I ran into this in the early Portsmouth paper and thought others might enjoy the pioneer tale. I've wondered about descendants of that John Beatty (listed in Ohio Wills & Estates to 1850) for many years so even though this is a thirdary source it is interesting and I will put it in a file. Donna L-3 The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, OH)-2 August 1873 THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF SCIOTO COUNTY. (Prepared to be read before the Pioneer Association of Scioto county, by James Keyes) THE FIRST FAMILY IN SCIOTO COUNTY. Samuel Marshall, his wife and four children, were the first to locate and settle permanently in Scioto county. They left Pittsburg in the summer of 1795, and passed down the Ohio as far as Manchester, where they remained until Wayne made his celebrated treaty with the Indians. Mr. Marshall had observed the mouth of the Scioto and the fertile lands on the border of that river as he went down, and as soon as it was distinctly understood that there would be no more Indian wars, he immediately returned up the river in the same boat he moved down in, and landed about three miles above the mouth of the Scioto, opposite the mouth of Tygart's Creek, where he built the FIRST LOG CABIN In Scioto county. His family consisted besides himself and wife, of Polly Marshall, Sabina Marshall, Jesse Marshall, and Samuel Marshall, Jr. This was in the latter part of February or first of March, 1796. Nancy, the eldest daughter, was married to William Rollins, and came the next year. Samuel Marshall, Jr. and Sabina, who married a Mr. Pyles, are living yet in Madison township, the oldest inhabitants of Scioto county at this time. When Mr. Marshall built his house just above Lawson's Run, it was the only house on either side of the river between Gallipolis and Manchester. They were not without neighbors very long. THE SECOND FAMILY To locate in this county came up from Manchester also, in a few months afterwards, and settled a little further up the river. John Lindsey and wife and eight children constituted the second family. The names of the children were Beulah, who was married to George Edgington, John H. Lindsey, William Lindsey, Oliver Lindsey, Lemuel? Lindsey, Peter Lindsey, James Lindsey, and Sally Lindsey, who married Samuel Perry. These two families consisted of grown up sons and daughters, and of course, they had to marry one another, as they had no choice outside of the two families. Consequently John A. Lindsay and Polly Marshall concluded the best thing they could do for themselves was to get married. How that was done where there was no organized society, no court to grant license, no preacher or justice of the peace to marry them, does not appear, but, at all events, John A. Lindsay and Polly Marshall were the first couple married within the limits of the county. Whether they were as happy as they might have been if they had had a large circle of acquaintances to choose from, history is silent. But they built a cabin near where the Scioto furnace stands, and reared a large family, as all respectable married folks are expected to do under similar circumstances. Mr. Marshall's youngest child was five years old when he came here, but thinking that would not do for a new country, his wife gave birth to a daughter shortly after they came, and Fanny Marshall, as she was called, was the FIRST CHILD BORN IN SCIOTO COUNTY. Fanny grew up to be a fine young woman, and married George Shunkwilder, raised a family, and died a few years ago at an advanced age. There are several of Jesse Marshall's children living in and around Sciotoville, and othe descendants of the Marshall family living in different parts of the country. THE SECOND ARRIVAL Of settlers in Scioto county, who came to stay, consisted of five families, who came from Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, they built a boat at Redstone, on the Monongahela and floated down the Ohio and landed in the mouth of Little Scioto on the 10th day of August, 1796. The names of these were Isaac Bonser, Uriah Barber, John Beatty, William Ware, and Ephraim M'Adams. This last did not stay long, but went on down to Cinncinatti. Of the other four families, some of their desendants are scattered through the county to this day. Mr. Barber went down to what was called Old Town, west of the Scioto, and lived near where George Davis' distillery is. Mr. Bonser built a house on the east side of the Little Scioto, which was the third house built in the county. He also cleared and fenced a small field that fall and winter, and the next year being 1797, raised THE FIRST CROP OF CORN IN SCIOTO COUNTY. That crop of corn must have been a welcome harvest to those few isolated families, who were cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, and had no other provisions but such as the woods afforded and their trusty rifles procured for them. Mr. Ward went up the creek and located on Ward's run, a tributary of the Little Scioto. It was not called Ward's Run until he went there. It was the custom of that day, where a creek had no name to give it the name of the first man who went to live on it. Mr. Ward lived there long enough to give his name to the creek, but, unfortunately, got drowned, and was the first man buried in Scioto county. They buried him in the graveyard where the bridge crosses the creek, near the mouth, and it was consequently, the first graveyard in our county. We hear no more of Mr. Ward's family since that time. John Beaty went up towards Wheelersburg and located, but he soon fell a victim to the malaria of the county, and was the first man to die a natural death in Scioto county. His widow was left with four small children in a destitute condition, but, as is always the case in every new country, men are much more numerous than women, and much more necessity existing for entering the state of matrimony. Therefore, she soon married a man by the name of Alexander Burnside, a man who came a short time afterward. Mr. Burnside had some means, and had been distilling on the Monongahela river, and had brought a small copper still down with him. He bought the land where Wheelersburg has since been located. He built THE FIRST HORSE MILL. And the first distillery, on the ground at present occupied by Cranston's woolen factory. He raised his step-children, and one of the girl's married a man by the name of Leary, and one, Susan Beaty, married Joseph Thompson. Alexander Beaty married Ruth Drury for his first wife, and Cecilia Lecroix, by whom he had three children, who are living near Haverhill at this time. Mr. Burnside had three children, Jane, John and Martin. Jane married Pontius Wheeler. Mr. Bonser, seeing the necessity for a mill, in 1798, after being in the county two years, discovered a seat for a mill on a small tributary of the Little Scioto, which he named Bonser's Run, being the first man to settle upon that stream.