Oldest Natives of Ohio, 1866

Marietta Register, August 30, 1866

We mentioned, last week, the death of Maj. Thomas L. Pierce, of Zanesville, on the 14th inst., and corrected the statement that he was "the first white child born in Ohio."  According to the best information we can gain he was born in Marietta, April 1790.  He died at Richmond, Va., Aug. 14, 1866, in his 77th year.

The first white child born within the present limits of Ohio, so far as is now known, was Mary Heckewelder, daughter of Rev. John Heckewelder, one of the Moravian Missionaries.  She was born at Salem, in the present county of Tuscarawas, April 16, 1781, and is till living at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in her 86th year.  We have seen her name given as "Ann," but she signs her name to a letter of her own writing, now before us, "Mary."  She was born before the permanent settlement.

St. Clair Kelly, who was born in Marietta, in December 1788, was the first born after the first settlement.  He died in 1823.

The Zanesville Courier gives an extended notice of Major Pierce, speaking of him as "the first white male child born within the limits of the State of Ohio"; yet James Varnum Cushing, still living at Zanesville, and mentioned in the Courier's article, is more than a year older than was Major Pierce, and was the second born here.

The list stands, as nearly as we can now make it out, as follows:

St. Clair Kelly, December, 1788

James Varnum Cushing, January, 1789

Leicester Grosvenor Converse, Feb. 14, 1789

Joseph Barker, Feb. 28, 1789

Alpha Devol, Aug. 12, 1789

George Dana, April, 1790

Thomas L. Pierce, April, 1790

Oliver Rice Loring, June 17, 1790

Jeremiah Wilson, April 21, 1791

David Oliver, May 18, 1791

William Pitt Putnam, April 2, 1792

These eleven were all born in this county of Washington.  Mr. Cushing is living at Zanesville; Mr. Devol and Mr. Wilson, at Waterford, in this county; Judge Loring and William Pitt Putnam, at Belpre; and Dr. Oliver, in Butler County.

Judge Arius Nye, of Marietta, who died July 27, 1865, was born Dec. 27, 1792; and Col. Enoch S. McIntosh, now living at Beverly, was born in Marietta, May 23, 1793.

Thomas Kain, who was living in Clermont county, a few years ago, was born in Hamilton county, in 1790, we think.  The first settlements in that quarter of the State were at Columbia, mouth of the Little Miami, Nov., 1788; Cincinnati, Dec. 24, 1788; North Bend, Feb., 1789.  These were advance parties of men, without women and children, who, however, soon followed.  It is probable that some children were born there in 1790, besides Mr. Kain, who is said to have been the first born in that section of the State.

William Moody, still living, was the first male child born in Cincinnati.  We have not the exact date of his birth, but it was in 1789 or 1790.

Dr. Lincoln Goodale, now living at Columbus in his 85th year - born at Brookfield, Mass., July 25, 1782 - is, we suppose, the only survivor of all who came to Ohio in the first year of the settlement.  He came with the first families to Marietta, in August, 1788 - only men having arrived previous to that time.  The total number who arrived here during the year 1788 was 132 - the men numbering 84; women and children, 48.  The number of families was 15.