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 -------------------------- MADISON TOWNSHIP 889 relative to the respective merits of the Bratton and Martin taverns. It was brought in 1811, the year after the county was organized. This is the record: “Absalom Martin vs. James Bratton, slander. Let a jury be called. The following good and Ia wful men came, to wit: James CZoy’d, Frederick Dickerson, John Chapman, Lloyd Frizzle, John Moffit, William Talbert, John Hanna, Wilham Launtz, John Frame, Joseph Cook, John Carlow and Andrew Moore. After hearing the evidence, arguments of counsel and charge of the court, (the jury) retired to consult together, and returned into court with a verdict for the plaintiff of $22 damages. Motion made by defendant’s counsel for appeal to supreme court." We do not know the outcome of the case when, or if, taken to the higher court. Absalom Martin, the plaintiff, was prominent in ~the early history of the county. He was a member of the first board of county commissioners, serving as such when the case was brought against him. The following year he raised a company of Guernsey county men to fight in the Second War with Great Britain, and John Bratton, son of James Bratton, was one of his sergeants. Notwithstanding his prominence as a citizen, Absalom Martin, it is said, never owned any real estate in Guernsey county. The “Buckwheat Line.”-As early as the year 1830 stages ran every other day during the summer months, between Cambridge and Steubenville. They were unlike the highly decorated coaches lined with silk plush that ran on the National Road; they were ordinary spring wagons with covers for protection against rain and the hot sun. They carried both passengers and goods. A farmer near Antrim contracted with the manager of one of the stage lines to haul buckwheat to Moore’s mill at Cambridge to be ground and to return the flour to him. On many trips passengers and buckwheat were mixed indiscriminately in the stages. This gave rise to the name, the “Buck-wheat Line." (con't pg 890)