HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, O.
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     A history of Fairfield county in 1876, just seventy-six years subsequent to its first organization, has been no easy task; first, because the pioneers have nearly all passed away; and secondly, because there are no records of much that would be requisite to make up a complete history.  This is much to be regretted.  So far as they could serve me, however, I have collected from state historics, and from state and county records, statistical and other matter.  Beyond this I have collected from living witnesses who have been life-long citizens of the county, so much of personal history, and incident, and anecdote, together with pioneer reminiscences, as it has been possible to do.  Much of this, however, as above remarked, is lost, because those who first broke the forest and planted civilization and religion in the Hocking Valley, were dead before the conception of this work by the humble writer had been formed.  This occasion is taken, however, to say, that the book is presented to the public as a pretty full and, as is believed, an entirely correct and authentic history.  Nevertheless, brevity and condensation have been observed, because the author has desired to bring the work within the financial ability of every citizen, by producing a cheap book.  But readers must excuse the limits of personal history, since, to write out even brief notices of all pioneers who deserve mention, would require several volumes.
     Our history begins with the beginning of the white settlements in the Hocking Valley.  Beyond that, through the ages of the unknown past, there is no vista for our eyes; nothing to count the centuries by; and imagination is content to picture an indefinite routine of years during which the awful solitude was only broken by the discordant utterances of wild beasts, and the scarcely less savage war whoop of the red man.  Fancy runs wild in trying to conjecture what was here before the tread of the Anglo Saxon race came, and the sound of the woodman's ax and the tinkling cow bell were heard.  All is lost in oblivion.
     In conclusion of these opening remarks, the compiler begs leave to say, that he was born in western Ohio in the beginning of the present century, and has therefore been identified with the country from the time when the first log cabins were built, and the first paths were blazed through the wilderness, and has been familiar with all the transformations.  He has known the country in a state of nature; and has seen the wilderness become a garden.

PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
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     Marietta and Fort Harmer, at the mouth of the Muskingum, were the first settlements were begun there about the year 1777, or 1778.  Washington county, so named in honor of General Washington of revolutionary fame, was one of the four counties into which the territory of Ohio was divided first, by proclamation of Governor Arthur St. Clair.  Its boundaries extended north with the Pennsylvania line to Lake Erie, embracing all that part of the state known as the Western Reserve, and extending down the lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, where Cleveland now is; thence south on a line to the Ohio river.
     Not long after the settlements at Marietta began, scouts from there penetrated the wilderness to the Hockhocking, and up that stream as far as where Lancaster now stands.  At that time the Wyandot Indians occupied the valley of the Hocking, and held it as did all the aboriginal tribes of North America by the right of undisturbed possession for unknown ages.  There were two Indian towns at that time within what is the present limits of Fairfield county.  The principle one was Tarhe town, situated on the north bank of Hocking, and occupying the same grounds now owned and used by the Rail Road companies, on the south east borders of Lancaster.  This town was governed by Chief Tarhe, who was said to be rather a noble Indian.  The town was believed at that time to contain about five hundred inhabitants.  There was another small village of the Wyandots' nine miles west of Tarhe Town, near the present site of Royalton.  This was Toby Town, and was governed by an inferior chief whose name was Toby.
     At the close of the Indian wars of the north west, a general treaty was held at Fort Greenville, the present county seat of Darke county, Ohio.  In this treaty the Wyandots surrendered their possessions on the Hockhocking, and soon afterward removed to the Sandusky. There were however a few of their number who for several years afterwards lingered about the country, as if unwilling to leave their old hunting grounds and the graves of their relatives.  They were for the most part peaceable, and gave little trouble to the white settlements, unless where they were misused.  But at last, finding the game becoming scarce, they went away and joined their friends at the north.  The treaty of Greenville was signed on the 3 of August, 1795.
     Fairfield county was first organized in 1800 by proclamation of Governor St. Clair.  At that time it embraced nearly all of the present counties of Licking and Knox, with also portions of Perry, Hocking and Pickaway.  Subsequently, as emigration flowed into the country, and new counties began to be formed, Fairfield was contracted to near its present outlines, and still later other portions were struck off to adjoining counties, which will be noticed in the proper place.
