Cilley, Ohio

The religious element prevailed in the character of the early pioneers. The Sabbath was well and religiously observed. The Bible and the hymn-book were found in their cabins, and when no preacher led their services they assembled together generally in the cabin of John Benham, and held meetings for prayer, praise, and Christian conference. Thus they lived in peace and harmony. They needed no law to secure good order. Under the was Ezekiel Hughes, appointed by Governor Tiffin in October, 1805, and his docket showed but little business during his official life of over ten years.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

The Government land being surveyed, in 1802 it was offered for sale at public auction held in Cincinnati. The law required it to be sold in sections of six hundred and forty acres at not less than two dollars per acre. The sale was continued for several days, at its close the unsold land could be entered at one dollar and a quarter an acre. The first land sold, sections fifteen and sixteen, was bought by Ezekiel Hughes for two dollars and some cents per acre. At the sale competition for these choice sections ran high. Mr. Hughes, an immigrant from Wales, who had carefully noted the location and fertility of the sections, and a Pennsylvania German were the competitors, and eventually the Welshmen became the purchaser. All the rest of the land in the township was entered at Government price, and in a few years all Congress land was taken up either by speculators or by actual settlers. Among these were the Ewings, Mills, Piatt, Hunt, Oury, Perine, Cilley, and Andrews families. Mr. Piatt built the first frame house in the township, a part of which is now the parsonage of the Presbyterian church at Elizabethtown. Thomas Miller built the fir.n stone house; Peter Perine built the first mill on the Whitewater, for which he received a bonus of a quarter section of land.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

Lawrenceburgh. Thomas and Jacob Hunt always lived at the old homestead, and accumulated a large estate. They were members and liberal supporters of the Presbyterian church. Thomas Hunt served the church faithfully in the office of a ruling elder for over twenty years. The Presbyterian meeting-house and parsonage in Elizabethtown are monuments of their liberality and Christian lives. Edward Hunt, still surviving at the age of eighty-one years, was educated for mercantile business in the city of Cincinnati, and has been in active business, farming and merchandising, until laid aside by the infirmities of age. He has been actively engaged in the Sabbath-school work, and in laboring for the advancement of religion in the township for over fifiy years. In 1830 he married Miss Ann Hughes, eldest daughter of Ezekiel Hughes, esq., and their children - Thomas, Jacob, and Mary, who married Joseph Cilley, esq. - are living in the neighborhood, highly esteemed and useful citizens. George VV. Haire, esq., of Elizabethtown, is a son of Susan Hunt. He has been in public life, as a magistrate, a county surveyor and engineer, and for many years superintendent of Sunday-schools, and an elder in the Presbyterian church. Another son, Rev. I. P. Haire, graduated at Miami university, Oxford, Ohio, and Union Theological seminary, New York, and is now settled in Janesville, Wisconsin. L. H. Bonham, esq., son of Charlotte Hunt and John Bonham, also graduated at the Miami university, was principal of a well known and useful female seminary at St. Louis, Missouri, for many years, and now devotes his time to cultivating a model farm near Oxford, raising fine stock, and with his facile pen is giving the agricultural world the benefit of his experience in cultivating the soil.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Whitewater Township - it names this place 7 more 7 times.