Adams, Francis Andrews, A. A. Armstrong, Joseph Bacon, James Bacus, Christian Bacus, Peter Bacus, John Ballenger, Asa Barkalow, Johnson Barnett, Henry Barnes, Jno. Barnes, Peter Bartlett, Edward Barton, Kimber Beasly, John Belt, Levi Bevins, Thomas Bowers, Geo. Boynton, Asa Brady, William Brown, John Buck, Massie Buck, Thomas Buckles, Robert Burens, R. P. Geo. Burt, Benjamin F. Byers, Wm. Campbell, Wm. Canaday, Peter Carey, John Carroll, John B. Carroll, John B., Sr. Carteran, Francis Chambers, Aaron Chandler, Ellis Chapman, James Charpentier, Antoine Louis Church, Joel Clark, John Clark, James Clark, Samuel Clingman, George W. Clingman, Jacob Clingman, John Cloppler, Nicholas Clough, John Coberly, Wm. Cockerel, Jesse Collins, Andrew Collins, Thomas Collins, Wm. Corn, William Crawford, Samuel L. Crull, Samuel Curran, Alexander Curran, Joseph Curran, Mathew Cutler, Jonathan Cutler, Pilny Darby, Sanders Darlington, Elisha Davidson, John Davis, Alvan Davisson, Amaziah Davisson, Nathaniel Davisson, John Deavers, James Deavers, Jno. Deavers, Wm. Deed, George Dew, James Dick, James Digest, Solomon

Dillon, Edward Dollenhide, Allen Dollenhide, Jesse Dollenhide, Wm. Drury, Lawson Dunn, John Dunn, Wm. Dupont, Marion Dyer, Phillip Dysart, Joseph Dysart, Thomas Edwards, John Elsworth, Jacob Emmons, Wm. Engle, Christopher Feurt, Benjamin Feurt, Francis Feurt, Gabriel Fitzer, John Fletcher, James Fount, Benjamin Furee, John Fuzel, Evans Gallant, John Gardner, John Gilkison, James & Jno. C. Ginat, Jno. B. Glaze, Airhart Goodwin, Daniel Graham, John Graves, John Graves, Lewis Greer, Robert Groninger, Abraham Groninger, Jacob Groninger, Jno. Groninger, Leonard, b. 1804 Guthery, Thomas Hall, Eskridge Hamilton, Benjamin Hamilton, John Hammett, Geo. Harmon, Middleton Harris, Wm. Henry, Samuel Hepler, Jacob Hitchcock, Caleb Hitchcock, Jesse Holland, Francis Hunt, Samuel Hunter, Archibald Hutchins, Caleb Jackson, Wm. Johnson, John Johnson, Warren Jones, Caleb Jones, Wm. Keiser, Andrew Kells, John Kerr, John Kikendall, Henry Kelly, John Kelly, Joseph Kelly, Luke Laforgy, John Lee, Charles Lionberger, Peter Liston, Perry Logan, John, Sr. Lowry, Thomas

Loyd, Johnston McCartney, Daniel McCauley, James McConnell, John McConnell, Robert McDougal, Daniel McDougal, Daniel, Jr. McDougal, George McDougal, Richard McGlocklin, James McKinney, David McKinney, David, Jr. McKinney, David McQuick, Archibald Malone or Mahone, Sam'l Maquet, Anthony Marett, Hezekiah Martin, Turner M. Maston, Chas. T. Meigs, J. Merk, James Monroe, Daniel Montgomery, Wm. Moore, Allen Moore, David Moore, John Moore, Peter Moore, Phillip Morgan, Thomas Morgan, Thos. Mulholland, Chas. Musgrove, Elijah Mustard, Enos Mustard, Joseph Nelson, Jonathan R. Nicholas, Jacob Nichols, Thomas Noel, Absalom Noel, Daniel Noel, Isaac Noel, Jacob P. Noel, John, Jr. Noel, John, Sr. Noel, Nicholas Noel, Phillip Offnere, Jacob C. Orm, John Orm, Nathan Osborn, Ezra Pangborn, Thaddeus Patton, Jeremiah Peck, Wm. H. Plowman, Michael Pollock, John & Joseph Poweres, Wm. Price, Wm. Rankin, Hugh Reardon, James Reardon, John Reardon, Thomas Rector, Frederic Reed, Samuel Richards, Thomas Richart, Anderson C. Ridenour, Frederic Rinely, Henry Robey, Wm. Rooke, Jno. Rooke, John Roup, David

Russell, Wm. Salladay, David Salladay, George Salladay, Samuel Scott, Thomas Seabring, Thomas Shackford, Josiah Shealy, Henry Shelpman, Spicer Shelpman, Wm. Shoemaker, Jacob Shope, John Shope, Stephen Simmons, Stephen Simpson, JOhn Smith, Dennis Smith, John Smith, Isaac Smith, Robert Smith, Stephen Stewart, Paul Stockham, Aaron Stockham, Wm. Stover, John Stroud, Wm. Sumner, Lewis Swarr, Samuel Swenney, Thomas Wm. Swords, Wm. Talbott, Wm. Taylor, John Terry, Daniel Thomas, Arnold Thompson, James Thompson, Reese Thorpe, Wm. D. Travis, Ezra Travis, Daniel Turner, George Turner, Jno. R. Utt, Jacob Van Armond, Benjamin Vastine, John Vincent, Jerry Waber, Jacob Way, Thomas Wedding, James H. White, Elisha White, Matthew White, John White, Tapley White, Thayer D. Wilcoxson, Geo. W. Wilcoxson, Thomas Wilcoxson, Walter Williams, Septha Williams, Thomas Williamson, Joseph Wilson, Hiram Winkler, Charles Wolsey, Joseph Woods, Jno. Worley, John Wright, Edward Wright, John, Sr. Wright, Matthew Wright, William Wycoff, Mary Yingling, Peter

