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100 Years Ago


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Pioneers Index Page

On March 1, 1803, the state of Ohio became the first state to be admitted to the Union from the Northwest Territory. In 1805, Shelby County’s first settler, James Thatcher, traveled north from Kentucky along the Great Miami River and settled in the corner of what is now Washington Township, setting up his first house (probably no more than a ‘lean-to’) and the first homestead in Shelby County.

Because of frequent land claim conflicts and the presence of Indians roaming the Miami Valley in the years preceding the War of 1812, however, there were less than 50 families living in the area now known as Shelby County.

While pioneers were a special breed of people who could build, hunt, plant crops and gather food, not all early settlers were prepared to handle what greeted them when they arrived on the frontier. The first pioneers had to make do with what was available at the site where they chose to live. To remove the forests, kill the wild animals and transform this wilderness, was the task set before them.

The work was slow, tedious, constant and hard with inadequate shelter and the ever present threat of Indian attack. The life expectancy of pioneer men, women and children ranged between 30 and 40 years. While they were almost totally self-sufficient due to settlements being very far apart and thinly populated, they also regularly cooperated with each other to do things they couldn’t do alone.

LOCAL HISTORY
1669 to1769/First Exploration
1669 to 1769/Pickawillany
1769 to 1782
1783 to 1800
Why Shelby County, Ohio?
County Boundary Changes
Swamplands
War of 1812
Hardin

Loramie: No Tender Feelings
Loramie's Life after Shelby County
Early Newspaper in Shelby County

PIONEER LIFESTYLE
Clothing
Cooking & Food
Meat to the Table
Early Sausage Making
Communication
Education
Household Furnishings
Threshing:  A Neighborly Thing to Do
Medicine
Tools
Religion
Leisure
Transportation


FIRST SETTLERS
1805/Thatcher
1806/Cannon, Earl, Mellinger
1807/John Wilson
1808/Jackson, Marshall
1809/Berry, Phillips, Valentine
1810/Carey, McClure
1811/Lenox
1814 - 1820/Henry, Houston
1820 & 1824/Dr. Pratt, Dr. Fielding
1820s/Fergus, Roberts
Charles Starrett: Sidney's Founder
Franz Eicher
Henry Sherman: Family Immigration
The Type of People who Settled Here

READINGS
Recollections of an Old Man in 1896
A Pioneer Moves Near Anna in 1833
The Pioneers of Western Ohio
Mail Delivery in the 1800s
Eating in the Wilds
Neighbors Helped Each Other Learn the Ways of the Land
Hardin's Carey Cemetery Restored
Old Anna Church: Born Again as Barn

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LINKS

 

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