Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/126

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��HISTORY OF OHIO.

��McCulloh, who could hardly read, was authorized to assort the mails and send each package in its proper • direction. For this service he received $r>0 per annum ; but owing to his inability to read well, Mr. Convers generally performed the duty. At that time, the mails met here once a week. Four years after, the settlement had so increased that a regular post office was opened, and Thomas Dowden appointed Postmaster. He kept his office in a wooden building near the river bank.

Messrs. Zane and Mclntire laid out a town in 1799, which they called Westbourn. When the post office was established, it was named Zanesville, and in a short time the village took the same name. A few families settled on the west side of the river, soon after McCulloh arrived, and as this locality grew well, not long after a store and tavern was opened here. Mr. Mclntire built a double log cabin, which was used as a hotel, and in which Louis Philippe, King of France, was once enter- tained. Although the fare and accommodations were of the pioneer period, the honorable guestseems to have enjoyed his visit, if the statements of Lewis Cass in his " Camp and Court of Louis Philippe" may be believed.

In 1804, Muskingum County was formed by the Legislature, and, for a while, strenuous efforts made to secure the State capital by the citizens of Zanes- ville. They even erected buildings for the use of the Legislature and Grovernor, and during the ses- sions of 1810—11, the temporary seat of govern- ment was fixed here. When the permanent State capital was chosen in 181G, Zanesville was passed by, and gave up the hope. It is now one of the most enterprising towns in the Muskingum Valley.

During the summer of 1797, John Knoop, then living four miles above Cincinnati, made several expeditions up the Miami Valley and selected the land on which he afterward located. The next spring Mr. Knoop, his brother Benjamin, Henry (jrarard, Benjamin Hamlet and John Tildus estab- lished a station in what is now Miami County, near the present town of Staunton Village. That sum- mer, Mrs. Knoop planted the first apple-tree in the Miami * country. They all lived together for greater safety for two years, during which time they were occupied clearing their farms and erect- ing dwellings. During the summer, th<^ site of Piqua was settled, and three young men located at a place known as " Freeman's Prairie." Those who

��* The word Miami in the Indian tongue signified mother. The Miamia were the original owners of the valley by that name, and affirmed they were created there.

��settled at Piqua were Samuel Hilliard, Job Garard, Shadrac Hudson, Jonah Rollins, Daniel Cox, Thomas Rich, and a Mr. Hunter. The last named came to the site of Piqua first in 1797, and selected his home. Until 1799, these named were the only ones in this locality ; but that year emi- gration set in, and very shortly occupied almost all the bottom laud in Miami County. With the increase of emigration, came the comforts of life, and mills, stores and other necessary aids to civil- ization, were ere long to be seen.

The site of Piqua is quite historic, being the theater of many important Indian occurrences, and the old home of the Shawanees, of which tribe Tecumseh was a chief. During the Indian war, a fort called Fort Piqua was built, near the residence of Col. John Johnston, so long the faitl^ i- ful Indian Agent. The fort was abandoned at tjie close of hostilities. n

When the Miami Canal was opened through; this part of the State, the country began rapiiU'J to improve, and is now probably one of the besjt por- tions of Ohio. ^

About the same time the Miami was settf^*^, a company of people fi-om Pennsylvania and * ir- ginia, who were principally of German and Ii^ish descent, located in Lawrence County, near the irorl region. As soon as that ore was made available, that part of the State rapidly filled with settlers, most of whom engaged in the mining and working of iron ore. Now it is very prosperous.

Another settlement was made the same sea.son, 1797, on the Ohio side of the river, in Columbia County. The settlement progressed slowly for a while, owing to a few difficulties with the Indians. The celebrated Adam Poe had been here as early as 1782, and several localities are made locally famous by his and his brother's adventures.

In this county, on Little Beaver Creek, near its mouth, the second paper-mill west of the Alle- ghanies was erected in 1805-6. It was the pioneer enterprise of the kind in Ohio, and was named the Ohio Paper-Mill. Its proprietors were John Bever and John Coulter.

One of the most noted localities in the State is comprised in Greene County. The Shawanee town, " Old Chillicothe," was on the Little Miami, in this county, about three miles north of the site of Xenia. This old Indian town was, in the an- nals of the West, a noted place, and is frequently noticed. It is first mentioned in 1773, by Capt. Thomas Bullitt, of Virginia, who boldly advanced alone into the town and obtained the consent of

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