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRENCH GRANT.

     Among the first settlers of the upper part of Scioto County, lying on the Ohio River, was a colony of French, numbering nearly a hundred families and adult individuals without families, who immigrated from France in 1790.  On arriving in this country and touching at Philadelphia and Baltimore, they came up the Potomac River to Alexandria and there disembarked, crossed the mountains to the Ohio River and settled at Gallipolis.  Many of these emigrants had bought land of the agents of the Scioto Company.  This company was a failure and a fraud, and falling to get the land from the company, tried to purchase of the Ohio Company a portion of the tract they had purchased from Congress.  The Ohio Company failing to pay for all their lands, sold to the Scioto Company such amount of land as they could pay for, at the same rate and payment they had purchased of Congress.  The Ohio Company secured 1,500,000 acres of land, and the Scioto Company failed in paying for any of the Ohio Company's purchase, and were considered a fraud, and the poor French immigrants had paid their money and got no land.  The action taken by the Ohio Company will be found at the close of the first chapter of this history, including a letter from Judge Cutler.  Mr. J. G. Garvais, a man of high character and influence, and General Rufus Putnam took great interest in the emigrant's favor.  Stephen Duponsan, of Philadelphia, was employed as an agent to secure from Congress, which was then in session in Philadelphia, if possible, a grant of land to the French settlers at Gallipolis.
     In March, 1795, Congress granted to the French at Gallipolis 24,000 acres of land, to be located and surveyed under the instruction of General Rufus Putnam.  Absalom Martin, the surveyor, divided the tract into ninety-two lots, which were numbered in order.  A few men were still not supplied with land, and, in 1798, Congress granted eight lots more of 150 acres each, at the lower end of the former grant on the Ohio River.  J. G. Garvals was granted 4,000 acres out of the 24,000 which was not numbered into lots.  Mr. Garvais laid out a portion of his tract, which included part of the Ohio River bottoms, into town lots and outlots, after the plan of the rural villages, and named his town Burrsburg, in honor of Aaron Burr, who was then quite popular.  As the French were poor, Garvais proposed in a letter to Duponsan to give him a number of tickets to draw lots in his town, or to give him 200 acres of land fronting on the Ohio River.  Duponsan chose the w00 acres which Garvais located on the upper corner of his tract, being sixty-four rods fronting on the river and running back for quantity; made a deed and acknowledged the same before Kimber Barton, the fist Justice of the Peace in the French Grant, and the deed was recorded in Book A, page 1.  In 1832 Thayer D. White purchased this 200 acres of Duponsan for $1,000 cash.  The town of Burrsburg was a failure.  Garvais cleared a few acres, built a log house sixteen feet square, set out some fruit trees, and kept bachelor's hall, having no family.  It was in this cabin that he entertained the celebrated traveler and scholar, Volney, the Professor of History in the Normal School of France, who visited this country in 1797, and who, on his return to France, published an account of his visit to the Scioto settlement.
