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Nicholas Neighbor and 60 Emigrants
Arrived Here
in 1814
The Trip Took Six Weeks
by Anne M. Zimmer
Newcomerstown News: Thursday, August 13, 1964
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In 1764, Delaware Indians occupied the Tuscarawas Valley. Col.
Bouquet set out from Fort Duquesne with 1500 soldiers to recover
200 white people taken by the Indians in eastern Pennsylvania.
His camp was set up at the forks of the Muskingum River, at what
is now Coshocton. The Indians, following the French and Indian
War, were beginning to realize they could no longer rely on the
French as allies, and recognized the importance of closer
cooperation with the settlers to the east.
A Delaware village of 100 houses occupied a site on present
routes U.S. 21 and Ohio 16. Chief Netawatwes (Translated
Newcomer) lived in the best cabin, which had a board floor,
stone chimney and a stairway to the loft. The cleared ground and
cornfields south of the river were evidence that the Delawares
were industrious. “King” Newcomer felt kindly toward David
Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary in the valley. Zeisberger
accepted an invitation from the chief to address the tribe, and
on March 14, 1771 the first Protestant sermon west of the
Alleghenies was delivered to a throng of Indians and about a
dozen whites. That location is marked by a monument erected a
number of years ago.
Soon after this event, the Delawares abandoned their town and
moved to Goshocting (Coshocton).
Little is known of this region during the Revolutionary War,
although wandering Indians were said to have occasionally
occupied the abandoned cabins. Renegades passed through; Simon
Girty and his companions, Brandt and McKee, had a cabin on
Buckhorn Creek.
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At the
close of the Revolutionary War, public lands were offered for
sale. This area was part of Washington County, where the first
settlement had been made at Marietta in 1782 by Revolutionary
veterans from Massachusetts who had received grants of land for
their services.
One of these tracts, the Stark Patent, lay in this area, in what
is now the northeast section of Oxford Township. Its exact
limits are not known, but it included the present Schlupp,
Watson, Morris, Stahl, and Barnett farms. Since Col. Stark, a
resident of New Hampshire never occupied his land, a number of
“squatters” took possession, among them families named Carr,
Pierce, Funston, Riley, Hartley and Updegraph. Oxford was one of
the four original townships in Tuscarawas County when it was
organized in 1808.
John Mulvane is known to have been here in 1804, since he had an
account at a store of David Peter in Gnadenhutten, and later be
bought 100 acres south of the present River Street Bridge.
Before 1800 James Campbell had a trading house in this vicinity,
and George Bible was listed as an early resident and hunter.
John Douglas was the first Justice of the Peace, in 1808. The
first civil case recorded in the county involved David Wolgamot
of Oxford Township who was charged with trading three quarts of
whiskey to John Jacobs, an Indian, for four deerskins. Since
there was a state law forbidding sale of liquor to Indians, he
was found guilty, fines $5.00 and ordered to return the skins.
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Early
landowners in the township were David Johnson who bought 200
acres in 1805 and Daniel Harris, in 1809. John Junkins had a
public house 1808 and David Douglass operated a ferry the same
year. In 1813 Judge Nicholas Neighbor arrived from New Jersey
and bought 1900 acres in the northwest corner of the township.
He returned to New Jersey and came back to Ohio the following
year, bringing with him a party of 60 emigrants, almost all of
whom were either relatives or neighbors. They spent six weeks
making the trip, and on their arrival, lived for a time in the
abandoned Delaware cabins. Judge Neighbor’s cabin, the first
erected, was located immediately south of the present railway
station. George Bible, already an “old settler” got acquainted
with the Neighbor family by placing a freshly killed deer in
front of their door. It frightened the newcomers at first, but
provided them with their first venison.
Appointed as associate judge, Nicholas Neighbor lived for a
number of years at New Philadelphia and was one of those who
presided in the autumn of 1825 at the trial of the murderer of
the postboy. This crime occurred in Oxford Township and the
guilty man, John Funston, was hanged and brought for burial to
his parents’ home on the Stark Patent. Judge Neighbor later
returned to Newcomerstown, and died here.
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Andrew
Creter came from New Jersey in 1817 and soon after his arrival
married Judge Neighbor’s daughter, Elizabeth. When his wife
died, he returned east and brought back his sister, Sarah, who
reared his family of four children, one of whom was Jack Creter
- last of his father’s family - who built the large house at the
corner of Bridge and Church Streets, now owned by Russell
Taylor. |
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