Gould

Folks came from all over Ashtabula County, Ohio, to the hamlet of Gould to have their teeth pulled, filled, poked and fixed by Doc Everetts.

Doc charged 25 cents for a filling and 50 cents for an extraction. He used oil of cloves to numb the pain and was skillful in his use of the tools of the trade. Patients liked Doc Everetts’ prices, chair-side manner and skills, even though practiced way out in the boonies.

In addition to its dentist, Gould also had a store, two churches, hotel, horse race track and covered bridge. The lumber business had literally built the town, but when the forests were cut and the land offered only stumps, the residents started to move away. In the 1920s, Gould got its death blow when the highway was rerouted out of the hamlet. Route 167 bypassed the settlement, located just south of that road on Stanhope-Kelloggsville Road, east of Pierpont.

Only the cemetery remains as testimony to the hamlet’s former existence. Most of the burials here are from the latter half of the 19th century and first couple decades of the 20th. After that, if someone was laid to rest here, it was because their spouse had gone over yonder back when the hamlet still had some life left in it. Odd as it is, death has assured Gould a bit of recognition after the hamlet died.

There is still a road sign for Gould off Stanhope-Kelloggsville Road. It should say “Gould Cemetery,” for that and a woodlands, the kind they cut a century ago, is all that’s left. Other signs warn that the road is not maintained in winter. More accurately, it’s simply not maintained, save for mowing the grass that has reclaimed what was once a road. You can find it off Stanhope-Kelloggsville Road, just south of Route 167.