LAFAYETTE TOWNSHIP.

Although Lafayette township was the last to be organized, the territory in it was among the first occupied. As .
early as 1801, Charles and Esaias Baker were raising corn on what is now known as the Colonel Andrew Ferguson farm. In 1802, George and Wendell Miller came out from Virginia, and continued to dwell in the township until they died at advanced years. Thomas Wiggins, also from Virginia, came in about the same time. In 1804, Francis McGuire, who had lived in the same locality (on the south branch of the Potomac, near Romney), whence the Millers and Wiggins had come, moved to the Tuscarawas valley above New Comerstown, and in 1807 came on down the valley to the locality in Lafayette township still known as the "McGuire settlement." The family were carried in a wagon which was driven along on the bank of the river, sometimes in it, and they afterward used the wagon-bed as their shelter and sleeping-place until a cabin could be built, which, in the want of help to any considerable extent from neighbors, took more time than in after years. Mr. McGuire died on the place thus taken up by him in 1853, being about seventy-six years of age.
In 1804, Seth McLain, also from Virginia, settled near the Bakers, putting up a cabin near the fine spring which now supplies Colonel Ferguson's house. After residing some ten years, the "settlers" discovered they were on the "Higby section" of military land, and moved over into Linton township, becoming thus early settlers therein. McLain married one of the Sells, whose connections had settled further up the river. His son James (father of Seth and Colonel R. W. McLain) died a couple of years ago, aged about seventy-five years. Thomas McLain came into Lafayette township in 1805, and. remained until his death. A son (Isaac) is probably the oldest citizen now in the township, about seventy-two years of age.
Joseph C. Higbee, from Trenton, New Jersey, settled on his military section about 1820, and remained there until
his death, about 1873, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. It is said his death was hastened, if not caused, by a violent abuse he received from some one who, it is believed, purposed robbery. His first wife was Miss Hackinson. One of his daughters was married to Rev. Mr. Southard, who was for a time a minister of Trinity Church, New York. Another is said to have married Mr. Hay, a lawyer, in Pittsburg. John Richmond, of Orange, married a daughter by the second wife. As illustrating "the style" of the man, the story was long current in the neighborhood, that, when he first came to the country, then in comparatively a wilderness condition, he brought with him six dozen ruffled shirts.
James M. Burt and Andrew Ferguson, long prominent citizens of the township, do not lay claim to being among the "old settlers," but they were in the neighborhood before it was organized.
 

* 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