Every locality, however contracted, or, in the estimation of the masses, without anything worthy of note, has its historical materials that deserve to be collected, and accurately written and faithfully preserved.  Such is strictly true of the territory whose history we propose to sketch.
     But few pages of this history are occupied with the Dover and Trimble divisions, and Sunday Creek Valley plays a very subordinate part in the county affairs, while worthy of a far more extended notice.

OUTLINE VIEW OF THE WHOLE DISTRICT.

     There is a high elevation, like a natural mound, in southern Trimble, which throws within your horizon the whole territory, including the valleys of Sugar Creek, Hocking and Lower Sunday Creek, with its eastern and western tributaries.  the scenery from this
 

Page 732 -

IN SOUTH DOVER

Page 733 -

Page 734 -
True, John B. Johnson, William Hyde and John Pugsley, the original proprietor of Millfield, as the original incorporators, and Daniel Weethee, Alanson Hibbard and Azariah Pratt as Directors for the first year.

TOWNSHIP TRUSTEES FROM 1825 TO 1883.

Page 735 -

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FROM 1825 TO 1883

TRIMBLE TOWNSHIP

Page 736 -

Page 737 -

TOWNSHIP OFFICERS.

     The first election for township officers was held at the residence of William Bagley, James Price, James Bosworth, and Jeremiah Cass being the Judges, and Samuel B. Johnson and Cyrus Tuttle, Clerks.

TOWNSHIP TRUSTEES.

     1827, William Bagley, James Bosworth, Solomon Newton
     1828, Jeremiah Cass, Elijah Alderman, Solomon Newton,
     1829, Joseph McDonald, James Price, Solomon Newton,
     1830, David Eggleston, James Price, Solomon Newton;
     1831, Jonathan Watkins, James Price, Solomon Newton;
     1832, wanting;
     1833, Elijah Alderman; Thomas Dew, John Ivers;
     1834, Elijah Alderman; Luther Mingus, Enoch Rutter;
     1835, wanting;
     1836, Solomon Newton, Andrew McKee, William Shaner;
     1837, Jonathan Watkins, Andrew McKee, William Shaner;
     1838, Solomon Newton, Andrew McKee, Ebenezer Shaner;
     1839, William McKee, Andrew McKee, John Ivers;
     1840, Thomas L. Love, Andrew Rutter, wanting;
     1841, James Hoge, W. J. Hartley, wanting;
     1842, James Hoge, John B. Johnson, wanting;
     1843, James Hoge, Isaac N. Joseph, William J. Hartley;
     1844, William McClellan, Isaac N. Joseph, William J. Hartley;
     1845, Andrew McKee, Caleb Carter, Isaac Blackwood;
     1846, wanting;
     1847, William McClellan, Andrew Dew, J. D. Davis;
     1848, Andrew McKee, Andrew Dew, J. D. Davis;
     1849-'50, William McClellan, Andrew Dew, J. D. Davis;
     1851, William McClellan, William H. Peugh, S. T. Grow;
     1852, wanting;
     1853, James Hoge, John Ivers, wanting;
     1854, Andrew Dew, John Ivers, William McClellan;
     1855, wanting;
     1856, Joseph Allen, B. Worrell, Andrew Dew;
     1857, Benjamin Norris, John M. Johnson, Andrew Dew;
     1858-'59, William H. Peugh, William McClellan, S. P. Grow;
     1860-'61, William H. Peugh, William McClellan, L. H. Rhinehart;
     1862, William H. Peugh, William McClellan,

Page 738 -
Samuel Woodworth;
     1863, Samuel Banks, John Shaner, Samuel Woodworth;
     1864, Samuel Banks, John Gift, Dorsey McClellan;
     1865-'66, Milton Monroe, John Gift, J. C. Lefever;
     1867, William H. Peugh, Isaac Blackwood, Lemuel Bethel;
     1868, Samuel Banks, J. M. Amos, Joseph Allen,
     1869, Samuel Banks, E. H. Watkins, William Biddison;
     1870, Samuel Banks, James S. Jennings, William Biddison;
     1871, S. H. Johnson, J. W. Jones, Isaac Blackwood;
     1872, David Glenn, William H. Peugh, Joshua Sands;
     1873-'75, William H. Peugh, Joseph Allen, Jacob L. Wyatt;
     1876, A. B. Johnson, William H. Peugh, Jacob L. Wyatt;
     1877, William H. Peugh, A. B. Johnson, Jacob L. Wyatt;
     1878, Jacob L. Wyatt, James H. Jones, James F. Kempton;
     1879, James H. Jones, William H. Peugh, W. W. Anderson;
     1880-'81, James H. Jones, William Biddison, William H. Peugh;
     1882-'83, James H. Jones, Richard Daniels, William D. Peugh.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FROM 1827 TO 1883.