     But few of the French ever settled on the "Grant," preferring to remain at Gallipolis.  Some that came to the "Grant" sold out and left, and one, a Mr. Fisho, who owned the lot now known as Burk's Point, after making considerable improvement, left and was never heard of afterward, and no one ever came to claim the property.  The names of those who became permanent settlers on the "Grant" and are still represented by descendants, were Vincent, Chabot, Cadot, Valodin, Duduit, Bartvaux, Lacroix, Duthy, Faverty, Serot and Andre.  Considering their want of experience in clearing up the wilderness the settlers made good progress, and in a few years had fine farms and fruit orchards.  The only thing that would bring money was good peach and apple brandy, and distilling fruit was resorted to and a good article was made by them.  The French immigrants suffered much from their want of experience and a fear of the Indians, which was not without cause.  Mr. Vincent, on a hunting trip, saw a party of Indians, and, secreting himself, lay out all night, freezing his hands and feet, it being a very cold night, from which he suffered greatly.  William Duduit had been a coachman in Paris, was stout and active, and became very expert in handling the canoe, and made several trips to Gallipolis, and to Limestone, now Maysville, Ky., and always without adventure with the Indians, as he kept constantly on the watch for his dusky foe.  He married a French woman after he came to Gallipolis, by whom he had four sons and five daughters.  They married, and are represented by the names of Gillin, Waugh, Copper, Stuart, and Phineas Oaks.  The sons were William, Frederick, John and Desso, who lives in New York.  They all have families.  William Duduit's first wife died and he married Zair Lacroix, by whom he had two sons and four daughters.  The sons were Edward, of the Madison Furnace, and Andrew, who lives in Kentucky.  They both have families.  One of the four daughters died unmarried; two of the others married John and Isaac Peters; the other married a Mr. Ridenour.  The oldest survivors of the French settlers here in the "Grant" were John Baptist Burtraux, who died at ninety-four years of age, and Mrs. Vincenet, who was the last survivor of the French colony here.  She was very nearly a hundred years old at her death.
     About the year 1800 J. G. Garvais sold his 4,000 acre tract (except 200 acres he conveyed to Duponsan), to Samuel Hunt, from New Hampshire, and returned to France.  Hunt went to work and made great improvements in clearing the land of the heavy growth of timber, and built a two-story house of hewed oak timber forty feet square, with a stone chimney in the center nearly large enough for a furnace stack.  There came here with Hunt Joel Church, who married here and settled on Gennett's Creek.  When Greene Township was organized he was made Township Clerk, and continued in that office for more than twenty years.  He died at his home on Gennett's Creek about 1857.  Of Church's sons, Rowell, the oldest, is in Texas.  The whereabouts of the two other sons is not known.  One daughter married Andrew Haley, a Red River planter, and lives in Louisiana; Emeline became second wife of E. H. Oaks, and the third married a Mr. Nurse.