     In 1840 Fairfield county consisted of fourteen townships, viz: Amanda, Berne, Bloom, Clear Creek, Greenfield, Hocking, Liberty, Madison, Perry, Pleasant, Richland, Rush Creek, Violet, and Walnut.  In that year the aggregate population of the county was 31,859, or 59 inhabitants to the square mile.  Previous to 1820 no authorized enumerations were taken, consequently no populations can be given.  In 1820 the first enumeration of the people was taken by authority of Congress, as a basis of representation, and thereafter at the end of each succeeding ten years.  In 1820 the population of Fairfield county was 16,508; in 1830, 24,753; in 1840, 31,859; and in 1870 it was 35,456.  Arthur St. Clair was appointed Governor of the territory of Ohio by General Washington, then President of the United States, in 1788, and continued to fill that office until 1802, when the state was admitted into the union.
     Fairfield county was so named from the circumstance of so many beautiful champaign fields of land lying within its original boundaries.  According to the best information derivable from existing maps of the old surveys, made previous to the beginning of the white settlements off from the Ohio river, the county seems to be within that tract of country once known as the purchase of the Ohio Land company; but these maps are believed to be inaccurate, and therefore unreliable.  This is a matter now however of little importance to history.

FIRST SETTLEMENT.
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     In the year 1797, one Ebenezer Zane entered into a contract with the government to open a road from Wheeling, Virginia, to Limestone, Kentucky, (now Maysville) over the most eligible route, including also the establishment of three ferries, viz. one over the Muskingum, one over the Scioto, and one over the Ohio.  There are different statements as to what kind of a road it was to be.  By some it is said it was to be a wagon road; others, that his contract embraced nothing more than the blazing of the trees, as a guide for travellers.  The former is the reasonable conclusion, and is best sustained, as the mere blazes on ranges of trees would not constitute a passable road for travel, and therefore of no use for emigration.  The country was at that time an unbroken wilderness the entire distance of 226 miles, and the undertaking was at once arduous and perilous, as hostile bands of Indians were still more or less roving over the country.  He however successfully accomplished the work, and the route was denominated Zane's Trace, and continued to be so called for many years after the state was settled.  The route of Zane's Trace lay through where Zanesville now is, and also through Lancaster, crossing the Hocking two or three hundred years south of the present Chillicothe pike, and about one half mile west of the crossing of Main and Broad streets.
     The compensation which Mr. Zane received for this service consisted of three several parcels, or tracts of land, patented to him by Congress, and of the dimensions of one mile square each.  One of these tracts he located on the Muskingum, where Zanesville stands, and one on the Hocking, embracing the present site of Lancaster.
     Following is an extract from an address delivered by General George Sanderson before the Lancaster Literary Society, is the month of March, 1844.  General Sanderson was identified with the very earliest times of Fairfield county and Lancaster, having come to the settlement at the beginning of the present century, in company with his fathers' family, and continuing to be a resident of Lancaster till the close of his life, in the year 1870.  His contribution to the early history of Fairfield county is therefore most valuable, as there are few, if any of the earliest pioneers left to tell of the events and times now three quarters of a century past.
     "In 1797, Zanes' Trace having opened a communication between the Eastern States and Kentucky, many individuals in both directions wishing to better their conditions in life by emigrating and settling in the "back woods", so called, visited the Hocking Valley for that purpose and finding the country surpassingly fertile, - abounding in fine springs of pure water, they determined to make it their new home.
     "In April 1798, Capt. Joseph Hunter, a bold and enterprising man, with his family, emigrated from Kentucky and settled on Zanes' Trace, upon the bank of a prairie west of the crossings, and about two hundred yards north of the present turnpike road, and which place was called "Hunter's settlement." - Here he cleared off the under-brush, felled the forest trees, and erected a cabin, at a time when he had not a neighbor nearer than the Muskingum and Scioto rivers.  This was the commencement of the settlement in the upper Hocking Valley, and Capt. Hunter is regarded as the founder of the flourishing and populous county of Fairfield.  He lived to see the country densely settled and in a high state of improvement, and died about the year 1829.  His wife was the first white woman that settled in the valley, and shared with her husband the toils, sufferings, hardships and privations incident to the formation of new settlements in the wilderness.  During the spring of the same year, (1798) Nathaniel Wilson, the elder, John and Allen Green and Joseph McMullen, Robert Cooper, Isaac Shaeffer, and a few others, reached the valley, erected cabins and put in crops.
