ORGANIZATION AND DESCRIPTION

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WHITEWATER JUSTICES.

ANCIENT WORKS *

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SQUATTER LIFE

CLOTHING.

THE FIRST BIRTH

DEATH.

     During the year 1796 death invaded the settlement and a malignant disease removed in a few days three

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PIONEER LIFE

MILLS AND FACTORIES

THE PIONEER SCHOOL-HOUSE

THE FIRST PREACHERS

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governing power of mutual dependence, confidence and sympathy they were a law to protect themselves.

THE FIRST MAGISTRATE

PERMANENT SETTLERS.

BIOGRAPHICAL

     BAILEY GUARD

     EZEKIEL HUGHES

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     JESSE HUNT

     Another son, REV. JOHN BONHOM, graduated at .............

     ALEXANDER GUARD

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     The families of HUGH KARR, ANDREW and I. HILL, I. INGERSOLL, I. HAYES and T. MILLER became permanent settlers, purchasing land and improving it.  The other squatter families removed west.  Charmed with the frontier log-cabin life, they sought and secured its continuance by a fresh start where game was plenty and their cherished mode of life could be enjoyed*

     HUGH KARR

     JACOB HERRIDER

---------------
     * The remaining notes under this head were not prepared by Mr. Chidlaw.

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     SAMUEL McHENRY

     EPHRAIM COLLINS, born in the Keystone State in 1766, settled in this township in 1810.

     RICHARD SIMMONDS

     SILAS VAN HAYES

     MOSES B. WAMSLEY

     HENRY LEMMONS

     NICHOLAS REEDER

REV. W. B. CHIDLAW, A.M.
between pgs. 408 & 409

MRS. W. B. CHIDLAW

 

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     AARON SIMONSON

     JACOB HAIRE

     OTHO HAYES

     JOHN J. DUMONT

     WAYNE WEST came from Beaver, Pennsylvania, where he has born Mar. 27, 1814, to Lawrenceburgh, Maryland, along with five brothers and two sisters - of whom three brothers and both sisters are dead - in 1826.  His parents were from Massachusetts, and came from Pennsylvania early in life.  Both descended from splendid ancestry.  His father died in 1832 with the cholera; his mother died in the year 1863 or 1864.  His father was Zeddrick and his mother's maiden name Roxana Parsons.  Two brothers - Stephen and Warren - furnish the most extraordinary copartnership in the annals of Hamilton county.  For forty years they carried on business without a written agreement or settlement.  Everything was held in common.  They began poor boys and ended with almost fifteen hundred acres of splendid bottom land.  The division was made at a cost of twenty-five dollars, and only surveyor assisted.  Stephen was married twice, and died Aug. 28, 1879.  Warren was married three times; first to Brilla Ann Ross; second to Mary Jane Hayes, daughter of Walter Hayes third to Nancy, a widow, daughter of Joseph Hayes  From the three marriages have been born three sons and four daughters and ten grandchildren.  Nancy West was born May 31, 1819, and married Jan. 4, 1855, to Mr. West.  Mrs. West has been the mother of two sons and three daughters.  Her father was of English and her mother of Scotch descent.  As a business man Mr. West made forty-five trips to New Orleans; has sold immense quantities of grain, and dealt a great deal in stock.  As members of the Methodist church both are respected.

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They now in old age give a two-fold legacy to their descendants.  They transmit to their offspring many choice parts.

     URIAH RICE

     JOHN REESE

THE BEREA CHAPEL

DEDICATION SERVICES.

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OTHER RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES

CEMETERIES

     In early times the subject of permanent and improved burial places secured but little attention.  Families buried their dead on their own premises, and many graves on farms scattered over the township are now un marked and forgotten.  On the gravel bank near the railroad viaduct over the Miami river, in a clump of yellow locust trees, are the graves of several of the pioneer settlers.  Among them are the graves of Thomas and Mary Ewing, who owned a large tract of land on which this now neglected home of the dead was located.  Thomas Ewing was a soldier of the Revolution in the Pennsylvania line.  He participated in several battles and was honorably discharged at the close of the war.
     The cemetery at Miamitown occupies a fine location and is well improved and beautiful.  Several monuments of marble and granite adorn the grounds, and a vault as a repository for the dead has been built, which will afford security against the ghouls who plunder and desecrate the resting places of the departed.  On the "Oury farm" near the town hall is a public burial place in charge of the trustees of the township, and is well preserved.

BEREA CEMETERY.

