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DESCRIPTION.
THE EARLY HISTORY.
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THE FORMATION.
NOTES OF SETTLEMENT.
WILLIAM D. GOFORTH lives about one
and a half miles south of Cheviot, in Green township, with
an only daughter. The wife, now dead, was Miss
Sallie Gordon, whose ancestry is traceable to Lord
George Gordon, of Scotland. She died Apr. 4, 1878.
Mr. Goforth is descended from distinguished stock.
His grandfather, Judge William Goforth, born Apr. 1,
1731, was appointed a member of the State legislature and
was judge of the Northwestern Territory, then comprising the
district of Ohio. He came to Ohio in 1788, and died in
1805. His own father, Dr. William Goforth, was
a surgeon of the army in the War of 1812, and was also a
member of the legislature of Louisiana, where he went in
1803, and came back to Ohio in 1816. His oldest son
served in the capacity of lieutenant, and William D.,
then a lad of fifteen years, witnessed the engagement
between the forces of Generals Jackson and
Packenham at New Orleans. He also served under
Scott in the Mexican war, as ensign, and planted the
colors on the Mexican capitol... During hte late war
he carried the colors of the Fifth Ohio cavalry when they
made the attack on the Louisiana Tigers at Shiloh. He
was offered the pay and rank of a major, both of which he
refused. He was crippled at Shiloh by his horse
throwing him against a tree. His own son was in
forty-seven engagements
REV. SAMUEL J.
BROWNE
was born at Honiton, England, in 1786, and emigrated to this
country in 1796, and emigrated to this country in 1796 with
his father. Rev. John W. Browne, who settled
first at Chilicothe, Ohio, and afterward, in 1798, at
Cincinnati, and a few years later was drowned in the Little
Miami river while returning from one of his appointments to
preach in that neighborhood. His son, Samuel J.
Browne, learned the printing business with Nathaniel
Willis, and in 1804 started the Liberty Hall
newspaper, afterwards the Cincinnati Gazette, and in
1824 the Cincinnati Emporium, afterwards the first
daily paper of large size printed in Cincinnati. Through his
instigation and pecuniary aid his son, J. W. S. Browne,
and his son in-law, L. S. Curtiss, originated and
placed on a paying basis the Cincinnati Daily Commercial.
He early perceived the growing tendencies of his adopted
city, and was among the first to show his faith by frequent
investments in real estate in the city and its suburbs.
In 1830 he purchased the late Browne homestead,
consisting of twenty-five acres on the north side of the
Miami canal, opposite Baymiller street, and erected thereon
a fine residence which he occupied until his death.
Mr. Browne was twice married. His first
wife, a most estimable and handsome English lady, was wooed
and won while Mr. Browne was on a visit to his
brother in England, and by whom he had seven children, three
of whom still survive. His second wife was a daughter
of the late Dr. E. A. Atlee, a lady of sweet
disposition and most amiable character, by whom he had five
children, of whom three are still living. Mr.
Browne pursued a most active life, retaining both mental
and physical vigor to within a short period of his death,
which occurred in September, 1872, at the ripe old age of
eighty-five years.
SAMUEL W.
CARSON of Cheviot, mail agent of
the Great Eastern railroad from Cincinnati to Chicago, is
the oldest member of his father's family, and was born Jan.
1, 1816. In 1850 he went to California, being gone
five years, and returning via Panama railroad, coming across
the isthmus on the first train over that line. During
the war he was provost marshal and afterwards for two years
was revenue collector. In 1856 he was assigned a
position in the mail service on the Great Eastern railroad
from Cincinnati to Chicago, which position he still retains.
Mr. Carson is a descendent from the remarkable
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family of old settlers and otherwise noted people, who came
from the east about 1804 and settled near Cheviot.
They were the first pioneers, and consequently were the
first to erect school-houses, churches, establish roads, and
otherwise improve the country. Mr. Carson lives
comfortably in a nice homestead in Cheviot.
