< BACK TO 1869 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX >
< CLICK HERE to GO to LIST of HISTORIES and BIOGRAPHICAL INDEXES >
 

JOSIAH TRUE, the companion and friend of Daniel Weethee, was born in New Hampshire, Oct. 25, 1776, came to Marietta in 1793, and to Dover township in 1800.  He held the office of justice of the peace in Dover, from 1815 till 1851, and was respected and popular.  He died Sept. 16, 1855.  Mr. True was one of the founders of the "Coonskin library," of Ames, and always a leader in pioneer improvements.  One of the first spinning wheels introduced into Dover was bought by him in 1803.  Having accumulated a few bear and deer skins he carried them on his back to Zanesville, forty miles distant, purchased the wheel with the proceeds of the skins, brought it home on his back (walking all the way), and made the round trip of eighty miles in two days.      Most of the early settlers engaged more or less in hunting, depending mainly on the forests for fresh meat.  On one occasion Josiah True and Cyrus Tuttle, his brother-in-law, drove a bear into a cave on the farm now owned by Mr. Austin True, in Dover.  They succeeded in shooting the animal in a narrow passage of the cave, and, having fastened a hickory withe to his nose, were about to drag it to the open air.  Mr. True  entered the cave, and got behind the dead bear to assist Tuttle in shoving it out, when another bear, hitherto unobserved, came rushing from the rear end of the cave, directly on and over True's back, crushing him down on his face with great violence, and so made its escape out of the cave.      Mr. True, at a very early day, bought some choice apples at Marietta, and sowed the seed from them, from which he established the first nursery attempted in the county.  Most of the old orchards on Sunday and Monday creeks were planted from this nursery, and some of the trees are still bearing. Source:  History of Athens County, Ohio - By Charles M. Walker, Publ. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1869 - Page 470