Photo courtesy of Warren County Historical Society Stoneham tannery, Stoneham. Early twentieth century.

The small village of Stoneham, located in Mead Township, got its name from an early settler in the area, but not the first.

Stoneham derived its name from Leroy Stoneham, an early settler there.

Prior to 1839 the village was called Rink Farm after Jacob Rink, the first farmer in the region. Rink is said to “have made quite a clearing and planted an orchard,” according to the History of Warren County.

Rink had gone west for a brief time prior to 1839. He and Francis Yost were the first settlers in the township, after the Morrison family.

Stoneham didn’t change much in its first 30 years of existence. According to a quote from D.W. Brennan, a resident of North Clarendon in 1868, “the township advanced very little in either settlement or improvement.” There was a small tannery at Stoneham and a clearing of about 100 acres. The tannery was started around 1868 by Palmer, Hill & Co.

The township remained lightly populated throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. The first road running through the township, the Warren-Ridgeway Turnpike, did not open until 1833, and even then travel remained slow and difficult.

By the second half of the nineteenth century, the construction of railroads turned this once inaccessible “wilderness” into a significant industrial area. Mead Township was rich in numerous natural resources including oil, gas, and timber. The newly-constructed railroad meant that products such as lumber, oil, and leather could be shipped from Mead Township to markets further away.

Although it was, at first, passed by for other more valuable hardwoods, large numbers of hemlock trees in the township provided the raw material needed for the leather tanning industry. Hemlock bark contains tannin, a chemical needed to turn animal hides into leather.

Once the railroad arrived, communities like Stoneham and Clarendon built tanneries that specialized in making shoe leather.

Some time around 1869 to 1879 a post office was established at Stoneham. J.K. Palmer was appointed the first postmaster.