Joshua Stow (April 22, 1762October 10, 1842) was an American lawyer, judge, and pioneer. He was the founder of Stow, Ohio, served in the Connecticut House of Representatives, and was a judge of Middlesex County, Connecticut. Biography Born in Middlefield, Connecticut, (then the Connecticut Colony, part of British America) as a young man, he volunteered for service in the American Revolutionary War, serving under Colonel Heman Swift from 1781 until the end of the war. After the war, he was employed as a surveyor and accompanied Moses Cleaveland on his 1796 mission to survey what was then called the Connecticut Western Reserve (now northeastern Ohio). The Connecticut Western Reserve was a patch of land claimed by the state of Connecticut due to the language of their original charter from King Charles II of England. On the Ohio mission, which surveyed the area around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River where it meets Lake Erie, Stow was the company's commissary manager, responsible for seeing that the survey party was equipped with clothing, equipment, food, drink, and lodging. He was also a financial holder in the Ohio Land Company which conducted the land survey of 1796 of which Moses Cleaveland was the Superintendent. When Stow saw the forested future township, he said it was "one of the prettiest and most romantic spots in the Western Reserve". He purchased the whole five-mile square of Stow Township as an investment, for $14,154. After he returned to Connecticut, he hired a relative, Judge William Wetmore, to travel to Stow and settle there. Wetmore would handle further sales of land in Stow. Wetmore took his family and several other men to Stow in the summer of 1804. Although the township is named for him, Stow never lived there—he continued to reside in Connecticut. He made 13 trips here, the old stories say. Travel in those days was always arduous and frequently dangerous. People could either ride horseback through dense forests and over the Appalachian Mountains, following Indian trails, or they could brave the waters of Lake Erie in small boats and barges full of supplies. Either route would take them more than a month each way. Some of Stow's relatives did settle here, and a few of their descendants still live in Stow. Back in Middletown (near Middlefield), Stow entered public office, serving in the Connecticut House of Representatives during the 1805 spring and fall sessions.