>From the Book: Nine Communities of Monroe Co., Oh: A History SWAZEY WHERE AND WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT GREW. If ever you should visit Swazey, take the train on the B. Z. and C. railroad, get off at Pryor and cross the sharp divide between the waters of Wills Creek and the head waters of the Little Muskingum. Descending the hill and following the valley down will bring you there in due time. In the western part of Monroe county, Ohio, on a little bluff or foot-hill to the main ridge that forms the east side of the valley of Little Muskingum stands a neat frame church and a school-house. Standing on this little elevation near them and looking down the valley you see the gray hills in great rolling swells rise toward the top of the divide between this stream and the waters of Duck Creek. Lateral streams putting in from the west out the face of the ridge into hollows that widen towards the mouth having their heads near the top of the divide. these corrugations render the face of the general slope somewhat broken. The creek bends to the east just below where we stand and a high promontory a short distance below shuts off a farther view of the valley in that direction. The curve in the valley almost immediately shuts off the view of the hills to the left. A short distance below comes in from the left the valley in which the late Alex. PICKENS resided. Looking up the stream the view is somewhat interferd with by a fringe of sycamore, elm and walnut trees that adorns the banks of the stream wheich curves slightly to the west as you go up the creek. To the right from the standpoint at the church, Richard GIBSON's house just peeps above the intervening swell that almost hides it from view. It stands a little back from the small bottom that borders the creek, on a genteel slope near the mouth of the stream that here puts into the creek. The white frame residence of George REED stands well up on the hill side and farther up stream where it contrasts stongly with the old barn and residence owned by his father so many years. The spur from the main ridge of hills on which REED's house stands, shuts off farther view in that direction except the distance trees farther up the valley. Dr. J. B. WILLIAMS' fine residence stands behind that grove of timber and just at the foot of the divide. The Doctor was once a practicing physician, an active politician and held the office of State Senator from the 19th district in the 62nd & 63rd General Assemblies, but he is retired now and living in comfort and contentment. The hills on the west side of the creek crown in close to the stream and are cut through by numerous small streams but are not rough for Monroe county, and are very fertile. The valley is part of the Egypt of the county, where its best corn grows. Looking at the valley now it is gray or brown. Winter's hand is on it. Large flocks of sheep graze in the fields or cluster about the hay stacks in the meadows. Fine cattle stand about the barns chewing their cud in contentment. Fat hogs painfully labor their way to the feeding place, while the small pigs riot in the fodder shocks near by. A framehouse standing nearly opposite the church from the chimney of which the smoke, this chilly winter day, curls to the sky, and the smell of frying sausage floats on the air. A boy urges his bare backed horse at a sharp trot through the covered bridge below us, the sharp clatter of the ironed hoofs ring out clear on the frosty air, while just around the point to the left is heard the voice of someone calling his sheep. The little cluster of houses just at our feet show no sign of life except the curling smoke from the chimneys of the white cottage amid the group of brown or weather-beaten houses surrounding it. About us stands a grove of oaks shading the church and the school house through which the twilight when we turn to the "city of the dead" just by the church where the "silent majority," -- the past inhabitants of the valley have gone to rest to be followed by those who brought them here. Such is the valley about Swazey as seen of a winter evening. it is beautiful in its winter garb but "see it in June and then die." It is then superb. Fields of clover so full of bloom that the surface is a mingling of red and green that defies the artist to reproduce. Meadows of green grass, fields of rustling corn, millions of flowers in bloom loading the air with fragrance; bees humming among the flowers in and birds singing in the grove about the church. Summer clouds coning up the valley from which anon, comes a flash and thunder; then a shower of rain in a few moments passed and everything glittering with rain drops, bright in the setting sun, then the robin perched on a tomb-stone near by breaks forth in melody that cannot fail to attract by its earnestness and its beauty the dullest intellect. Seventy-five years ago these hills were covered with heavy forests. Nature had her sweet will in everything. The hand of amn had not begun to destroy what it had taken ages to produce, and to replace it by her aid wiht what we now see. About that time one Frederic CROW invaded the valley and took up the land now owned by George REED. here in the wilderness he hewed out a home, lived and died, and his bones lie buried on the land that was his. Then came Edward REED and Woodman OKEY, who succeeded CROW in the ownership of the land about 1827. OKEY occupied it for some time, removing later to the vicinity of Stafford when REED became the sole owner of the property, living here to a good old age, dying possess of 700 acres of this fertile valley, the richest man in it. Contemporary with CROW was Rare BEAN or Uriah BEAN who became the first owner of the farm now owned by John REED, lying up the hollow back of George REED's farm, and about the same time, Rev. John GRAHAM, father of Mrs. John PHILPOT, of Summerfield, became the owner of the farm now owned by Richard GIBSON. Richard GIBSON the present owner of this farm was born in Maryland, January 1817, and came to Barnesville, Ohio, in 1833. He married a daughter of John R. GIBSON, came to this valley and bought the farm he still owns from Benjamin THOMAS in 1842. Here his wife died in 1879. Mr. GIBSON is a central figure in the society of this valley, highly respected by all and a leading man in the church, liberal with his means and heartily seconding anything that promises to contribute to the happiness of those about him, and expecially the young by whom he is held in high esteem. James YOUNG, or Ireland, about 1822 occupied the land in the hollow right hand side of the creek about half a mile below the church and set up a horse mill where he ground corn for the people of the vicinity. Jacob WISE, grand-father of Mrs. W. FARLEY, of Summerfield, Ohio, and of Samuel WISE moved to the farm where the latter now lives on Wills Creek, two or three miles west of Lewisville, in 1820. Jacob WISE came from Pennsylvania. Some years later about 1830, his son Jonathan WISE moved to the neighborhood where he remained several years removing finally to Jackson county, West Va., where he died. Further down the valley a Mr. WELLS from Virginia bought land on which he settled his sons in law, Shedrick KING, Wm. MORRIS, and Solomon FORSHEY. Below here about the line between the farm of Miles MALLET and the HUGHES farm was buried the first man who died in the neighborhood. His name was Joseph HINES and his coffin was made of puncheons, slabs split from a tree and hewn down for the purpose. His funeral occurred in 1820. He was buried so near the creek bank that by 1848 it had washed away the earth till the coffin was exposed when the remains were removed to the church yard. John ANTLE came into the valley about 1831 and took up 80 acres of land not far from the church. John B. KEAN whose children and grand children are to be found in the county came here abut the same time from Philadelphia. He was a cabinet maker and subsequently removed to Stafford where he lived to a very old age dying only a few years ago. hes residence while here was near the church. Wm. CASEY joined the settlement about 1837 living here till 1862, the time of his death. These families formed the body of the colony of pioneers in this beautiful valley. They and their families have made it what it is. This handsome church did not arise in a moment out of the ground. The wilderness was not subdued and made to bloom with beauty without many sturdy persevering blows. Part 2 to follow.