     1827, William Bagley;
     1830, James Price and Jeremiah Cass;
     1833, Daniel Frazer and Samuel Mills;
     1834, Emory Newton;
     1836, Seth Pratt and Samuel Mills;
     1838, Solomon Newton;
     1839, Samuel Mills;
     1840, David Allen;
     1841, John Ivers;
     1842, Morris Bryson;
     1844, John Ivers;
     1845, Morris Bryson;
     1847, Isaac N. Joseph;
     1848, George W. Roberts;
     1850, Aquilla Norris and Benjamin Norris;
     1851, Benjamin Norris and George W. Roberts;
     1853, Alexander McClellan;
     1854, William Biddison;
     1856, Isaac N. Joseph;
     1857, John M. Johnson (resigned Feb. 3, 1858);
     1858, Morris Bryson;
     1859, William H. Peugh;
     1861, Morris Bryson;
     1862, Lemuel Bethel;
     1864, William Biddison;
     1865, William Koons;
     1867, J. S. Dew;
     1868, Samuel Banks;
     1869, James F. Kempton, resigned;
     1870, James Rutter;
     1871, J. L. Porter;
     1874, E. N. Alderman;
     1876, William H. Johnston;
     1877, James Rutter;
     1878, W. H. Johnston;
     1880, W. W. Anderson;
     1882, James N. Sands;
     1883, Joseph W. Jones.

SUNDAY CREEK VALLEY.

     Under this head will be included all that remains to be said of Trimble and North Dover, except such general remarks as will be appropriate to notice in the scientific chapter of the "History of Hocking Valley."
     Under the above caption will be given a brief view of its topog-

Page 739 -
graphy, geological structure and its resources, together with its past history.  Our space is too limited to enter into detail.  We must leave the reader to amplify our thoughts and outline sketches as his knowledge and interest may dictate.
     Sunday Creek Valley is fan-shaped, with its axis at Chauncey, near the mouth of the creek, and its radiating parts spreading out so as to include all the territory drained by Sunday Creek and its branches.
     The springs which give rise to the extreme branches of Sunday Creek are wider apart than its head and mouth - wider than long.
     Sunday Creek Valley has its bottom lands, yet they do not form one of its distinctive features.  It is composed, principally, of ridges, spurs, inclined plains, ravines, gulches and valleys.  It has a face for every point in the heavens.  It has vastly more surface than sky.  Its base is contracted, but the sum of its surfaces is very considerable.  Though we thus truthfully describe its territory, we are happy to say that it has but a few rods of waste land.  Sunday Creek Valley has every variety of soil and exposure.  Its bottom lands are, in spots, composed of sand, produced by the disintegration of its sand rocks; in other localities they are alluvial; in other parts, clay, with a great variety of mixtures.  Our northern surfaces are often steep, the strata not being dissolved by the extremes of heat and cold, or by storms.  Our northern slopes are generally the most productive.  Our southern hillsides are often rather poor, yet they have their special uses.  Our east and west exposures are quite productive.
     Sunday Creek Valley has its agricultural resources, still agriculture is not its specialty.  Its soil produces fair crops of wheat, rye, Indian corn, potatoes, grass, turnips, and all kinds of vegetables suited to its latitude.  Its hills are suited to the rearing of sheep, cattle, and all kinds of stock.  It is a land adopted to vine and fruit culture.  On advantage it has, worthy of special note; such is its variety of soil and exposures that there is scarcely ever a season without fruit, either on the ridges, on the slopes, in the ravines, or on the bottom lands.  The soil, if scientifically cultivated, is quite productive, capable of sustaining a dense population.

MINERAL RESOURCES OF SUNDAY CREEK VALLEY.

     Its mineral deposits are the most noted feature of Sunday Creek Valley.  In its coal deposits it is, perhaps, superior to any other

