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.

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