Fletcher, Ohio

The first white man who located himself permanently within the present limits of Brown Township was John Kiser, who emigrated from Virginia in the early days of the nineteenth century, and came immediately to Ohio. He settled first near Dayton, but, in 1806, came to this township and purchased the northeast quarter of Section 30, where he built his rude cabin and began life in this section of Miami County as a bachelor ; but, soon growing weary of a " life in the forest alone," he took to himself a wife, and began in earnest the work of clearing his farm and making a pleasant home for his family. This, for one man, was no small undertaking, requiring not only a great expenditure of muscular force, but also a will so determined as not to be thwarted by any common difficulty. Mr. Kiser, however, proved equal to the emergency, and soon had cleared a few acres of ground, from which he raised the first crop of corn and vegetables in the township. Isaac Kiser, the oldest child of this family, was bora in the fall of 1810, and was the first white child who had his nativity in Brown Township ; besides him, two other sons and two daughters were bora to Mr. Kiser. Isaac, the eldest, still lives near the spot of his birth, the oldest resident in the township. He is a man greatly respected by all, who, by his untiring industry, has succeeded in accumulating a goodly portion of this world's goods, which he does not hesitate to use for any laudable and benevolent purpose that may come under his observation. His sons, two of whom carry on the mercantile business in Fletcher, are wide-awake citizens. Mrs. Kiser has in her possession one of the coats worn by the Britishers during the Revolutionary war ; it is a sleeveless red jacket, and was taken during the war by a relative of Mrs. Kiser, from whom she received it. This, is, without doubt, the oldest article of apparel in the township, the sight of which reminds one not only of the ftitile attempts of Great Britain to rule the United Colonies, but also of the grand work accomplished by our forefathers, when they obtained for themselves and their descendants such desirable homes as are to be found not only in Brown, but in every township, almost, throughout the United States.

Passage source: The History of Miami County, Ohio, published 1880.

The first year of his arrival here, Mr. Simmons, after building his house, succeeded in clearing two or three acres of land, from which he raised oorn enough for family use during the next year. In a few years subsequent to his settling here, he managed to clear more than fifty acres of his wooded homestead, from which he raised good crops of corn and a little wheat. There being no market near at hand, and farm products being exceedingly low, the inducements to farm extensively were not great, even had it been possible ; all grain, beyond what was necessary for home consumption, had to be carried to the neighboring towns for a market , and there being no regular roads at this time, and wagons not being yet in use, it will readily be seen that the means and modes of transportation were neither numerous nor convenient Most of the surplus grain in this township was for many years taken to Dayton for sale, till Piqua became a town, after which the narrow pathway through the woods to that place was frequented more than that which led to the more remote market, and hence the first sale of grain in Piqua from this township was made by a son of Mr. Simmons, who carried to that place a few bushels of corn on the back of the old family horse, which he disposed of after some trouble, for the then enormous price of 9 cents per bushel, which he received in cash. On so small a scale as this began the sale of grain in this township, which has since assumed, in comparison, proportions almost gigantic. _

Passage source: The History of Miami County, Ohio, published 1880.

John D. Corry, a brother-in-law of Maj. Manning, with whom he came to this township, was a native of New Jersey, from which place he emigrated in 1818, and, reaching Ohio, stopped in Dayton the 4th day of July of the same year. Mr. Corry was the first merchant in this part of the township, having purchased a small stock of goods, which he sold at his house as early as 1825. After having been engaged in this business for three or four years, he sold his property here and removed to Shelby County, subsequently moving on to Illinois, where he located permanently.

Passage source: The History of Miami County, Ohio, 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 Brown Township - it names this place 57 more 57 times.