     "In 1799 the tide of emigration set in with great force.  In the spring of this year, two settlements were begun in the present township of Greenfield; each settlement contained twenty or thirty families.  One was the falls of Hocking, and the other was Yankeytown.  Settlements were also made along the river below Hunters, on Rush Creek, Fetters Run, Raccoon, Pleasant Run, Toby Town, Mudy Prairie, and on Clear Creek.  In the fall of 1799, Joseph Loveland and Hezekian Smith erected a log grist mill at the upper falls of Hocking, now called the Rock Mill.  This was the first mill built on the Hockhocking.
     "In April 1799, Samuel Coates, Sen.,  and Samuel Coates, Jun., from England, built a cabin in the prairie, at the "Crossing of Hocking"; kept bachelors hall, and raised a crop of corn.  In the latter part of the year a mail route was established along Zanes' Trace from Wheeling to Limestone.  The mail was carried through on horseback, and at first only once a week.  Samuel Coates, Sen., was the postmaster, and kept his office at the Crossing.  This was the first established mail route through the interior of the territory, and the Samuel Coates was the first postmaster at the new settlement.
     "The settlers subsisted principally on corn broad, potatoes, milk and butter, and wild meats, flour, tea, and coffee were scarcely to be had, and when brought to the country, such prices were asked as to put it out of the power of many to purchase.  Salt was an indispensable article, and cost, at the Scioto salt works, $5.00 for fifty pounds; flour cost $16.00 per barrel; tea $2.50 per pound; coffee $1.50; spice and pepper $1.00 per pound."
     Such was the beginning of the settlements in the Hocking Valley, where Fairfield county is situated, coeval with the commencement of the nineteenth century.  It is proper to pause here and speak of the beginning of Lancaster, before further developing our history, because Lancaster was laid out before the county of Fairfield was declared, and two years previous to the adoption of the constitution of the state of Ohio.

(picture of Joseph Hunter's Cabin, 1796)

LANCASTER.
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     Ebenezer Zane was the original proprietor of the town.  It will be remembered that he was already the owner of the one section of land at the crossing of Hocking.  Upon that tract Lancaster now stands.  In the fall of 1800, Mr. Zane laid out and sold the first lots.  The rates ranged from $5.00 to $50.00 a log, according to location.  A large proportion of the first settlers of Lancaster were mechanics, who erected cabins with little delay, finding the materials mainly on their lots.  To encourage emigration, Mr. Zane gave a few lots to such mechanics as would agree to build cabins on them and go to work at their respective trades; and it is said, that the work of organization went on so rapidly, that by the spring of 1801 the streets and alleys in the central part of the town assumed the shape they still retain.  "New Lancaster" was the name first given to the place, in compliment to emigrants from Lancaster, Pa., who made up a considerable proportion of the first settlers.  The name however was changed by the Legislature in 1805, to Lancaster, Ohio, to avoid confusion in the postal service.  The title, New Lancaster, nevertheless continued to be used for more than twenty years afterwards.  We continue quotations from General Sanderson's address.
     "About this time merchants and professional men made their appearance.  The Reverend John Wright, of the Presbyterian church, settled in Lancaster in 1801; and the Rev. Asa Shin, and the Rev. James Quinn, of the Methodist church, traveled the Fairfield circuit very early.
     "Shortly after the settlement, and while the stumps remained in the streets, a small portion of the settlers indulged in drinking frolicks, ending frequently in fights.  In the absence of law, the better disposed part of the population determined to stop the growing evil.  They accordingly met, and resolved, that any person of the town found intoxicated, should, for every such offence, dig a stump out of the streets, or suffer personal chastisement.  The result was, that after several offenders had expiated their crimes, dram drinking ceased, and for a time all became a sober, temperate and happy people.
