Rome Township, Athens County

How Rome Township, Athens County began

Rome Township, in southeastern Athens County, was formed from part of Troy Township in 1811. Its first settler was David Dailey, a Revolutionary War veteran and famous hunter who arrived in 1797 at the mouth of Federal Creek, when the nearest neighbors were twelve miles off at Athens and Native hunting parties still passed through on their way to trade furs at Wheeling. Daniel Stewart, who settled here in 1802 and by 1810 had the largest orchard in the state, became the township's dominant early citizen; his sons built and ran a succession of mills at Savannah, the township's mill village, for generations. By 1833 the township already had a store and several mills serving its scattered farms, and its population has always clustered in small unincorporated crossroads communities — Guysville, New England, Stewart and Savannah — rather than a single town center. The 1883 Hocking Valley history counts its population at 497 in 1820 and 2,207 in 1880, growing at every census.

Settled 1797 (David Dailey, the first settler), incorporated 1811-04-04, by Athens County commissioners' order, forming Rome from part of Troy Township; boundaries finalized by a second order of June 4, 1811, with the first election to be held at the house of Daniel Stewart.

Where the name comes from

No source we consulted (Walker 1869, the 1883 Hocking Valley history, the 1916 county history, Wikipedia) explains why the township was named Rome; the histories record only its erection from Troy Township on April 4, 1811.

Before the town

No source consulted records a Native village, trail, mound or treaty line specific to Rome Township, but the township's first settler arrived in a landscape still actively used by Native people passing through: David Dailey, who settled at the mouth of Federal Creek in 1797, recalled that 'parties of Indians were frequently seen on hunting excursions, or on their way to Wheeling to barter their furs.' The township lies in the Ohio Company Purchase (1787) in the Hocking/Ohio River hill country of southeastern Athens County.

Timeline

1. 1797 — David Dailey, a Revolutionary War veteran born in Vermont in 1750, becomes the first settler in what is now Rome Township, opening a farm at the mouth of Federal Creek on land later known as the Beebe farm.
2. 1800 — Judge Elijah Hatch migrates from New York to Rome Township; in 1801 he returns east and brings his elderly parents and family down the Youghiogheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers by flatboat, and is the first man to drive a wagon team through the woods from the Little Hocking to the Big Hockhocking.
3. 1802 — George, Henry and James Barrows build the first grist and saw mill in the township on Federal Creek, a log building with one run of 'Laurel Hill granite' stones turned by an undershot wheel.
4. 1802 — Daniel Stewart, a Revolutionary War veteran born in Connecticut in 1762, settles on the river about a mile above the mouth of Federal Creek; by 1810 his orchard of 3,000 fruit trees is probably the largest in Ohio.
5. 1803 — The Rev. Cyrus Paulk Jr., a Baptist, preaches at the settlers' cabins as early as this year, and a Baptist church is founded in Rome Township the same year according to the 1916 county history.
6. 1804 — The first schoolhouse in the township, a sixteen-foot-square log structure, is built on the east bank of Federal Creek near its mouth; Abraham Richards is the first teacher.
7. 1804 — The Rev. Jacob Young, a Methodist missionary on the Marietta circuit, stops at Daniel Stewart's home and organizes a congregation with the Pilchers, Rutlers, Cases and Howells as original members.
8. 1808 — Elijah Hatch builds the first bridge in the township over Federal Creek near its mouth, followed by a second in 1818 and a toll bridge by Peter Beebe in 1842.
9. 1811 — Rome was formed from a portion of Troy Township by county commissioners' order.
10. 1811 (about) — A seagoing vessel, The Enterprise, is built a mile below the mouth of Federal Creek by Captain Caleb Barstow of Providence, Rhode Island, and launched down the Hockhocking and Ohio to New Orleans in spring 1812.
11. 1811 — On April 4 the Athens County commissioners erect Rome from Troy Township; no election follows, so on June 4 they redraw its bounds and set the first election at Daniel Stewart's house on June 15.
12. 1812 — When Athens County is called on for fifty infantry volunteers, nearly a fifth of the company comes from Rome Township's Federal Creek school district.
13. 1814 — On February 10 the legislature gives Athens County and Rome Township sections 31 and 32 of township 6, range 11, on the west side of the Hocking River.
14. 1820 — Ezra and Charles Stewart, sons of Daniel Stewart, build the Savannah grist and saw mill on the Hockhocking, with three runs of stones and heavy custom trade.
15. 1820 — The census counts 497 residents in Rome Township; the population then grows at every census to 522 (1830), 852 (1840), 1,309 (1850), 1,581 (1860), 1,972 (1870) and 2,207 (1880).
16. 1833 — Rome Township has a store and several mills serving its farms, per early township records.
17. 1841 — The Rev. Amos Miller, son of Judge Abel Miller, establishes the Miller Seminary on his farm near Savannah, teaching in his own house at first; a dedicated two-story school building follows in 1859.
18. 1867 (spring) — Savannah Academy is founded through the efforts of local citizens including Frederic Finsterwald and Peter Boyles; more than 140 students attend in its first year under principal George W. Boyce.