WASHINGTON MARKLAND
is of Chestnut farm, Green township, on which place he has
lived during a life of seventy-one years, excepting four
years he resided in Piqua, Ohio, to educate his children.
His father, Thomas Markland and mother Anna Maria,
were born in Maryland; moved to Boone county, Kentucky, in
1801; removed to the Chestnut farm (section thirty-two,
Green township), in 1805, having then a family of seven
children, viz: Elizabeth, Jonathan,
Benjamin, John, William, Leah, and
Noah; Martha, Washington, James,
and Charles, were born on this farm; all are now dead
but Noah, Washington, and Charles.
His mother, Anna Maria Summers, was of Welsh
descent; his father was of English origin; he died in the
year 1825, May 18th, leaving Washington in charge of the
family. His mother died in the year 1830.
Thomas
Markland, whose father was a companion of Daniel
Boone, Kent and Cornelius Washburne,
the latter the grandfather of Hon. Washburne,
of Illinois, lived near the family after they came to Ohio;
was intensely bitter towards the Indians and a great friend
to Washington, teaching him old battle songs when he was but
four or five years of age.
Washington Markland was married to
Miss Mary Hammond, of Westmoreland county,
Pennsylvania, Dec. 24, 1829. Her father was a minister
of the gospel in the Methodist Episcopal church. She
lived a is lost. Christian life, dying triumphant in
the faith, July 20, 1878. She was the mother of eight
children, three of whom are now dead. He is now
conscious of his end approaching, and is waiting in joy the
time when he may have the privilege of crossing over to meet
his beloved wife and others, who have gone before. He
was born Oct. 25, 1809. The family records were
destroyed by a dog, and much valuable history of the
foreparents is lost. Of his children two sons were in
the late war. Alert was under General Butler
on the Potomac, and Samuel who was in the cavalry
service under General Kilpatrick, was taken prisoner,
and for two nights and a day before Lee's surrender
was confined in Libby prison.
Mr. Markland has several relics of old times he
highly prizes, viz: An Indian tomahawk of 1812; an iron
kettle, ninety-nine years old; a grubbing hoe, seventy years
old, and several parts of General Harrison's
carriage. He still resides on the farm of his
birthplace.
WILLIAM MURPHY
was born in New Jersey in 1800. From this State he has
carried to Ohio, and began his life two years later in
Springfield township. His death occurred in 1872, in
Delhi township. The wife, Mary Ann Murphy, was
born Sept. 7, 1803, and died in 1863. The children,
George and Margaret, are now residents of Green
township, and Theodore, Christopher and Robert
are living in Delhi township.
GEORGE HAY is a farmer,
residing near Bridgetown, Green township, and is also
director and secretary of the Cleves Turnpike
company. He was born on the twenty third of August,
1837, received a good common school education, and has been
honored by the people of his township in various positions
of trust, having served three terms as township trustee, and
been a member of the board of education; he is also a
director and vice president of the Harvest Home association.
His father, Washington Hay, came from
Baltimore about the year 1806, and purchased a farm near
Bridgetown, a part of which George Hay now
owns.
CATHARINE
THURSTON
JOSEPH EPLEY
was a native of Pennsylvania, and emigrated from that State
of Ohio, and settled in this township, on sections ten and
eleven. He died here in 1835. His wife, Sarah
Eply, lived till the year 1876. James Eply,
the oldest son, resides in Green township; the second child,
Joseph, is a resident of Kansas; and the youngest,
Ann Barries, is in Colrain township.
James has held the office of justice of peace for
twenty-six years, he was also township trustee for two
terms.
EMILY WOOD
WILLIAM H.
MARKLAND
ISAAC W.
STRATHEM
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JAMES VEAZEY
S. S. JACKSON
was born in Philadelphia in 1803. He
came to Ohio from New York city, and made his first
settlement in Green township, in the year 1826. His
wife, Elizabeth Jackson, was born in 1807.