     At the old chapel is the oldest burying-ground in the township.  The land was donated by Ezekiel Hughes, esq., in 1805, and deeded to the Berea Union trustees.  The lots are all sold, and held by parties in this and ad joining townships.  Here is the grave of Daniel G. Howell, esq., who was born in the block house at North

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Bend, Aug. 23, 1790, and died at Cleves Apr. 16, 1866.   He was the first white .child born in North Bend or Miami township, where he always resided, an honored and useful citizen and a devoted Christian.  On a large upright slab of Italian marble is the following inscription; "Jonas Frazee.  A soldier of the Revolution; a native of Westfield, New Jersey, born 1759, died 1858 - erected by the citizens." A beautiful marble pyramid marks the grave of Colonel Benjamin Cilley, a native of New Hampshire, who died in 1857, aged sixty-two years.  The family monuments of Ezekiel Hughes, esq., Rev. B. W. Chidlaw, Edward Hunt, esq., and John V. Chamberlain, plain and substantial, beautify the secluded home of the dead.
     In the graveyard attached to the Presbyterian church at Elizabethtown are the honored graves of the Hunts, Bonhams, Haires, Rees, Lebow, Hayes, Guards, and other pioneer families) with monuments designating the spot containing their sacred dust.

WHITEWATER VILLAGES.

     Cadberry was a pioneer town, laid out by Henry Cadberry in 1802 - one of the very first to be planted in this State west of the Great Miami.  It was in Hamilton county, but that still stretched far to the northward. Cadberry may, or may not, have been within the limits of the old Whitewater township, laid out the next year, or of the present Whitewater.
     Shrewsbury was another village, now utterly extinct, platted in 1803 by John Bucknell, upon the Great Miami river, but on which side we are as yet unable to learn, and so cannot locate it certainly in Whitewater township.
     Miamitown is situated upon the north half of section six, in the northeastern part of the township, at the point where the Cincinnati and Harrison turnpike crosses the Great Miami, fifteen miles from its mouth.  It is opposite to the southwest corner of Colerain township, upon which stood Campbell's station during the period of Indian warfare.  Miamitown was laid off on the twenty second of April, 1816, by Arthur Henry.  It is thus noticed in the Ohio Gazetteer of 1819: "This town promises to become a place of considerable business."  In the Gazetteer of 1841 it is said to have contained one hundred and eighty-seven inhabitants, thirty-three dwellings, one flouring-and saw-mill, one distillery, two taverns, three stores and several mechanics' shops.  The macadamized turnpike to Cincinnati and the bridge across the Miami, "with two arches of one hundred and sixty feet span each," are noticed.  It enjoyed a daily mail.  It had one hundred and thirteen inhabitants in 1830, one hundred and eighty-seven in 1840, two hundred and twenty three in 1850, and two hundred and seventy-five in 1880.  At a celebration of the Fourth of July here, in 1817, General Harrison read the Declaration of Independence and offered the following toast: "May the fertile banks of the Miami river never be disgraced by the culture of a slave, or the revenue they afford go to enrich the coffers of a despot" - which was quite pronounced anti slavery sentiment for those days and for a native Virginian.
     Elizabethtown, as we have seen, was settled as early as 1806, but was not platted as a village until April 15, 1817, when the town was ushered into being by the hands of Isaac Mills.*  In later days it has been found necessary, in order to meet the requirements of the post office department, to give the name Riverdale to the post office here. It does not seem to have been noticed in the State Gazetteer of 1819, but in that of 1841 the following is said of it: "The Whitewater canal passes through this place.  It contains several stores, two taverns, one meeting-house, and one hundred and twenty inhabitants."   Eleven years before, by the census of 1830, it had one hundred and thirty-two inhabitants.  It had two hundred in 1880.
     Berea was a little place laid out about the site of the Berea meeting-house, in 1817, by Samuel Pottinger.  It was never much more than a "paper town."
     Valley Junction is not a surveyed town, but simply the point of union of the two railroads that intersect the township.  It has a station-house and two or three dwellings.
     Hunt's Grove, on the line of the Whitewater Valley railroad, near the junction of the Whitewater and the Dry fork, is not a village, but a very pleasant locality, famous as a resort for picnics.

POPULATION, ETC.

     Whitewater had one thousand five hundred and seventy-four inhabitants by the last census.  In 1879 the assessed value of its lands, lots, and improvements, was seven hundred and sixty-one thousand four hundred dollars; of its chattel property, one hundred and ninety thousand seven hundred and forty-four dollars; and the amount of the tax duplicate for the year was therefore nine hundred and fifty-five thousand one hundred and forty-four dollars.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

REV. W. B. CHIDLAW, A. M. with portraits
betw. pgs 408 - 409

EZEKIEL HUGHES. with portrait
    betw. pgs. 412 - 413

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