Wamsley, Ohio

The first Methodist Society organized in the Northwest Territory was at the humble cabin of Joseph Moore on Scioto Brush Creek in Adams County. Writers more enthusiastic than accurate have stated that this was in the year 1793 when Joseph Moore settled on the farm recently owned by Oliver Jones in Jefferson Township near Blue Creek postoffice. But this is too early a date. There were no settlements made outside the stockade at Three Islands, or Manchester, previous to 1795 ; and this date is probably the year that Moore's cabin was erected on Scioto Brush Creek, although it may have been a year later. But in 1797, there was quite a number of settlers in the vicinity of Moore's cabin, and it was here, and in this year that the Pioneer Methodist Society in Ohio, and the Northwest Territory, was organized. It is stated that Dr. Edward Tiffin, the first Governor of the State of Ohio, visited the class at Moore's in the year 1797, which is altogether probable, as he located in the town of Chillicothe about the time of its founding in 1796 ; Adamsville near the present site of Rome on the Ohio, was in 1797 made the seat of justice for Adams. County which then included what is now Ross County. Moore's was conveniently near the line of travel from Chillicothe to the place of meeting of the courts of Adams County. About this time there was a society of Methodists in the vicinity of Simon Field's which met at Wamsley's on Ohio Brush Creek, and it is said that Dr. Tiffin frequently preached there, also.

Passage source: A History of Adams County, Ohio, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Including Character Sketches of the Prominent Persons Identified with the First Century of the Country's Growth .., published 1900.

Blue Creek, a little hamlet lying along the valley at the junction of Blue Creek with Scioto Brush Creek, including the lower valley of Mill Creek, is a most charming locality. Blue Creek postoffice was established in 1844 with Isaac N. Wamsley first postmaster. There is a good Hotel near this place conducted by John W. Lightbody.

Passage source: A History of Adams County, Ohio, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Including Character Sketches of the Prominent Persons Identified with the First Century of the Country's Growth .., published 1900.

In July, 1817, there was a "cloud burst" in the region of Churn Creek, and the waters of that stream, it is said, rose to a height of twenty feet, destroying crops, and otherwise doing great damage along that stream. Scioto Brush Creek suddenly rose from the flood in Churn Creek and vicinity, and soon overflowed its banks. Lazaleer Swim, grandfather of Samuel B. Wamsley, was then living on the farm recently owned by the latter on Scioto Brush Creek. Seeing an approaching storm, he sent his two little boys to pen the sheep in a building in the bottom below the house. It was in the evening and growing quite dark. Suddenly the waters burst in a swift current between the house and the pen in which the children were securing the sheep, and the horrified father saw they could not be rescued. He called to them to climb on top of the sheep pen, which they did, taking up a favorite dog with them. The flood continued to rise, and soon swept the pen with the boys and dog on its roof down the creek where it lodged in a drift of rails and logs against some large sycamore trees near where Wamsleyville is now situated. Here the children remained until the waters began to subside, when they were rescued, almost dead from fright and exposure, by their parents and the neighbors who had been aroused by the frantic cries for help and the pitiful howling of the dog.

Passage source: A History of Adams County, Ohio, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Including Character Sketches of the Prominent Persons Identified with the First Century of the Country's Growth .., published 1900.

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 Jefferson Township - it names this place 1 more 1 time.