Of his seven children, only two are still living: Mary
Jackson and Julia Herrick, both in
Green township. John was wounded at Vicksburgh
and died, Isaac and Lewis were drowned.
The remaining two that are not alive are Elizabeth
and Debby. Mr. Jackson has in his
possession a journal of his grandfather, Mr.
William Jackson, dated Aug. 26, 1768, at
Philadelphia; also, a weather record kept by his father,
Isaac H. Jackson, three times each day, for the years
between 1813 and 1842.
NOTE:
See more detailed biography
F. H. OEHLMANN
JOSEPH SIEFERT
D. R. HERRICK
was born in 1843, in Summit county, Ohio. He became a
resident of Green township in 1876. His family
consists of his wife - Ms. Julia Herrick - and
two children, Sidney and Edna.
DR. G. H. MUSEKAMP
was born in Prussia in 1802. He arrived in Cincinnati
in the 1837, after a protracted journey of forty-two weeks,
by sea, land, canal, and river. His death occurred in
1874, at his home in Green township. He was one of the
earliest German physicians of Cincinnati, practiced
principally minor surgery. At his death he was one of
the oldest German physicians in Hamilton county. He
left Cincinnati and moved into Green township in 1850.
Mrs. Musekamp (Charlotte Guttemuller) was born in
1803, and died in 1845. Their family consists of
Louisa, now living in Goshen, Clermont county, and
Elizabeth, Sophia, and Dr. George H. W., all
three of Green township.
NOTE: See more detailed biography.
ENOCH JACOBS
was born at Marlborough, Vermont, in 1809. He
emigrated from New York to Ohio in 1843, and settled in
Cincinnati. His wife, Electa Jacobs, was born
in 1812. Their children are Electa and E. George,
both living at Mount Airy. Mr. Jacobs was, at
one time, appointed consul to Montevideo, South America, and
acted as minister, in the absence of this officer, for one
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and a half years. He was also a member of the Walnut
Hill school board, and laid the corner stone of the first
school building built under the free school law. When
the late war broke out he entered the army with four sons,
two of whom were killed, one at Chancellorsville, the other
murdered. He was in the first battle of the west at
Vienna, and served, at one time, as a member of the staff.
Colonel Kemple and himself had the honor of receiving
twelve shots from the artillery, they being the only mark.
WILLIAM TAYLOR
was born in Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, in 1797, from
which State he emigrated to Ohio, and settled in Delhi.
In 1875 he died, in Green township. His wife, Nancy
J. Taylor is still living, as are also his four
children, William E., David J., Robert, and
Joshua P.
GEORGE FRONDORF
was born in Germany, came from that
country to Ohio, and made settlement in Green township in
the year 1840. Here eh died at the age of
seventy-three. F. Frondorf came with his
father, and has lived in this township since 1840. He
is the owner of the largest single tract of land lying in
the township - two hundred and forty-three acres. In
1847 he was married to Mary Frondorf, who is still
living. His daughter, Mary, and son, George,
both reside here, and Caroline is at St. Mary's
convent, Cincinnati.
CHARLES RIES
was born in Germany in 1826, and emigrated to Ohio and
settled in Cincinnati in the year 1853, In 1877 he removed
to Green township. While in his native land he
belonged to the army. His wife, Eva Ries,
was born in 1830, and is still alive. His children,
Charles Ries, jr., William, and Lizzie,
remain also in the same township.
WILLIAM MILLER
ISAAC
TOWNSEND,
THOMAS J.
BRADFORD, of
Dent, Green township, lives on the homestead owned by his
father, John Bradford who came from Ireland.
M. T. J. Bradford, in the year 1876, married Miss
Lydia Hart.
GEORGE W.
DAVIS, is of the firm of Townsend & Davis,
proprietors of an extensive dairy one mile south of Cheviot.
THOMAS MORGAN
JOSEPH M.
REARDEN,
CHARLEY B.