Page  740 -
territory of equal size in the State.  This will appear by an examination of its geological structure, which we proceed, briefly, to investigate.
     Sunday Creek Valley is an erosion of the lower coal measures, there being no discoverable marks of volcanic action.  In the gulches, ravines and valleys, the strata are in place on opposite sides - a proof that running water formed them.  These depressions, therefore, are erosions, and the entire valley is a "wash-out" of past ages.  The process is still in progress, every flood wafting tons of disintegrated rocks and minerals toward the Mexican Gulf, it will be readily seen that the main stream and its tributaries are increasing in length, are becoming wider from bank to bank, while their flow decreases in velocity.  The waters are lowering the dividing ridges and spurs, while they are filling up deep cavities and evening the inclined planes at the bottoms of the principal streams.  The washing-down process would, in time, make plain of the valley.  In the gulches, ravines and valleys, the strata for 600 feet are vertically exposed.  Shafts have been sunk to the fire-clay under the great seam of coal, and salt wells have penetrated 400 feet further.  The strata are, therefore, known in  a vertical section of 1,100 feet.  We are more particularly concerned with the strata of the upper 700 feet.  Beginning our examination of this vertical section twenty-six feet below the Nelsonville coal seam (great seam) we find our lowest coal vein two feet and six inches thick.  This is a rich, gas-producing coal.  Twenty-six feet above this vein is the great coal seam.  In five wells its average thickness is nine feet three inches.  In three shafts its average is above the same.  This is for the entire surface of 35,000 acres.  Seventy-five feet above the great vein is the Bailey's Run coal.  In the lower Sunday Creek Valley this seam lies at the bases of our hills.  Its average thickness is four feet six inches.  Very excellent coke has been made from this seam of coal.  It is an excellent gas-making and parlor coal.  This coal is mined by drifting.  The following analysis of a sample of this coal from section 34, Dover, was made by Prof. Wormley (State Chemist): "Specific gravity, 1,309; moisture 4.20; ash, 2.60; volatile combustible matter, 35.20; fire carbon, 58.00; total, 100.00 parts.  Sulphur, 1.04; sulphur left in coke, 0.41; percentage of sulphur in coke, 0.67; gas per pound in cubic foot, 3.97; color of ash, gray; coke compact."  The State Geologist makes the following remark: "This shows a very excellent coal.  The ash is small and the fixed

Page 741 -
carbon is large, and the amount of gas is also large.  The coal loses so much of its sulphur in coking that the coke is relatively free from it."  Thirty-seven feet above the Bailey's Run coal seam, with a thick vein of iron ore between, is a vein of about two feet of coal.  About seventy-five feet above this seam is another vein of coal two and one-half feet thick.  About 200 feet above the last is the Pittsburg, or Pomeroy, coal vein, from four to eight feet thick.  In this vertical section of 700 feet, we can count thirteen horizons of iron ore and eleven horizons of limestone.
     Sunday Creek Valley contains a vast amount of excellent sand rock for glass-making and building purposes.  It has large quarries of flag-stone.  Its deposits of fire-clay are immense.  Our six coal seams will aggregate about twenty-seven feet.  Our two workable seams average thirteen feet.
     Such is a brief outline of the mineral resources of Sunday Creek Valley.  This is claimed of the valley, that, for variety of minerals, amount and quality, as a whole, its peer cannot be found.  Trimble township and North Dover have more mineral wealth than can be found under an equal area (35,000 acres) anywhere else in Ohio, or perhaps in the world.  We shall have occasion to strengthen these statements when the mineral resources of Hocking Valley are investigated.  We shall not take up the history of this valley from the time  that it began to be settled by the whites.
     We have already given its civil history.  Its schools, its social and religious history demand further attention.  Society is the normal state of all living beings.  Man is no exception to this general law.  The world has been peopled by groups; groups have formed societies; societies have been gathered into villages, towns, cities, States, kingdoms and empires.  Thus was America peopled; thus was Ohio settled; and by the same law Sunday Creek Valley received its first white inhabitants.  The Ohio Company's purchase gave cast to the first settlers of the valley.  Those that had a desire to go West from the New England States, hearing such flattering accounts of the district now forming Southeastern Ohio, purchased lands of that company, and moved West to occupy them.  Sunday Creek Valley, therefore, received its first white population from New England.  They brought with them, as a matter of necessity, their religion, manners, customs and educational spirit.  But the valley to which they removed was truly a "howling wilderness."  Savages occupied the lands that they had purchased, and, with various wild beasts, disputed with them the right of possession.

Page 742 -

     A change in their manner of living was necessary consequence.  New thoughts followed, and, consequently, a new course of action.  In a few years they were comparatively a new people - Wilderness Yankees.  They formed new ideas in every department of human thought.  With minds as free as their breathing apparatus, they began to entertain new religious notions.  They read their Bibles and did their own thinking.  So soon as they were sufficiently  numerous to have religious assemblies and form churches, the fruits of independent thinking were clearly seen.  No New England churches were ever formed in Sunday Creek Valley.  The inhabitants were principally what were called "New Lights," and afterward "Christians," more usually denominated "Disciples," and by their enemies, "Campbellites."  Methodist and Baptist churches have often been formed, but their prosperity ahs not been very satisfactory.
     Schools have always been sustained.  Education belongs to New England life.  A love for it is inherent in their very being.  The branches taught were at first few, imperfectly understood, and unskillfully taught.  In the early settlements, teachers knew nothing of geography, but little of English grammar, taught reading, writing and spelling.  All higher branches of science were the great unknown.

