Fort Recovery, Ohio

The southern and western part of Gibson township was largely settled by people from Southern Ohio and Pennsylvania, who originally came from Virginia and North and South Carollina, although a few came from Delaware. Among the early settlers in this section were the families of James -Cummins, Henry Denney, Benjamin Clark and William F. Denney, who came from Gallia County, Ohio ; the Clarks, who came from England ; Wateman Hastings and Solomon Collins, who came from the State of Delaware ; and Robert Hunter, James Alexander and David Hays who came from Fairfield County, Ohio - all of these settled in Gibson township about the same time. Nathan S. Scranton settled on a farm in Gibson township in 1849; the Scranton family, who were originally from the State of Connecticut, came to Mercer County from Medina County, Ohio. Near the town of Fort Recovery and north of the first neighborhood, Robert Travis, Edward Jones, Sylvester Schutt, Jacob Schaffer, Jacob Stuber and Joseph Clark and their families settled. In the eastern part of the township, around Sharpsburg, Aaron Rood and wife and' his sons, L. B. Rood and Alpha Rood, who were Yankees in every sense of the word; the Jones and Hall families and the families of Thomas Rockwell, Jacob and George Meyers and William Snyder - all of whom came from Butler County, Ohio - settled at an early date. In the same section of the township also settled John L. Fox, David Johnson, John Hedrick and Abraham Mott, Sr. - Abraham and James Z. Mott, sons of the lastnamed pioneer, still live in the township. The Lowry family came in at a later date and its representatives are still living in the township. Samuel Briner, Samuel Keller, David F. Blake (who went to Missouri in 1857), George Sigler, M. W. Diggs and George Painter were early settlers in the southern part of the township. Other early settlers were James Watkins, Daniel Broclc and John McDaniel.

Passage source: History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907.

It seems to be a settled fact that the older the country, the fewer the .country schools. This is true in Gibson township to-day: The schools out- side of the town of Fort Recovery are not as large as they were 35 years ago, when the writer had a very personal knowledge of them. Then there were six district schools, maintained on an average of eight or nine months in the year, and each one of these schools had an average attendance of not less than 50 pupils, and at least three had from 75 to 100 pupils each. At the present time it takes three of these same school districts combined to maintain oneschool, and this one with only about 30 pupils in attendance. The Board of Education think it both cheaper and better to hire a man to haul the pupils back and forth from their own district to a school in some other district than to hire teachers for each school district. Special school districts have been created that take the place of sub-districts.

Passage source: History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907.

Pisgah Congregational Church at Fort Recovery was organized as a Presbyterian Church in 1851 by I. N. Taylor (founder of Liber College) and his father. Judge Taylor, of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was reorganized in 1854 as Pisgah Congregational Church, which name it has since retained. The original society consisted of eight members, viz. : David Hays, Catherine Hays, Nancy Collins, Wateman Hastings, Eleanor Hastings, Samuel Briner, Elizabeth Grissom and Betsey Guy. The church has a present membership of 1 18 and an average Sunday-school attendance of 60. The church building was erected in 1883 at a cost of $4,000. The following pastors have served since the reorganization of the church in 1854: Rev. John Brice, from 1854 ganized August 8, 1869, by 14 voting members, only one of whom, Philip Augenstein, of Fort Recovery, is still among the living. The first church structure, 30 by 40 feet in dimensions, erected in 1870, finally becoming too small for the growing congregation, the present brick church was erected in 1903 at a cost of $12,000. The parsonage, also a brick building, cost $4,000. Up to about 1895 the services were conducted exclusively in German but now English is used every other Sunday. The congregation at the present time has 68 voting members, 180 communicants and about 275 souls. The Sunday-school, which is conducted in English, has 120 scholars. The following pastors have served Trinity congregation : Revs. H. Kreuter, 1869-71; Carl Benzin, 1871-78; F. W. Franke, 1878-81; A. J. Feeger, 1881-86; George Wolf, 1887-90; A. A. Dapper, 1890-1900; W. F. Benzin, 1900-04; and William Emch, who has served since 1904.

Passage source: History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907.

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 Gibson Township - it names this place 25 more 25 times.