LEWIS,
REV. GOTTLEIB
BRANDSTETTER,
pastor of the First German Evangelical Protestant church of
Green township, was born in Rhein Baiern, Bavaria, in 1830.
He belongs to a family of ministers. Gottlieb
came alone to America and took a course in theology,
completing his studies in 1856, after which he engaged in
the ministerial work at Peppertown, near Evansville,
Indiana, and other places. He came here May 1, 1876,
and has since had charge of the congregation and
Sabbath-school, acting as its superintendent. He also
gives instruction three days in each week to the children of
his congregation, who are taking a course
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preparatory to confirmation.* The church building, a
fine brick structure, was erected in the year 1871, in
which, service and Sabbath-school have been held ever since.
A graveyard of some four acres lies just back of the
building. He was married July 24, 1857, to Miss
Catharine Wittkamper, of Cincinnati. This union
has been blessed with five children - four sons and one
daughter. One son, Henry, born in 1859, died in
1880, and was a most promising young man. He possessed
a natural genius for drawing, taking up the art and
completing the course almost without the aid of instruction.
He, however, spent one year in Cooper Institute, New York.
He was engraver for Stillman & Co., Front and Vine
streets, Cincinnati, Ohio. He has left some beautiful
sketchings, of which a "Scene on the Ohio," "Church Yard
Scene," "Lick Run Church," show a master hand in the work.
He was also of great assistance to his father in his church
work - being a musician and of great use in Sabbath-school
service. As the pride of the Bransdtetter
home, he was much missed in that circle. Rev.
Brandstetter is exercising a great influence for good
among his people of Cheviot, of which his people are proud.
ELIZABETH
BATES, wife of Joshua
Bates, railroad con tractor, resides in Mount Airy,
Green township. Mr. Bates removed to his
present elegant homestead in 1859. The family are
members of the Methodist Episcopal church. John
Bates (son) was a soldier in the cavalry service
under Kilpatrick, during the late war.
ENOCH JACOBS
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BRIDGETOWN.
This is a village a little over a mile west of Cheviot,
just half way across the township from east to west, and two
miles and a half from the south line. It is on the
Cleves turnpike, half a mile west of the junction of the
Harrison pike, and the Cincinnati & West wood narrow-guage
gauge railroad comes up to the Cleves road about midway
between the village and the junction of the turnpikes.
St. Aloysius' (Catholic) church is located here, with its
parochial school of about fifty pupils and a con-fraternity
of the same name, all under the pastoral care of the Rev.
Father Bernard Mutting.
CEDAR GROVE.
is a locality in the
extreme southwest part of the township[, about the
headwaters of Lick run, and extending into the city of the
Warsaw turnpike. The Young Ladies' academy of St.
Vincent de Paul, conducted by the Sisters of Charity, is in
this grove, but within the city, at a place called "The
Cedars," where a sister of Mary Hewitt, the famous
English authoress formerly resided and wrote the charming
letter, afterwards embodied in a little work entitled Our
Cousins in Ohio.
CHEVIOT.
This is an old place, founded by an early settler named
John Craig in 1818, and was incorporated March 21st, of
that year. It is pleasantly situated upon the hills
west of the Mill Creek valley, on the Harrison turnpike, a
mile and a half west of the township line. It had
seventy-one inhabitants in 1830, and three hundred and
twenty-five fifty years afterwards.
In his later years the Hon. Samuel Lewis, the
famous philanthropist and educator, long of Cincinnati,
resided near Cheviot, upon a farm he owned there. He
continued his labors for humanity almost to the end of life,
often preaching in the neighboring churches. He died
upon his place here after a long career of usefulness, July
28, 1854.
At Cheviot, on the Fourth of July, 1832, there was a
noteworthy celebration. Fenton's Cheviot
infantry and Palmerton's Delhi infantry made a brave
parade, escorting the orator of the day, General William
Henry Harrison, to the Presbyterian church, where the
exercises took place. Mr. Enoch Carson was
reader of the declaration, and the Rev. Messrs.