     "On the 9 of December, 1800, the Governor and council of the North Western territory organized the county of Fairfield, and designated New Lancaster as the seat of justice.  The county then embraced within its limits all, or nearly all, of present counties of Licking and Knox, a large portion of Perry, and small parts of Pickaway and Hocking counties."

FIRST BORN.
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     It has been a subject of some discussion of late years, as to who was the first born white male child within the borders of Fairfield county.  In Howe's history of Ohio, published in 1848, he says, that Buhama Green (Builderback) gave birth to the first boy.  This is beyond question an error.  It has commonly been understood about Lancaster, that the late Hocking H. Hunter, of Lancaster, son of Capt. Joseph Hunter, first emigrant, was the first born.  This however is contested.  Mr. Levi Stuart, now a citizen of Lancaster, whose father was among the first settlers at Yankeetown, in conversation with the writer, recently, said it was understood between him and Mr. Hunter, that he, Mr. Stuart, was thirteen months the oldest.  And I have been told there is a fourth contestant on Clear Creek.  We will not try to settle the question, since it is of small importance in history.
     Mrs. Buhama Green, as Mrs. Builderback, has a tragic history that deserves full mention, as she was not only a pioneer, but long and well known, she having lived in the same neighborhood where she first settled, three miles west of Lancaster, about fourty-four years, or until the close of her life, which took place in 1842, at a very advanced age.  Following is a transcription of the tragic part of her life from the pen of Colonel John McDonald, of Ross county.  It is probably the fullest and most authentic account of any written.
     Mrs. Buhama Green was born and raised in Jefferson county, Virginia.  In 1785 she was married to Charles Builderback, and with him crossed the mountains and settled at the mouth of Short Creek, on the east bank of the Ohio river, a few miles above Wheeling.  Her husband, a brave man, had on many occasions distinguished himself in repelling the Indians, who had often felt the sure aim of his unerring rifle.  They therefore determined at all hazards to kill him.
     "On a beautiful summer morning in June, 1789, at a time when it was thought the enemy had abandoned the western shores of the Ohio, Captain Charles Builderback and his wife, and brother Jacob Builderback, crossed the Ohio to look after some cattle.  On reaching the shore, a party of fifteen or twenty Indians rushed out from an ambush and fired upon them, wounding Jacob in the shoulder.  Charles  was taken while running to escape.  In the meantime Mrs. Builderback secreted herself in some drift wood near the bank of the river.  As soon as the Indians had secured and tied her husband, and not being able to discover her hiding place, they compelled him, with threats of immediate death, to call her to him.  With a hope of appeasing their fury, he did so.  She heard him, but made no answer.  "Here," to use her own words, "a struggle took place in my own breast which I cannot describe.  Shall I go to him and become a prisoner; or shall I remain; return to our cabin, and provide for and take care of our two children?"  He shouted to her a second time to come to him, saying, that if she did it might be the means of saving his life.  She no longer hesitated, left her place of safety, and surrendered herself to his savage captors.  All this took place in full view of their cabin on the opposite shore of the river, and where they had left their two children, one son about three years of age, and an infant daughter.  The Indians knowing that they would be pursued as soon as the news of their visit reached the stockade at Wheeling, commenced their retreat.  Mrs. Builderback and her husband traveled together that day and the following night.  The next morning the Indians separated into two bands, one taking Builderback, and the other his wife, and continued a western course by different routes.
     "In a few days the band having Mr. Builderback in charge reached the Tuscarawas river, where they encamped, and were soon rejoined by the band that had taken her husband.  Here the murderers exhibited his scalp on the top of a pole, and to convince her that they had killed him, pulled it down and threw it in her lap.  She recognized it at once by the redness of his hair.  She said nothing, and uttered no compliant.  It was evening, and her ears were pained with the terrific yells of the savages, and wearied by constant traveling, she reclined against a tree and fell into a profound sleep, and forgot all her sufferings until morning.  When she awoke, the scalp of her murdered husband was gone, and she never learned what became of it.
     "as soon as the capture of Builderback was known at Wheeling, a party of scouts set off in pursuit, and taking the trail of one of the bands, followed it until they found the trail of one of the bands, followed it until they found the body.  He had been tomahawked and scalped, and apparently suffered a lingering death.