SOCIAL PERIODS OF SUNDAY CREEK VALLEY.

     These will be the better illustrated by examining their materials of dress.  For the sake of convenience we divide its past history into periods, named after the chief article of clothing.
     1. Bucklin Period. - When the people had worn out their Eastern wardrobes, to replenish with like articles was impossible.  They were, therefore, obliged to go like the savages, or clothe themselves with some domestic production.  They tanned deer-skins, fashioned garments, and clothed their nakedness.  Some tall courtships and interesting marriages belong to this primitive age.
     2. Linsey-Woolsey Period. - The age of primitive simplicity soon began to yield to the march of Yankee progress.  Flax and wool were combined and woven into cloth.  Garments made of these materials became the fashionable wear of this advanced period; not, however, without the cry of "pride" and "extravagance."
     3. The Modern, or Silk Period. - This period was never fully adopted, except by the "Upper tens."  The calico period is the

Page 743 -
popular one of the valley.  These four periods - the Buckskin, Lindsey-Woolsey, Calico and Silk, mark the progress of society in Sunday Creek Valley.

BIOGRAPHICAL - DOVER
pgs. 743 - 789

WILLIAM BELL
HIRAM BINGHAM
ORRIN R. BIRGE
TOBIAS BOUDINOT
JOHN W. BRAWLEY
[PORTRAIT OF CHARLES HENRY]
ORMOND G. BURGE
WILLIAM W. BURGE
SIMEON W. CASS
CHARLES P. CLESTER
HYRCANUS CONNETT
DANIEL COOTS
JOHN COULSON
EBENEZER DAINS
JOSEPH B. DOUGHTY
THOMAS ELLIS
AUSTIN FULLER
DUDLEY D. FULLER
RUSSELL N. FULLER, M. D.
DANIEL FULTON
JOHN HARVEY
JAMES C. HEADLEY
WILLIAM HENRY
WILLIAM S. HYDE
NORVAL W. JAMES
WILLIAM JOHNSON
A. J. LEARNED, M. D.
AARON LEWIS
PULASKI LOWRY
ABRAM MARTIN
HENRY F. McCOY, M. D.
JOSEPH A. McKEE
JAMES McKITRICK, M. D.
JEREMIAH MORRIS
JOHN MOURN
WILLIAM OGG
RAV. J. GREEN POTTER
EBENEZER PRATT
WILLIAM H. PRICE
PETER RUSH
JOEL SANDERS
EBENEZER SHANER
WILLIAM O. SILVEY
CHARLES R. SMITH
DAVID SMITH
WILLIAM SMITH
CHARLES W. SOUTHERTON
JAMES P. SOUTHERTON
JONATHAN SPAULDING
JOHN A. STEPHENSON
AUSTIN TRUE
J. P. WEETHEE
LAURENTIUS WEETHEE
ANDREW J. WILLMARTH
 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF TRIMBLE TOWNSHIP

JOSIAH ALLEN - 770
THOMAS BIDDISON - 770
WILLIAM BIDDISON, JR. - 770
WM. H. BRADDOCK - 771
ISAAC E. CHAPPELEAR - 771
HARVEY D. DANFORD, M. D. - 772
SILAS J. DANFORD - 773
M. P. DAVIS, M. D. - 773
LEWIS W. FULTON - 774
OLIVER D. JACKSON - 774
J. W. JENKINS - 775
SOLOMON H. JOHNSON - 776
J. H. JONES - 776
J. W. JONES - 777
JAMES F. KEMPTON - 778
STEPHEN T. KEMPTON - 779
PETER ROBINS KIDWELL - 779
SAMUEL M. LEFEVER - 780
JOHN B. LOVE - 780
WILLIAM PALMER - 781
C. H. PETTIT - 782
J. W. ROBINSON - 782
GEORGE A. RUSSELL - 782
[PORTRAIT OF ISAAC MATHIAS]
HEZEKIAH T. SANDERS - 783
SETH SHANER, M. D. - 784
WILLIAM SHANER - 784
J. TAYLOR - 785
MORGAN W. THARP - 785
THOMAS J. THARP - 786
CHARLES S. TINKER - 786
JOSIAH TRUE - 787
JOSHUA WAREHIME - 787
WILLIAM J. WELLS - 788
THOMAS R. WHITE - 788
JACOB L. WYATT - 789
JOSEPH ZIMMERMAN - 789
 

FULL LIST OF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.