Stories

David Dailey and the hungry governor

David Dailey, born in Vermont in 1750, served in the Revolutionary War under Captain (later Vermont governor) Thomas Chittenden, then made his way west, arriving by pirogue at the mouth of Federal Creek in 1797 with two daughters and five sons — the first settler in what became Rome Township. Around him was unbroken wilderness; the nearest neighbors were twelve miles off at Athens, and Native hunting parties still passed through on their way to trade furs at Wheeling. A famous hunter who, in a neighbor's words, 'cultivated a sort of contempt for the comforts of civilization,' Dailey was once visited by Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, who stopped at his cabin hungry and found Dailey's larder empty; St. Clair had to press on to Athens exhausted and furious, and afterward threatened to banish the 'shiftless' Dailey from the territory. When the two men later crossed paths in Alexander Township, St. Clair needled him about his farming; Dailey shot back that he'd fared about as poorly at farming as St. Clair had fighting the Indians at his disastrous 1791 defeat — 'but I think the difference, if any, is on my side, for, being born without a shirt, I have made out to hold my own till the present time.' The governor, the story goes, left him alone after that.

The Stewarts of Savannah

Daniel Stewart came to Ohio from New Jersey in 1802, trading his eastern property for two shares in the Ohio Company's purchase; his son, Colonel William Stewart, later recalled the family's neighbors gathering for a daylong farewell before they set out, certain they'd never be heard from again, and cutting saplings to drag behind the wagon as brakes on the steep grades of the Alleghenies. Daniel Stewart prospered quickly on his new farm above the mouth of Federal Creek: by 1810 his orchard of 3,000 trees was probably the largest in the state, and he served over twenty years as one of the township's first two justices of the peace. His fourteen children scattered across public life — one son, Ezra, built the Savannah mill in 1820; another, William, later organized more than a hundred school districts as Iowa's state superintendent of schools; a grandson, Daniel B. Stewart, spent decades running a chain of mills and a woolen factory along the Hockhocking, at one point cultivating five farms and raising 4,500 bushels of wheat in a single year.

A house-raising and a chicken pie

Colonel William Stewart recalled a barn-raising at his father's place in the spring of 1804 that drew some fifty men from Rome, Carthage, Troy, Ames and Canaan townships by sunrise, fueled by a copious supply of rye whiskey. At dinner, with three chicken pies laid out and a decanter of whiskey beside the center one, James Crippen scooped out the pie's middle and poured in more than a quart of whiskey, declaring 'it has all got to go one way at last.' The barn was finished by dark — 'the greatest day's work,' Stewart guessed, 'ever performed in the county' — and the evening ended with a dance in which some twenty men took turns as partners with an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Wickham, until she and then her husband were worn out, at which point the crowd loaded Mr. Wickham onto an ox-sled and hauled him laughing around the yard to the sound of cowbells before finally calling it a night, near midnight, without a single hard word spoken all day.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org

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