a venerable pioneer of Warren county, died at his home in Eldred township, aged nearly 80 years on Friday last of paralysis, superinduced by overwork. Deceased had no children and his wife preceded him to the grave two years ago. Mr. Trimm was wealthy, and owned the farm around after which Trimm’s Corners on the Spring Creek road about 12 miles from this city, was named. It is currently reported that Mr. Trimm has left all his property to Eldred township.

“He was a public spirited citizen and a highly respected man.”

Ezra Trim (or sometimes spelled – apparently incorrectly – Trimm) was born in 1819 and, according to Schenck’s History of Warren County, came to the farm he spent five decades on from Olean N.Y. in 1837.

That farm was located at Trimm’s Corners, which is located at the intersection of Sundback Rd. and Mickle Hill Rd. in Eldred Twp.

If you question whether that’s in Warren County, don’t. I used to live very near there so I’m certain it is.

More from Schenck: “He was taxed at first with only twenty-five acres, but has by degrees increased his possessions. His brother Simeon came at the same time, and until within ten years past lived near him. He now resides not far from Corry.

“Ezra Trim has gained his competence by economy and industry. He is a good citizen and a conscientious Democrat.”

Newspaper accounts show him sitting on multiple county juries as early as 1861, involvement in an unspecified civil case in the 1880s as well as election as township commissioner in 1878.

There’s not a ton of information out there on his life. There was a mention that he was also involved in timber which explains the financial resources in the rest of this story.

He died in 1898 at the age of 79 and is buried at what we now know as the Trim Cemetery along Oil Creek Road.

While it would be nice to know more about his life and the kind of person he was, the frank truth is that this story gets interesting after his death.

Because his estate lives on in the hands of county government after an 1895 state Supreme Court decision and what appears to be a bit of a snarky allocation to his extended family.

From the Aug. 9, 1893 Warren Mail: “Ezra Trim, an old resident of Eldred Township, not having any immediate family, on March 5, 1891, made a will giving his farm known as the homestead, containing 170 1/2 acres of land on tracts Nos. 144 and 145 and also another piece, tract No. 194, for the poor of Eldred Tp.”

That report explains that, as overseers of the poor of the county, the estate would go to the county commissioners “who are to apply the income from the same to the benefit of the township poor.’

That also mean, the report said, that the Commissioners “have got to harvest the growing crops and look after affairs.

“The property is worth five or six thousand dollars and necessitates the opening of a new account in the Commissioner’s office. As there appears nothing in the will forbidding the sale of the property it will be business for the commissioners (to) sell the same and let the interest be devoted to the object intended.”

They noted that the county would not stand to benefit from running the farm and added that “Mr. Trim’s benefaction is in line with the Rouse gift, only lacking in amount.”

The Evening Democrat in the Aug. 3, 1893 edition, included this all-caps healing – “A PHILANTHROPIC ACT.”

The paper reported that Trim “gives all his property to the poor” and that his will had been filed at the courthouse that morning.

“It made provision that each of the relatives should receive $1 and that the balance of the estate should go to the Commissioners of the Poor of the County, for the use and the benefit of the poor of Eldred Township. This will throws the property into the hands of the Commissioners of the Rouse Estate.”

$1 whole dollar.

“He left no relatives nearer than nephews and nieces,” the Evening Democrat reported. “Mr. Trimm had always been noted for his charitable disposition and this act was anticipated by many of his friends.”

A legal notice published in the Sept. 13, 1893 Mail said that John Brightman from East Branch had been named executor of the estate.

While someone donating their estate to the betterment of the community is certainly noteworthy, what happened after these initial announcements – and in the following 120 years – is just as interesting.

More on that next week.