Coletown, Ohio

Among those who came between the spring of 1809 and the fall of 1810, the writer, at this distant day. can only name a part, and of that part were Moses Scott, from Southwestern Pennsylvania, who. with his son William, were afterward successive Sheriffs of Darke County, serving in the first, second and third regular terms of that office after the organization of the county : John Studabaker and Abraham Miller, brother and brother-in-law to Abraham Studabaker. who hail settled down the creek some two years before : they were located on lands on the old trace to Fort Jefferson, some two miles south of Greenville ; Scott purchased a quarter-section, a half-mile south of theDevor purchase, that has for the last thirty years or more been the property of David Studabaker, and also purchased two lots adjoining the public square in Greenville, on which he erected a two-story log house, in which for the period of from twelve to lift ecu years, he kept what in those days was regarded as an A No. 1 tavern, or inn. where the weary traveler could be regaled on corn bread, venison, coffee, tea or whisky, as might best suit his appetite or mitigate his hunger and thirst. Scott and what were left of his family migrated to Fort Wayne, End., in 1S24. In the Indian troubles of 1812, he had his powder horn shot away from his side ; a number of years before, he had a narrow escape when engaged in the whisky insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, and his guests at the tavern in Greenville were always entertained by a recital of how he escaped powder and lead in Pennsylvania, as well as a detail of the powder-horn adventure in the prairie above Greenville. About the time of Scott's advent in Greenville, came Charles Sumption, commonly known as the " Wax-works," with a family, consisting of a wife, two sons and four daughters. His son George settled on what is now the Bishop Farm, on Mud Creek, which he sold in 1829, and went to the St. Joe country in Northwest Indiana. Charles ultimately settled up the creek. about six miles above Greenville, in Washington Township. One of the daughters married Benoni Overfield, and was long remembered by the traveling public as the first-class landlady of the Overfield Tavern in Troy. Another was married to Jesse Rush, who also migrated with George Sumption to the St. Joe, in 1820. Another daughter married a blackguard named Henry Lowe, who came here from Kentucky on the hunt of runaway negroes in 1812. The elder Sumption having buried his his first wife and married a second, died near what is now known as Coletown in 1825.

Passage source: The History of Darke County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Cities, Towns, Etc.; General and Local Statistics; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men;, published 1880.

Early in 1810, came from Pickaway Plains^ below Circleville, on the Scioto, James Bush, Henry Hush. Andrew Bush and Henry Creviston, and settled, the two first-named at and adjoining the Prophet's town, on Mud Creek. Andrew Bush on the West Branch, where it was crossed by what was known as the " Squaw Road" or Delaware Path. Creviston, after a year or two, and after his brother-inlaw. .Matthew Young, came out from Pickaway County, in conjunction with him purchased land northeast of Coletown, where he resided until 1S25. when he went a few miles farther up the creek, and settled in Washington Township. On the organization of the county, in the winter of 1816-17, James Bush was chosen by the Legislature as one of the Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. which office he held for fourteen years, being re-elected by the Legislature in 1824 ; at the expiration of his second term, Judge Bush with all his family - save one daughter who, in 1828, was married to the late John Deardorff - removed to Eel River, in Indiana.

Passage source: The History of Darke County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Cities, Towns, Etc.; General and Local Statistics; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men;, published 1880.

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 Greenville Township.