     "The Indians, on reaching their towns on the Little Miami, adopted Mrs. Builderback into a family, with whom she lived until released form captivity.  She remained a prisoner about nine months, performing the labor and drudgery of squaws, such as carrying in meat from the hunting grounds, preparing and drying it, making moccasins, legings, and other cloathing for the family in which she lived.  After her adoption she suffered much from the rough and filthy manner of Indian living, but had no cause of compliant of ill treatment otherwise.
     "In a few months after her capture some friendly Indians informed the commandant of Fort Washington that there was a white woman in captivity at Miamitown.  She was ransomed and brought into the fort, and was sent up the river to her lonely cabin, and the embrace of her two orphan children. 
     "In 1796 Mrs. Builderback married John Green, and in 1798 they emigrated to the Hocking Valley, and settled about three miles west of Lancaster, where she continued to reside until the time of her death in 1842.  She survived her last husband about ten years."

NOTE: - Charles Builderback, the first husband of Mrs. Green, had commanded a company at Crawford's defeat in the Sandusky country.  He was a large, noble looking man, and a bold and intrepid warrior.  He was in the bloody Moravian campaign, and took his share in the tragedy by shedding the first blood on that occasion, when he shot, tomahawked and scalped Shebosh, a Moravian chief.  But retributive justice was meeted to him.  After being taken prisoner, the Indians asked his name; "Charles Builderback", he replied, after some little pause.  At this revelation the Indians stared at each other with malignant triumph.  "Ha", said they; "you kill many big Indian; you big captain; you kill Moravians".  From that moment, perhaps, his fate was sealed. - Howes, Ohio.

MOUNT PLEASANT.
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     Mount Pleasant, situated one mile due north of the crossing of Main and Broad streets, in Lancaster, is a historic point of some interest.  Its summit is two hundred and fifty feet above the table lands below.  The area of its top is about two acres.  The main approach to the summit is from the east, by gradual ascent, though there are other points of ascent.  Its face presenting south is a perpendicular ledge of sandstone, of the white variety.  From its summit the Hocking Valley can be seen for many miles in both directions; and the state reform farm is partly visible, six miles to the southwest.  By the Indians it was called the "Standing Stone".  Since the settlement of the country by the white race, it has undergone considerable transformation.  Much of the dense and thick forest has been cut away, and the wild romance of the spot greatly despoiled.  Mount Pleasant has always been a favorite resort for citizens as well as strangers.  There are few strangers who visit Lancaster who do not ascend to the top of the standing stone.  The Duke of Saxony, who visited this country many years since, climbed up and chiseled his name in the sandstone, which has been read by thousands, and still remains legible.  I believe his visit was in 1828.
     In the first few years after the settlements began, Mount Pleasant was notorious for the large numbers of mountain rattlesnake which burrowed in its fissures.  The settlers determined to destroy them, as far as possible, and for this purpose they made several raids on their snakeships at the early spring seasons when they were known to first emerge from their winter quarters, destroying many hundreds of them.  They are probably now entirely extinct, as not one of their tribe has been seen there for more than a third of a century.

GROWTH OF LANCASTER.
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     My history of Fairfield county must necessarily be fragmentary and miscellaneous.  There is no written history; at least no complete history;  which is very much to be regretted.  Beyond what is to be found in the histories of Ohio, and the decennial government census, all else is to be sought for in the state and county records, and the statements of the recollections of such living persons as have survived the pioneer age, and have resided in the county from fifty to seventy years.  The labor of searching the records running through so many years, and so many ponderous volumes, it will be seen at once is both tedious and arduous.  Nevertheless, all that it is essential to know and preserve will at last be found in these pages, and is here placed under appropriate headings, which renders the items of quick and easy access.
