Stories of Guernsey County, Ohio by William G. Wolfe Published by the Author Cambridge, Ohio 1943, Copyright, 1943, by William G. Wolfe Typography, Printing and Binding in the USA by Kingsport Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tennessee. --------------------------- According to On-line Database of all the on-line library card catalogs anywhere in the world (OCLC): Reprint. Originally published: Cambridge, Ohio: the author, 1943., work has lapsed into the public domain. -------------------------- Transcribed and/or paraphrased and submitted by: Marilyn M. Murphy, Ft. Worth, TX, 2000; MMacMurph@aol.com -------------------------- CHAPTER XXIX Madison Township AT THE first meeting of the Guernsey county commissioners, April 23, 1810, the county was divided into five townships whose total population was 3,051. Following the War of 1812 there was a flood of immigration, and by 1820 the number of people in the county had reached 9,292, an increase of two hundred per cent in a decade. For local convenience this necessitated smaller political units, and petitions for new townships were presented. At least a dozen new townships were formed in the ten years following the organization of the county. Among the first of these was Madison. It is now five miles square, but was much larger when set apart by the commissioners. On July 28, 1810, a meeting was called to elect officers for the new township. This was held at the house of Absalom Martin who later served as a captain in the War of 1812. Pioneers of the Township.-James Bratton, who established a home on the present site of Winterset, in 1805, was the first settler in Madison town-ship. The Huffman family came from Pennsylvania in 1809. Among the other early settlers were the Stockdales, of Irish origin; Michael Adair, Robert Campbell, John Saviers, John Hanna, the English family, the McBrides, the Carlisles and the Harfords-all from Pennsylvania; the Weyers, Scotts, Bonnells and Yeos, from Maryland; and Daniel Tetrick from New Jersey. The Cunningham family settled north of Antrim in 1820. They en-tered a part of a thousand-acre tract from which not a stick of timber had been cut. Hogs, having the range of the woods, multiplied rapidly, grew wild, and became fiercer and more dangerous than the native wild beasts. On one occasion a wild boar emerged from the forest and attacked the hogs which Mr. Cunningham was feeding, ripping them open with its tusks. Mr. Cunningham saved his own life by climbing a tree. Old Folks of 1876.-On the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence a census of Guernsey county old people was taken by The Jeffersonian. Madison township had the following residents over seventy-six years of age: Mrs. Sanderson, Benjamin Berry, Elias Burdett, James Cope. land, Mrs. E. Cramer, Mrs. Anne Ferrell, Mrs. Grizelle, Wesley Gill, Mrs. (con't pg 886) 884