Category Archives: Local History

Other Daytons (Part 2)

Posted on by
Here is more information about the other Daytons in the US! We covered the first half in Other Daytons Part 1.

  1. Dayton, Nevada – the second-oldest settlement in Nevada and home to the oldest hotel in Nevada, and once a hotspot for gold miners. Named for a local surveyor, John Day in 1861.
  2. Dayton, Newark, New Jersey – a neighborhood in Newark, named after Jonathan Dayton.</
  3. Dayton, New Jersey – an unincorporated community in South Brunswick. Originally known as Cross Roads but was renamed to Dayton in 1866, but it is unclear if it is named for William L. Dayton or Jonathan Dayton.
  4. Dayton, New York – founded around 1810 when settlers arrived and mistakenly thought they were in Chautauqua County (but they were in Cattaraugus County). Formed from the town Perrysburg.
  5. Dayton, Oregon – founded in 1850 by Joel Palmer and Andrew Smith, a native of Dayton, Ohio.
  6. Dayton, Pennsylvania – a small borough in Armstrong County. Population as of the 2020 census was 549 people.
  7. Dayton, Tennessee – Settled around 1820 and was named Smith’s Crossroads. Renamed to Dayton in 1877, after Dayton, Ohio. Was also the site of the 1925 Scopes Trial that decided if evolution should be taught in public schools.

    8. Continue reading →

Dr. Kemp and the Oldest House in Dayton

Posted on by
Back in 2021, we posted about Lewis Kemp and the Oldest House in Dayton. In May of this year, a descendant of Lewis Kemp – Dr. Kemp – reached out to us asking if we had any information regarding visiting the Kemp Homestead.

We reached out to the Riverside Historical Society, and they forwarded our request to the owner of the Kemp Homestead. The owner then reached out to us, and gave us his contact information, which we forwarded to Dr. Kemp.

We were delighted to receive the following email from Dr. Kemp after his visit:

Thank you for suggesting the Riverside Historical Society for enabling contact with James Owen. My wife Tricia and I met him 1 o’clock June 5th. He was very open, gracious, and proud to show us all through the house for two hours. He said he and his father restored the homestead about 1972. It had been heavily vandalized but because the original had no nails, the wood and stones weren’t bothered. We went up to the attic and space where slaves sheltered and Kemp children slept and could be ignored. Jim is a lawyer and antique collector. The homestead contains a huge collection of furniture, beds, paintings, guns, pots, books, etc. that he loves to recount. There is a powerful home theatre system on the ground floor fireplace west. He gave us two printed gift cards of the homestead as a parting gesture.

We love that we were able to facilitate this!

Five Tiny Cemeteries in Beavercreek

Posted on by
Driving around town, you may be stopped at a stoplight and glance over and be surprised to see a few old gravestones in a tiny cemetery. There are five of these tucked away in Beavercreek.
Sunnyside Cemetery:

  • Located on North Fairfield Road, just north of Kemp Road.
  • On the site of old Mount Pisgah German Reformed Church, which held services as early as 1809.
  • The cemetery is also known as Old Pisgah Cemetery.
  • The land was owned by Jonathan Harshman.
  • The earliest known burial was John Helmer in 1823.
  • Surnames of Cyphers, Goldshot, Harshman, Howett, Koogler, Reigelsperger, Sensenbaugh, Swigert, and Trubee are found on the gravestones.
  • The last known burial was in 1957.

Continue reading →

The Morehouse Family

Posted on by
Most in Dayton know the story of Johnny Morehouse. But what about his family?

Johnny Newton Morehouse was born in 1855, the youngest son of John Newton Morehouse Sr. and his first wife, Mary Margaret (Browning) Morehouse. John and Mary were married December 23, 1851. Johnny’s older brother Horace Morehouse was born in 1852, also in Ohio.

John Newton Morehouse was born in 1828. He was a shoe cobbler until his death in 1903. In 1851 he married Mary, his first wife and mother to Horace and Johnny. They divorced and by the time Johnny died in 1860, John was married to his second wife, Barbara. After Barbara died in 1878, John lived a low-profile life as both a shoe cobbler and an active member of his church. He never remarried and remained in Dayton until his death in 1903.