     In tracing the progress of Lancaster therefore from its first rudimental log cabin beginning in the woods, through the seventy-six years of its existence, every department of information has been thoroughly canvassed and placed under specific head lines, at least so far as the sources of knowledge exist at this late day.  The same care ha like wise been observed with reference to the townships, respectively, and villages and settlements, thus rendering the book a safe and satisfactory reference to the future historian.  The work is all put down in the miscellaneous order I have been able to exhume it from the debris of the fast receding past.  And while in the following page I have mentioned first settlers, and prominent citizens, I have carefully and scrupulously excued fulsome flattery.  The pioneers of Fairfield county deserve enduring remembrance, and in the course of this work their names are nearly all written.  They have all passed away.  Let us venerate their noble self-sacrifice that has given us our land of plenty and enjoyment.

FIRST MAILS AND POSTAGE RATES.
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     In the latter part of the year 1799, and about two years after the opening of Zanes' Trace, a mail route was established from Wheeling, Va., to Limestone (Maysville), Ky., which was the first ever carried through the interior of the territory of Ohio.  A postoffice was established at Lancaster, or rather where Lancaster now is, for the town had not yet been aid out, and there were but a few families of emigrants in the Valley.  The mail was carried through on horseback once a week, each way, over Zanes' Trace, the whole distance being 226 miles through an almost entirely unbroken wilderness.  The line was divided into three routes.  The first was from Wheeling to Zanesville, or rather to the Muskingum; the second from the Muskingum to the Scioto; and the third from the Scioto to the Ohio, or to Limestone.  The late General George Sanderson, then a small lad, was for a time mail carrier between the Muskingum and Scioto, - a distance of about seventy-six miles.  The condition of the roads, and the facilities for travel were such, that to make the connections in some instances a large portion of the way had to be passed over in the night, which, through the dark and unbroken forests, was no enviable task, especially for a young boy.
     The first postmaster was Samuel Coates, Sen., an Englishman before referred to, and he kept his office at first at his cabin at the crossing of Hocking, but subsequently, after Lancaster began to grow, he removed it to a cabin on the south side of the present Wheeling Street, on the same spot where James V. Kenney now resides.  Mr. Coates, Sen., up to the year 1876, here follows, for which I am indebted to James Miers, who has resided in Lancaster all his life.
     Samuel Coates (1799), Samuel Coates, Jun., Jacob D. Detrich, Elenathan Scofield, Henry Drum, Thomas U. White, Daniel Sifford, Henry Miers, James Cranmer, John C. Castle; Benjamin Connell, John L. Tuthill, C. M. L. Wiseman, Melanchthon Sutphen (1876).
     The present will be the proper place to say what is necessary to be said of the postal service, and postal rates, at that early day.  The mails were at first entirely carried on horseback, and continued to be until the country became sufficiently developed to introduce post coaches.  The "mail boys" carried with them small tin horns, and sometimes long tin trumpets, a blast on which heralded their approach to the post offices.  In some instances the carriers acquired the art of blowing respectable tunes on the long tin trumpets.  They were denominated the "post boys horn", and the sound awakened a lively feeling of cheer as far as they could be heard.  They were to the inhabitants then what the rail road whistle is to-day, only far more joyful.  They were likewise carried by coach drivers for some time after the introduction of that service.
     The rates of postage were very different formerly from what they are now.  The price for carrying letters was fixed in accordance with the distance they had to go.  Weight was not regarded.  Thus, a single letter was, for fifty miles and under, 6 1/4 cents.  Over fifty miles and under one hundred and fifty, 12 1/2 cents.  Between one hundred and fifty and three hundred miles, 18 3/4; and over three hundred miles, to any point within the United States, 25 cents.  Two sheets folded into the same was treated as a double letter, and double rates charted; at least this was the law for a time.  Subsequently, and before the introduction of the three cent rate, as at present, there was for some time a ten cent and a five cent rate.  I do not remember the dates. - Postage was not, under the old rates, required to be paid in advance, and seldom was so paid; but if prepaid, the word "paid" was written on the outside of the letter by the postmaster, usually at one corner.  In like manner the price of the letter was written in figures; thus, 6 1/4; 12 1/2; 18 3/4; or 25; and these rates, if the word "paid" did not appear on the outside, were to be paid by the parties to whom the letters were addressed.  The change then in use was silver coin, of the denominations of 6 1/4 cents (fippenny bit);  12 1/2 cents (ninepence); 25 cents, and half dollars.  Thus, if the price of a letter were 8 3/4 cents, you gave the postmaster a quarter, and he gave you back a fippenny bit, and so on.  Letters were written on three pages of the sheet, the fourth being left blank, and then so folded as to allow the blank page to form the whole outside of the letter, upon which the address was written.  There are few persons now living of forty years and under, who could fold up a letter in the old style.  Letters were sealed with sealing wax in the form of wafers, mostly red wax, though black and blue were sometimes used.  Wafers put up in small boxes formed a considerable article of commerce, and were for sale at every store and grocery.  They are now nowhere to be found.  It was customary then for persons to carry seals with which to stamp the wafers which were first softened by moistening them with the tongue.  And these seals might be the initials of the name, or any figure fancied.  The introduction of letter envelopes took place previous to 1840, and cheap postal stamps about 1848, as my recollection has it.
