JACKSON TOWNSHIP.
The first resident tax-paying landowners in Jackson township were the Fosters (Samuel, William, David, Benjamin, Moses, and Andrew). The family was originally from Virginia, but came to Jackson township from Harrison county, Ohio, in 1816. The father died soon after the removal. David died some twenty years ago, and Samuel some two years. Moses and Andrew removed to the west a number of years ago. William still lives at advanced years where he first settled upon his marriage.
Barney and Thomas Cantwell were very early settlers in that part of Jackson township which originally belonged to Tuscarawas. The run just below Roscoe was long known as "Cantwell's run." Abel Cain was another very early settler.
About 1814 a man by the name of Sible built a small distillery on the farm just south of Roscoe, now owned by John G. Stewart. A little later he put up a little mill on Cantwell's run, about a third of a mile up. It was called a thunder-gust mill, as it only ran with full force after a heavy shower.
"Sible's corn-juice" was very popular in that day, and the business done by him and his neighbor, Samuel Brown, was enough to warrant the idea of a town, and doubtless led James Calder to layout in that vicinity "Caldersburg." Brown was from Massachusetts; first located, in 1814, at Rock run, three miles south of Coshocton. In 1816 he settled on a tract about a mile and a half west of Roscoe, and, after clearing a few acres and building a cabin, sold his claim to John Demoss. He then built a saw-mill on Cantwell's run, which had head of water enough to run the mill on an average three days in the week. For a number of years (until he united with the church) he depended on Sunday visitors to give him a lift in getting enough logs on the skids to keep the mill at work. The neighborly feeling, mellowed with a good supply of neighbor Sible's corn-juice, sweetened with neighbor Creig's maple-sugar (see below), was always equal to the demands thus made. Later in life Mr. Brown engaged in the making of brick. He remained in the vicinity until he died, in February, 1871, aged eighty-four years. He was for many years a useful and highly esteemed citizen.
About 1815 a man by the name of Creig bought forty acres of land, and built a cabin a little south of Robert Crawford's residence, On the tract now owned by Burns and Johnson.. He was one of the most successful makers,
of maple-sugar, an article largely made, and in universal use in early days in Coshocton county for sweetening coffee, tea, whisky, etc. Mr. Creig died about 1826, and the family removed from the county.
Theophilus Phillips was from the State of New Jersey. He lived in Zanesville several years, and in 1815 entered and settled upon the farm. now best known as the Dr. Roberts' farm, in the western part of Jackson township. In 1816 he sold this tract, and built a cabin in what is now Roscoe, and having lived in that a few years, he built, in 1821, the first brick house in the vicinity, using it for a tavern for a number of years. He moved to Indiana about 1845, and there died in 1858, being seventy-four years old. His daughter, Mrs. Hutchinson, is still living in Roscoe, understood to be the only person resident in Roscoe in the day of the opening of the "Phillips' tavern."
Reuben Hart was a brother-in-law of Phillips, also from New Jersey, and in 1816 occupied the farm next to Phillips, now known as the Wallace Sutton farm.
Wm. Starkey came from Virginia in the spring of ,1815, worked. for a time in Carhart's tannery, one mile north of Roscoe; afterward lived for a time in Cosbocton, but is an old settler in Jackson.
John Demoss (father of Lewis Demoss, of Empire Mill) came from Virginia, and settled in Jackson township in 1817. He bought out Samuel Brown, as elsewhere stated, and lived on the tract until his death, March 4, 1840.
Abraham Randles and Thomas J. Ramphey came from Virginia, about 1817. They have both been dead many years. John Randles, son of Abraham, is supposed to be the oldest citizen now in the township that was born in it.

 

* See" Biographical Sketches."

Historical Collections of Coshocton County Ohio 1764-1876 

William E Hunt, 1876

CHAPTER IV  NOT'ICES OF SOME OF THE EARLIEST SETTLER8, AND OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST PERTAINING TO EACH TOWNSHIP.

Transcribed by: Sandy Payne 

© copyright 2004 Sandy Payne