During the years I worked at McKelveys, I roamed downtown Youngstown on lunch breaks, learning the various street names that made up the grid of downtown Youngstown. One of those was Phelps Street, intersecting West Federal one block west of the square and running between Wood Street on the north aned Front Street on the south. In recent years, I’ve become more curious about the origin of street names, usually tied to an early Youngstown resident who lived along that street.

The puzzle is that there is no early Youngstown residents by the name of Phelps that I can locate. The early histories I’ve read do not help. All I could find is that in 1802, John Young executed a document describing the platting of the early town including the streets that then existed. I’ve not located it in an online search to see if it confirms my hunch.

I believe Phelps refers to Oliver Phelps, who helped organize the Connecticut Land Company, which purchased the Western Reserve lands from the state of Connecticut. He is the only Phelps I’ve found with any connection to the Youngstown area, and his role in the acquisition and sale of these lands might well have justified a street name. Whether this is so or not, his story is relevant to the story of Youngstown and an interesting one at that.

Phelps was born near Poquonock, Connecticut, on October 21, 1749. His father died when he was young. He started working in a local store at age 7. By 1770, he had his own store in Granville, Massachusetts. He briefly fought with the Continental Army but left in 1777 to become Massachusetts Superintendent of Purchases of Army Supplies. He also served in the state legislature. He became a successful businessman and went on to serve in the Massachusetts Senate in 1785 and the governor’s council in 1786.

In the growing movement of Americans west of the Appalachians, Phelps and others recognized an opportunity. At various points he acquired interests in lands in western New York from Massachusetts and also along the Mississippi River. He eventually moved to Suffield, Connecticut but also resided in Canandaigua, New York, in the heart of his New York lands, where he built a gristmill and established an academy. Land speculation was risky. Purchases usually required huge loans and the hope is that sales would cover the payments due on the mortgages. In 1790, depressed prices led to him selling his home in Suffield and his interest in the Hartford National Bank and Trust Co.

Phelps did not give up after these failures but played a lead role in the formation of the Connecticut Land Company in 1795, and in arranging $1.2 million in financing to acquire 3 million acres of Western Reserve land from Connecticut, surveys of which began in 1796, followed by land sales, one of which was in 1797 to John Young who acquired 15,560 acres from the Connecticut Land Company for $16,085.16.

Not all went so well. There was no central coordination of sales efforts, uncertainties about land titles and about government protection from Native peoples still occupying the land. By 1800, only about 1,000 had moved to the Western Reserve, leading to depressed prices, giveaways and finally bankruptcy. Significant growth would come only after the War of 1812. Phelps, who had borrowed heavily, faced debtors prison, even though he was a New York legislator between 1803 and 1805. About the same time that the Connecticut Land Company dissolved, declaring bankruptcy, Phelps died, in 1809, by some accounts, in debtors prison.

Oliver Phelps was an entrepreneurial risk taker. While his investment in the Western Reserve went badly, his efforts in forming the Connecticut Land Company helped clear the way for men like John Young to acquire land on the banks of the Mahoning River. The only other place I can find that was named after him was Phelps, New York, located in upstate New York. If, indeed, Phelps Street gets its name from him, that seems fitting.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!