     The growth of Lancaster, from the time the first trees were cut down and the first log cabin built, in the year 1800, up to 1876, cannot be minutely and specifically traced, year by year, nor would it be of importance to do so, so far as the present actors on the stage of life are concerned.  The former inhabitants did their work, and passed away.  The present will soon be gone, and scarcely remembered.  The first settlers are all dead, and there is little of the work of their hands visible - nothing, beyond a few writings, and possibly a few log structures, mostly closed in and hidden from view.  The original log structures have every one disappeared, and everything else constructed of wood by the original settlers.  One can scarcely find so much as a stone laid or bearing the impress of first hands.  A few moss covered gravestones in the old cemeteries tell where some of the pioneers were laid - tell when born and when died, and that is all.  Nobody can tell how they looked, or how they spoke.   It is as if they had never lived.  What is it to the present surging throng how they lied, and joyed, and sorrowed, and loved, and hated, and suffered, and died?  Who feels one stirring emotion for the honored dead?  There is not one to weep for them; and not one will weep for us "a hundred years to come."  "But other men our street will fill; and other men our lands will till; a hundred years to come."  Thus does man and all his works perish.  Could we interview these veteran dead, volumes that is forever lost, that we might have saved, could be placed on paper.  But there are none, not one to tell the story.
    Some of their descendants are alive, but they cannot tell the tales of their sires.  They could tell us whence they came where they settled, and when they died, and there the curtain would drop.  It cannot be determined now, with few exceptions, where the original settlers built their first cabins, at least not the exact spot; so much has the onward march of time transformed the face of things.  All has drifted into the dim and dimming past twilight.  It is said, in a general way, that a great many of the first inhabitants were mechanics, but who were they? what branches did they follow? what was their personal appearance? how did they succeed? were they good men and women? and did they live exemplary lives?  We can occasionally hear it said, that seventy years ago such a man was a blacksmith in Lancaster, or in Fairfield county, and some others kept tavern.  Well, they are all gone, and their houses are gone, and everything that belonged to them.  Of all these mechanics, and all that did the drudgery and bore the heavy burdens, not one word is written.  There are no means of knowing anything about them.  Only a few individuals we can say much about; but so far as data can be found, every original settler of Fairfield county will be mentioned.
     In a general way it will suffice to say, that Lancaster is one of those inland towns of Ohio whose growth has been slow, persistent and uniform.  It has been a matter of some surprise that Lancaster has not become a leading town of the State in manufacturing possessing as it does local advantages and facilities nowhere surpassed, and seldom equaled by any county seat of Ohio.  Why capital has not sought this as a place of investment in preference to other places with fewer facilities, cannot be told, and we make no attempt at explanation.  To say it has been a lack of enterprise on the part of the citizens, would scarcely be true.  Capital, to a large extent, has not found its way here, and there we leave the matter.

THE BAR OF LANCASTER.
(Page 16)

     In 1839, when the writer settled in Lancaster, he was told that it had the strongest bar in the State, so far as legal ability was concerned.  Of this there were probably no doubt.  At that time Hon. Thomas Ewing was at the zenith of his legal career.  There were also residing in the place, John T. Brazee, Hocking H. Hunter, William Irvin, Henry Stanbery, Wm. J. Reece, William Medill and P. Van Trump, with a few of less distinction.