     Mr. Hunt kept several men at work besides those engaged in building his house, and undertook to drain the big pond, which was mostly on his land.  At that time, and many years afterward, about one-third of the Ohio River bottoms was shallow ponds and slushes which would dry out in August and September, poisoning the atmosphere and causing ague and bilious fevers that few unacclimated persons escaped from.  Mr. Hunt died in 1806, a victim to the unhealthy condition of the country and his brother in New Hampshire, who would not go to a place where a brother had been so unfortunate, sold out the Ohio property, or traded it for property in New Hampshire.  Mr. Asa Boynton, of Haverhill, N. H., after making a journey to Ohio and viewing the property, became the purchaser in connection with Matthew White and Lawson Drury, and they moved to Ohio with their families in 1810.  White had 850 acres of the Garvais tract, which was taken of the lower side of the tract, and Drury a strip sixty-four rods wide in front, next to the Duponsan lot, on the upper side of the Garvais tract, and covering the back end of the Duponsan lot; the rest belonged to Boynton, and that part of it fronting on the river still belongs mostly to his grandchildren.  Boynton  was industrious and enterprising, and of the stock needed to develop a new country.  It was difficult at that early day to get money for produce, and Boynton built a flat-boat and took a load to New Orleans; took his return passage home on the steamboat Congress, and was thirty-one days getting to Louisville. 
     Mr. Boynton had built in 1813 the best horse mill then in the country, which enabled him to make good flour.  The only disadvantage was, the bolt had to be turned by hand.  If he ground for a customer and furnished the team, he took one-fourth toll; if the customer furnished his team, he took one-eighth toll.  Boynton, in connection with his mill-wright, Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Thurston built a water mill on Storm's Creek, in the hills back of where Ironton now stands, where sawing and grinding were done.  Boynton sold E. H. Oaks seven acres off his upper corner on the river, and next to that an acre to Madam Naylor, a sister of Mrs. Serot, who married Dr. Andrew Lacroix in Alexandria.  Shortly after the death of her husband Mrs. Naylor, then a young woman, removed to Baltimore, and did not come to Ohio until 1823, bringing with her a daughter, Sally, who married James S. Fulsom.  Mrs. Naylor kept the first dry-goods store in Haverhill.
     Mr. Asa Boynton, one of the most prominent of the early settlers, was born in Lynn, Mass., arch 4, 1760, and was married to Mary Edmunds in 1782; settled in Haverhill, N. H., where he lived until he emigrated to Ohio.  His family that came with him besides his wife was four sons and five daughters.  In 1813 the oldest son, Joseph, married Betsey Wheeler, daughter of Major Wheeler, settling where Wheelersburg now is, and who emigrated from Bethlehem, N. H.  Joseph died in 1817.  Charles Boynton, the second son, married Rhoda Sumner, daughter of Captain Sumner, who emigrated from Pacham, Vt., in 1812 or 1813.  They were married March 1814.  Charles Boynton died August, 1837.  Cynthia, the second daughter, was married to Benjamin Lock in December, 1814.  Lock was from Massachusetts, a carpenter by trade, Lydia, eldest daughter, was married to James B. Prescott November, 1815.  Lydia Prescott died February, 1825.  The third daughter, Lucy, was married to George Williams, a Pittsburger, who at fist principally followed keel boating and flat-boating, and then steam boating, in the capacity of Captain.  He died in 1832 of Cholera.  William L. Boynton, the third son, was married to Nancy Feurt Jan. 1, 1822.  Polly Boynton was married to Thomas H. Rogers Jan. 1, 1822.  Rogers followed boating in the capacity of steamboat Captain for many years, and led a useful and industrious life.  He served one term as County Commissioner, and died July 11, 1870, leaving his third wife with one daughter, and four sons and two daughters by his first wife living.
     Jane Ann Boynton married Thomas Whittier December, 1822, who died soon after, and his widow afterward married John Duthy, who was of the French stock.  Asa Boynton, Jr. married Julia Bartraux Dec. 25, 1828.  Both were good and industrious citizens, and accumulated a handsome property.  He died July 11, 1879, and his wife about two years after.
     John Boynton, the youngest of Asa Boynton, Sr.'s, children, was born in Ohio in 1811; was married to Felicity Bartraux, and died Aug. 15, 1848, Felicity, his wife, dying Feb. 7, 1852, leaving three sons, who served in the Union army and are still living.
     The family of Matthew White were but recently from England when they came to the "Grant", and consisted of the two old people and two sons, Matthew and Edward, young men when they came.  The old people died soon after they came.  Matthew married the Widow Rector, sister of Kimber Barton, one of the earliest settlers.  Two other sisters of Mr. Barton married respectively Ellis Chandler and a Mr. Day.
