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CentennialUnoiIservedHocking County(Editorial)This year, 1948, is the sesqui-centennial or the 150th anniversary of the first white settlement in what is now Hocking County.In the unrelenting press of today’s events, most of us have lostBut it wastrack of our own history and our perspective into the past, just J50 years ago that Christian Westenhaver and his family madeitheir way by canoe up the silent, wooded reaches of the Hocking Riverto the lovely valley site where Logan stands today.They came all the way from Maryland, in the first push of American pioneers to settle the vast Northwest Territory. They started outIin 1796, one year after the Indians had signed the treaty of Greenville, 1bringing to an end the long and bloody series of wars in the Ohiocountry.The Westenhavers wintered at Fort Belpre on the Ohio River.Inthe spring they moved down the river to Little Hocking, but the feverof the pioneers was upon them, and other white men had gone aheadof them up the Hocking River as far as the present site of Athens.So, in the spring of 1798, the Westenhavers came up the Hocking River, too, and they pushed on beyond the furthest settlement into the wilds where only Indians had lived before. Surveyors of the Ohio Company had preceded them, and there were veterans of the Indian wars who had come this way with the army of Lord Ounmore In 1774.They found signs of the old Indian settlements along the banks,and they finally reached a stretch of rapids where their canoe upset, soaking all their possessions, including a treasured sack of cornmeal. Further navigation of the river seemed impossible, so they haltedtheir journey.Christian Westenhaver, a practical farmer of German extraction, knew good farm land when he saw it, and he chose one of the finest sites in the valley in the well-watered bottoms just below Oldtown Creek. Some of the land had already been cleared by the Indians, but most of it was still a dark wilderness, shaded by a dense growth of immense sycamores, poplars, walnut, ash, buckeye, beech, maple andoak.Their stock of provisions was small, but game was plentiful, and their cornmeal lasted until they got their first crops in the fall, Indiancorn and potatoes. They built a log cabin not far from the river, within sight of the place where John Westenhaver, then a boy of 14, later was to build the brick house, now known as the England home, which still stands just off Route 33 at the eastern edge of the city. The log cabin was still standing in 1870, but all traces of it have now disappeared.Christian Westenhaver died on his farm in 1830, after he had seenthe town of Logan rise on the site, he had chosen, and the county of Hocking come into being.His son, John Westenhaver, grandfather of members of the family now living in Logan, built the first brick house in Hocking County in 1844, making his own bricks in a kiln set up in the hollow just back of the house.His sons, William and Edward Westenhaver, carried all the brick from the kiln on boards.The house was built beside the never-failing spring whichChristian Westenhaver had found in the hillside, still the sourcelegend—thatspring will always return to Hocking County.There seems little interest in preserving the historical traditionsof Hocking County, and there are evidently no plans for observingthis important anniversary. Guernsey County is now celebrating the150th anniversary of its settlement in the same year with a week-long program, but no move has been made here to mark the occasion.There is still time, and perhaps some public or civic group will yet take the responsibility of paying at least some small honor to the county's first pioneer, whose courage and hardihood symbolize all the sacrifices our forefathers made that we might live today in peace and freedom.
Newspaper Details
Logan Daily News
Logan, Ohio, US
Tue, Aug 31, 1948
Page 1
Full Page
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Anonymous
USA 14 Nov 2021
Other Publications Near Logan, Ohio
The Ohio Democrat
Logan Democrat Sentinel
Logan Hocking Sentinel
Logan Hocking County Sentinel
Logan Daily News
