The Great and Miami Rivers were accessible by canoe -but were almost impossible to movement of Ohio Flatboats -upstream against the current --instead -they used the The Bullskin Road The first State Road in Ohio, 1807, the Xenia State Road was the official recognition by the new State of Ohio of the old Shawnee Indian Road from British Fort Detroit to Bullskin Landing on the Ohio River, through the major Shawnee center, Old Chillicothe (Oldtown, at Xenia). It was long called the Old Xenia Road. It was down this road in 1778, that Simon Kenton ran the gauntlet at Old Chillicothe, and didn't stop running -clear to the Ohio River, outrunning the pursuing Shawnees. Down this road had come raiding armies of British Regulars and Indian allies as they attempted to destroy the Kentucky settlements. Up this road had gone the Kentucky militia when they attacked the Indians at Springfield in retaliation. In these new lands on the Northwest frontier, the Bullskin Road was a major thoroughfare. Bullskin Creek is flooded by the Ohio River for half a mile back from the River, a wide valley opening. It was the first major landing for Ohio R. flatboats above Fort Washington (Cincinnati). Here the flatboat was protected, off the river, with easy unloading facilities. This settlement in Clermont County is called Utopia. The Brethren settled on the Bullskin about 1800. (Miller, Moyer, Metzgar, Rohrer, Hoover, Houser; the old Olive Branch Church. It converted en-mass to Church of Christ in the New Light Revival of 1830's.) Being farmers, they lived mostly on the level lands above the high riverbank hills, at the head of Bullskin Creek. Continued in Next Message