     Matthew White had three children, twin daughters and a son.  Edward, who, like his Uncle Edward, never married; he died young.  One of the daughters married Dr. James Vanbeber, who subsequently settled in Newport, Ky.; the other married Franklin Carrol,  a Frenchman, of Gallipolis.  The two girls, joint heirs, sold their land, which was composed of all that part of the White tract that lay in the Ohio River bottom, to Alexander Lacroix.  Matthew White attended the farm.  Edward, although he never learned a trade, was very ingenious, and generally employed in pattern making at the furnaces.  Both the brothers died at about fifty, and were conspicuous for their intense loyalty to England.
     Lawson Drury, the other purchaser of the Garvais tract, had four sons and two daughters.  The eldest, Ann, married Alexander Beatty and died soon after.  Betsey became the second wife of Carter Haley, settled in Kentucky, and is represented by a numerous family of sons and daughters.  Lawson married Ann Smith, and in 1831 sold his farm to E. H. Oaks,  moved to Illinois and settled in Morgan County.  Charles,  the second son, went away with Dr. Bivins in 1819, and settled in Missouri.  George married Miss Cartney, and he and the Cartney family moved to Indiana and settled.  Harvey, the youngest, married and settled in Burlington, Lawrence County, Ohio, and was killed by lightning while sitting in his porch a few years since.  The elder Lawson Drury was the first Post-master in French Grant;  kept the first ferry across the Ohio to Greenup; held the office of Associate Judge and Justice of the Peace.  He sold his part of the land to Phineas Oaks, having previously sold the ferry property to William Thomas, and went to his son Charles in Missouri, as he had been living without any of his family for years.  His wife died soon after he came to Ohio.
     At this distant day it is hard to say who were the first settlers, other than the French.  Commencing at the upper line of the French Grant, Thomas Gilruth, Vincent Furgeson, John Haley all settled here before 1800.  Lower down in the Grant the Feurts, four brothers by the name of Bakers, several families by the name of Patton,  a family of Salladays and William Montgomery at the lower end of the Grant.  Montgomery was the most useful and enterprising of that class of settlers.  Almost unaided, except by his two oldest sons, he built a dam across Pine Creek and erected a saw and grist mill, which was the first mill on the creek.  He afterward built a much better mill for grinding grain at the other end of the dam, on the upper side of the creek, all of which are still standing.  The next mill on the creek was built by one of the Pattons, a few miles above Montgomery's which is still kept.  Afterward Charles Kelley built a mill on the creek, near the upper back corner of the French Grant.
     The Salladay family owned and made a good improvement on the lower lot in the Grant, and sold the lower half to Hezekiah Smith;  the upper half belonged to Matthew Curran,  whose wife was a Salladay.  In the spring of 1815 he sold to Bethuel White and moved to the interior of the State.  The Salladay family were afflicted with consumption, and had a family burying ground on a ridge, at the lower line of the old farm.  Samuel Salladay had died during the fall of 1815 and was buried there.  Two or three months after they took up and Mat Wheeler cut him open and took out his heart, liver and lungs; they were burned up in fire prepared for the purpose, the family sitting round while they were burning, hoping it would arrest the disease.  Mrs. Curran was not present, but she and her sister, Mrs. Bradshaw, died within a year.  George Salladay was the only one that lived to a reasonable old age.  The adventurous Samuel Hunt was the cause of bringing a good many people here from New Hampshire and the contiguous part of Vermont.  From Vermont came the Kimballs, Haleys, Campfield, Kellogg, Lamb, Pratt, and a quite prominent person in Captain Sumnerb, with a married son, Henry, a young son named Horatio and four daughters.  The oldest, Rhoda, married Charles Boynton; Friendley married Robert Lucas, afterward Governor of Ohio for four years; Maria married Dr. Reynolds; Margaret married Mr. Whitmore, and Horatio married a daughter of Robert Lucas by a former wife.  Sumner bought and settled on the two French lots Nos. 8 and 9, where Joshua Oaks lives, and had built in 1814 and 1815 the large frame house now occupied by the Oakses.   He came to the county in 1813.

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