Mary Margaret Browning remarried on October 25, 1870, to Nathaniel B. Young. Together, Nathaniel and Mary had two children, Jack Diamond Young (1870) and Nathaniel B. Young Jr. (1876). Eventually Mary, her husband, and the kids moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nathaniel Sr. and his stepson Horace went into business together but had to declare bankruptcy in 1877. Mary and her family eventually moved to Washington where she lived until her death in 1927.

Horace moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana with his mother, stepfather, and half siblings and worked in the clothing business as a tailor. On January 8, 1889, he married the recently widowed Alice Wood (Van Phul) after a brief and secret courtship, which caused a major scandal and led to the Cincinnati Sun writing a smear article about it. (Read about it here).

By the end of February 1889, Alice alleged that Horace had abandoned her and filed for divorce. After three years of “abandonment” Alice was granted her divorce. Years later, Horace married Kitty Gilbert and shortly after, they had a son. A few years later, Horace moved his family to Seattle, where he became advertising manager for the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Horace died in 1898 after a 5-week illness.

Other Daytons (Part 1)

Posted on by
Did you know that there are 29 other Daytons in the US? Between two posts, we’ll be sharing a bit of information about them.

Fun fact – we gathered the most recent census information available and tallied it up to compare to our beloved Dayton:
Dayton, Ohio – population of 137,644
Other Daytons – total combined population of 126,837

  1. Dayton, Alabama – Founded in 1832 and nearly destroyed by a tornado in 1852.
  2. Dayton, California – unincorporated town formerly known as Day Town and Grainland. A post office named Grainland was both established and closed in 1867, reopened in 1873, closed again in 1892 to be opened again in 1893, then closed permanently in 1902.
  3. Dayton, Idaho – originally known as Franklin Meadows, and was settled in1867 by Joseph Chadwick, who built a log cabin by Five Mile Creek. Named Dayton in 1906.
  4. Dayton, Illinois (Henry County) – one of the oldest towns in Henry County, and was founded in 1836.
  5. Dayton, Illinois (LaSalle County) – a very small census-designated place (CDP) named after Dayton, Ohio, as a large amount of the early settlers were from here.
  6. Dayton, Indiana – formally known as Fairfield until 1830.
  7. Dayton, Iowa – named after Dayton, Ohio and has a post office that has been in operation since 1877.

    8. Continue reading →

The “Big Wind” in 1871

Posted on by
“Something like a tornado” visited Dayton on Sunday July 9, 1871, read the newspaper headline on Monday, July 10, 1871.

The storm, described as less than a tornado and more of a “big wind”, blew through “creating great havoc in property and destroying precious human lives. The storm, which was a furious one, lasted about 30 minutes. It began in the northwest with a sultry atmosphere and a temperature of 96 degrees. About 2 p.m. there were angry growlings and menacing streaks of lightning above the horizon. There were a few drops of rain, a sudden rush of wind and the storm came on furiously. Branches fluttered in the air, shade trees went down in the gutters, signs were flung about like flails, great steeples, by the wind, swung to and fro like the tops of tall pine trees. The thunder was terrific, the lightning vivid, the wind most furious and the rain poured down as though the flood-gates of heaven had opened for a deluge.”
Continue reading →

E.E. Alderman & His Postcards

Posted on by
Back in May of 2014, we shared a quick blurb about E.E. Alderman:

E. E. Alderman, a Daytonian interested in short wave reception, relayed thousands of messages to families during WWII. Families received news of whether their loved ones had died, were prisoners, or were coming home. By doing this for the Dayton community, it is estimated that he relayed messages to over 9,000 families.

As a result of this, one of our readers reached out to us to share two postcards that E.E. Alderman sent about his grandfather, Private G.M. Brown.

The first postcard, dated December 12, 1944, was addressed to the postmaster of Canandaigua, New York to notify the kin of Brown’s capture by the Germans.

12-12-1944 Front

12-12-1944 Back

The second post card was to Brown’s sister Doris, dated December 22, 1944. This message thanked her for her contribution to Alderman’s endeavors and notifying her that her brother was safe and well, although still a Prisoner of War.

12-22-1944 Front

12-22-1944 Back

Our reader, Pete Granger, has donated these postcards and many other documents related to his grandfather’s service to the National Infantry Museum & Soldier Center.