In 1806, Mr. Preserved Fish Dakin (1749-1835) came from the borderlands of New York and Connecticut and purchased 2000 acres, about half of the J. Crain Survey #1994 for his “colony”. In addition to Preserved Dakin and three sons and one daughter,…

Esper was a son of Horace McMillan and great-grandson of settler David McMillan. This was one of the seven former McMillan farmsteads in the Chester community. A plain white frame farmhouse was remodeled into an attractive modern home. This was the…

Beginning as an Indulged Meeting under Center Meeting in 1824, Chester Friends first met on the Thomas McMillan farm. In 1828 land was donated and a log Meeting House was built and a burial ground established. Many of the McMillan family are buried…

Jonathon McMillan and his twin brother David of York County Pennsylvania acquired land from the Horatio Gates grant, and brought their families to what is now Chester Township, Clinton County, about 1805. They traveled by wagon to Pittsburgh and to…

The village of Gurneyville was named by local Quaker David McMillan for Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847), a wealthy English Quaker who became an evangelical minister and visited America, where his preaching caused a schism in 1843. He, as well as his…

The Samuel Miars house is another example of early 19th century Quaker architecture. The Quaker Plan was recommended by William Penn for the Quakers who settled Philadelphia in the 1680s and thereafter: it has three rooms per floor and an…

Mapledale Farm house is an example of the “I” house of the mid- to late-1800s. The front porch is a later addition. An old schoolhouse is on the property, too. The most recent Quaker owners are the Peterson family.

General Horatio Gates served with George Washington in the Revolutionary War and for his service received 12,500 acres of land in the Virginia Military District in what is now southwest Ohio. This land was sold to settlers, many of whom were Quakers…

On the right, back a lane, is a house built around 1828 according to the Quaker Plan, as recommended by William Penn for the Quakers who settled Philadelphia in the 1680s. It has three rooms per floor and an asymmetrical facade. The front door…

On the left side of the road is a brick house once owned by Josephus Hoskins (1841-1920), a Quaker minister recorded by Dover Friends Meeting in 1874. His wife as Emily Gallemore Hoskins (1846-1915). He became the principal minister about 1880 and…

Four Quaker families moving from the south by way of Tennessee settled in this area and began worshipping in the home of Ezekiel Frazier before about 1805. As the Quaker population grew, land was purchased, and a log Meeting House was erected with a…

The Hawes house was begun before the Civil War, and finished afterward. James Hawes was a founder of the Haws Chapel Methodist Church. His house is an example of the fine farmhouses built in the mid to late 1800s. As Quakers established their…

Deserted Camp Situated here on the high banks of Todd’s Fork stream, Deserted Camp received its name from the desertion of a French soldier. He abandoned U.S. General Benjamin Logan’s small military encampment to warn members of the Shawnee peoples…

Thomas G. Rannels was born in Pennsylvania in 1810 and came to Clinton County Ohio with his parents in 1814. Around 1845 he married a Quaker, Massie J. Wiley and they lived in a log house. In time, probably about 1850, Thomas built this house,…

Isaiah Peele (1840-1905) and Susanna Miller Peele (1838-1916) moved here from their farm in the Grassy Run neighborhood in about 1877. They were active Quakers, interested in education, and he was in charge of the endowment funds of Wilmington…