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roundings, see Judge PATRICK's able, minute, and satisfactory history, found in the body of his work, in which he has placed me under many obligations, and also done himself credit, and the city of Urbana, of which he writes.
     I find in Howe's History of Ohio the names of a few of the first settlers in Urbana and also in the rural districts, and although most of the names found in his history will be found in the body of his work, for fear some valuable names may be overlooked I here transcribe them.  But let the reader be assured that most of those honored and venerated names will appear in these pages.
     But before I proceed to record those names I wish to make a remark or two in regard to the first settlers of this county.  In vain have I made inquiry of the oldest living pioneers as to the first white man that settled here.  Likewise the public records have been searched with the same unsatisfactory results.  IT may seem to a matter of very little consequence who first settled a country, but we find people in all ages disposed to attach very great importance to so apparently trifling a circumstance.  The Carthginians have their Dido, the Greeks their Cecrops, and the Romans their Romulus; so in our own country William PENN settled Pennsylvania; BOONE, Kentucky, &c.; and in the most of the counties of this State the first settlers are known, and the date of their settlement.  I find in a very able and interesting document, furnished me for this work by an old and respected pioneer, Mr. ARROWSMITH, the name of Wm. OWENS, who, he says, came to this county in the year 1797 or 1798.  I think it not unlikely that he was the first white man that made this county his home.
     I now commence the list of names: Joseph C. VANCE, Thos. and Ed. W. PEARCE, George FITHIAN, Sam'l. McCORD, Zeph. LUSE, Benj. DOOLITTLE, George and Andrew WARD, Wm. H. FYFFE, Wm. and John GLENN, Frederick AMBROSE, John REYNOLDS and Sam'l. GIBBS.  Those living in the country - Jacob MINTURN, Henry and Jacob ANDERSON, Abner BARRET, Thomas Pearce, Benj. and Wm. CHENEY, Matthew and Charles STUART, Parker SULLIVAN, John LOGAN, John THOMAS, John RUNYON, John LAFFERTY, John OWENS, John TAYLOR, John GUTTRIDGE, John CARTMELL, John DAWSON, John PENCE, Jonathan LONG, Bennet TABER, Nathan FITCH, Robert NOWCE, Jacob PENCE and ARTHUR THOMAS.
     Joseph C. VANCE was the father of Ex-Governor VANCE, and was

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the first Clerk of the Court in this County.  Capt. Arthur THOMAS, whose name is in the above list, lived on King's Creek, about three miles North of Urbana.  HE was ordered to Fort Findlay with his Company, to guard the public stores at that place, and on their return they encamped at the Big Spring near an old Indian town called Solomon's Town, about seven miles north of Bellefontaine.
     Their horses having strayed away in the night, he and his son went in pursuit of them.  When they had got some distance from the encampment they were discovered by the Indians, who attacked them with an overpowering force and they were killed and scalped and left dead on the spot.
     Urbana was a frontier town during the war 1812.  HULL's army was quartered here the same year, before taking up their line of march for Detroit.  In fact, it was a place of general rendezvous for the troops starting for the defense of our northern frontier.  They were encamped in the eastern part of the city, and here lie the bodies of many brave soldiers mingled with their mothers dust,  and no monument to mark the place where they rest, nor to tell the story of their sufferings; even their names have perished with them.  All we can do now is to drop a tear over their sleeping dust and say, "Here lie in peaceful slumbers the brave defenders of our once frontier homes."
     In penning these sketches, I find myself very much in the condition of the early pioneer who had to blaze his way through a dense forest to find his way from one place to another.  Fortunately for me, however, others have preceded me and blazed the way to some extent for me.  And to none, perhaps, am I under more obligations than to Mr. HOWE, in his History of Ohio; and he is not entirely reliable, for I have been obliged to make some corrections in his statements of facts in the history of this country.  For instance, the time of settlement of Logan County, putting it in the year 8106, when in fact it was settled in the year 1801.  Also, the names of the first settlers.  Of course he had to rely on others for information, and they did not know; but in the main, however, I believe he is correct.
     I now resume my sketch of Urbana:  On the corner of Public Square and North Main street - now McDONALD's Corner, but in the war of 1812 called Doolittle's Tavern - were the headquarters of Governor MEIGS.  On the opposite corner - now ARMSTRONG's Bank - stood a two story brick house, and on the end fronting the

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Square, could be seen the date of its erection - 1811.  This was occupied for many years by D. & T. M. GWYNNE as a stoore-room.  All the old settlers of Champaign now living, will call to mind the once familiar face of Robert MURDOCK, was with his obliging and gentlemanly manners, who was then a partner in the firm.
     The above described building was the place where the commissary's office was kept during the war of 1812, and is the one to which Richard M. Johnson was brought wounded after his personal and deadly conflict with the renowned Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames.
     Urbana was visited by a dreadful tornado on the 22d of March, 1830.  Passing from the South-west to the North-east, it leveled the Presbyterian Church with the ground, and unroofed the M. E. Church, throwing it down to within a few feet of its foundation.  Both of these buildings were substantial brick edifices; also, a great many private residences were either unroofed or wholly demolished, killing three children and crippling others.  For a more satisfactory account, see Judge Patrick's history of Urbana in this work.
     I can not leave Urbana without giving a short account of the old Court House, built in 1817.  I have never seen a description of this then imposing structure.  It stood in the center of the Public Square, now called, I believe, Monument Square, fronting North and South, built of brick, two stories high, the roof having four sides, coming to a point in the center, surmounted by a cupola and spire on which was a globe and a fish that turned with the wind.  The main entrance was on the South.  This, for the time in which it was built, was an elegant and commodious public building.
     How many pleasant and interesting memories cluster around this, to the old pioneer, almost hallowed spot!  Here, too, or near this spot, many a soldier breathed his last and bade adieu to all earthly conflicts.  And the soldier mounted on the pedestal on the spot where the old Court House stood, surveying with down-cast eyes and in solemn and impressive silence the battlefields of Gettysburg and Shiloh, may drop a tear over the graves of those heroes that freely shed their blood in the defense of our country in the war of 1812.