Williamson and Biddle were the chaplains of the
day. Messrs. Price and Carpenter served
as committeemen. The dinner was at Rush's
hotel, where the popular old time song, "The Death of
Warren," was given amid much applause.
At the celebration of 1841, at the same place, Judge
Moore was president, Rev. George Cott, chaplain,
W. J. Carson, reader, and Dr. J. D. Talbott,
orator. The day seems to have gone off gallantly and
pleasantly enough.
COVENDALE
is a small place on the
township line, one mile west of the southeast corner, half a
mile northwest of Warsaw, and on the road connecting that
place with the Five Corners.
DENT
is a village on the south
fork of Taylor's creek and the Harrison turnpike, two miles
and a half northwest of Cheviot, and two miles from the
northern and western township liens, respectively. It
has about two hundred inhabitants. Here lives the
Hon. Charles Reemelin, formerly member of Congress, who
is noticed at considerable length in the chapter on the
German element in Cincinnati, in the second division of this
work.
DRY RIDGE
is a hamlet of probably
fifty inhabitants, on the Cleves turnpike, a mile west of
Bridgetown, at the junction of that highway with the road
down the south fork of Taylor's creek. The Ebenezer
church and a school-house are situated at this point.
FIVE CORNERS.
The locality, with a little scatter of houses, is at the
junction of three country roads, on the dividing line of
sections eight and fourteen, a mile and a half south of
Cheviot, and the same distance northwest of Coverdale.
MOUNT AIRY
includes a tract of more
than three square miles, lying mostly in Mill Creek
township, in the chapter devoted to whose history it will be
more particularly notices. Five hundred and
seventy-nine of its acres are in this township.
ST. JACOB'S,
in the extreme north of
the township, a mile and two-thirds west of the northeast
corner, and a mile from the Colerain pike, on the projected
Cincinnati & Venice railroad, has a population of about one
hundred, and a flourishing Catholic church and school.
SHEARTOWN.
This is a village near the extreme northwest corner of the
township, with fifty to seventy-five inhabitants, a church,
and a school. It is on the Harrison turnpike and the
main stream of Taylor's creek.
WEISENBURGH.
Weisenburgh is a small place inhabited chiefly by
Germans, one mile south of St. Jacob's, and two miles and a
half north of Cheviot, on the surveyed route of the
Cincinnati & Venice railroad.
WESTWOOD.
The considerable suburb covers, with residences and grounds,
more or less thickly, nearly four sections, being the whole
of sections two, three and eight, the eastern half of
section nine, and part of section fourteen, being in all two
thousand three hundred and twenty-five acres. Along
the east line of section two, it immediately adjoins the
city in its northwest part. The Cincinnati & Westwood
narrow guage gauge railway runs for
about two miles through the southern part of the suburb.
The village was incorporated in 1868. Among its
earlier mayors were John Gaines, 1869-70; F. H.
Oehlmann, 1871; Thomas Wills, 1872-4. It
had seven hundred and fifty-two inhabitants in 1880.
THE HARVEST HOME.
A
few enterprising residents of Green township started the
first Harvest Home organization in the county, which still
maintains its annual meetings with great interest and
success. On the Fourth of July, 1860, a little group
of
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HISTORICAL NOTES:
Green township has just twice and a half the number of
inhabitants it had a half century ago. The census of
1830 developed a population of one thousand nine hundred and
eighty-five in the township; that of 1870 showed four
thousand six hundred and eighty-nine.
At one time, in the early day, nearly the whole tract
now covered by Green township was sold at sheriff's sale for
seventy-five dollars. After the original
proprietorship of Bendinot & Sims, it was owned
mainly by Generals Harrison and Findlay, and
Judge Burnet, of Cincinnati, for whom it was sold out
in parcels by the father of Colonel E. T. Carson, now
chief of police in that city.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
THOMAS WILLS, ESQ.
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FRANK FRONDORF
DANIEL ISGRIG.
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