Londonderry Township

Londonderry Township

The original proprietor of the township was Robert Wilkin, who emigrated from the North of Ireland in 1807, and settled on the present site of the town. The town, however, was not laid out until in August, 1815, when fifty-six lots were surveyed, with a ten-rod square in the center, called the "Diamond," which is not visible at the present day. Many of the settlers followed Mr. Wilkin from the North of Ireland, and then the town was laid out. They called it Londonderry, in honor of or for some fancied resemblance to the city of that iifirae in the Old Country. The township, which was organized June 3, 1816, is included in one of the seven ranges of land to which the Indian titles were extinguished by the treaty of Ft. Stanwix. October 27, 1784, and when the land office was opened at Steuben ville. In 1801 the Government proceeded to open up these lands to entry and settlement. As emigrants from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ireland and Scotland were flocking into the country in great numbers, and as the roads were of primary necessity, one was located and blazed from Steubenvilie to Zane's Crossing, which, as we know, struck Zane's Trail at Cambridge, forming the route of what h.ns since become the Cambridge, Cadiz and Steubenvilie free turnpike.

In 1801 Edward Carpenter, a son of John Carpenter, one of the pioneers who crossed the Ohio River in 1781 and built what was known as Carpenter's Fort, a short distance above where the town of Warrentou nowstands, took a contract for cutting out eighteen miles of this road, extending west from Big Stillwater to willun seven or eight miles of Cambridge, for which he received the sum of $300. The road, as then opened, passed through the present site of Londonderry, to which Mr. Carpenter afterward removed in 1807 and entered the northeast quarter of section 26, which is still owned by his son, Edward Carpenter, who was born in 1802, and was only five years of age when his father removed to the place, then an almost unbroken wilderness, abounding in wild game, especially deer, "bar," wolves and turkeys, which constituted their principal reliance for subsistence for some years afterward.

Some idea of the quantity of the game then found in the Stillwater hills and valleys may be formed from the fact tbat during the fall and winter of 1812 Mr. Carpenter killed thirty-five deer and his son George forty-four deer and one "bar." They were also very much annoyed by wolves, which were not only numerous, but troublesome, and as the Government paid a bounty of $4 for wolf scalps and the county *2, trapping for them was quite a business.

The school facilities at that time were limited, hut about 1819 or 1820 they succeeded in emploj-- ing Robert Jamison, an Irish schoolmaster, who taught the first school ever opened in Londonderry, and to the support of which Mr. Carpenter paid $36 a quarter, and Mr. Wilkin and others no doubt were equally as liberal. The fact that the characteristics of tiie first settlers often remain impressed upon communities for years is strongly exemplified in the history of Londonderry, and the industrj', integritj', morality and rigid exnctness of the Irish and Scotch Presbyterians have exerted an influence that is yet apparent in that community, and has no doubt contributed much to the temporal prosperity and religious character of the people.