Category Archives: Prominent Local Figures

Sara’s Ghost Tour & Courthouse Square

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Last Saturday, Sara hosted several ghost tours of the downtown area as part of the Dayton Housing Tour! We had a great turnout and met a lot of great people. It was a blast discussing the ghost stories and hauntings in downtown, while exploring the history of the city.

Thanks to all who came out!

Sara’s tour included:
  • Court House Square (Old Jailhouse)
  • Dayton Daily News Building (4th and Ludlow)
  • Dayton’s First Cemetery (5th and Ludlow)
  • Spaghetti Warehouse
  • The Old Courthouse
If you have any suggestions for local tours, let us know!

How a 19th Century Story Reached a Family Today

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Sometimes, we are reminded that the stories we share here don’t just stay here on the blog.

When we started Dayton Unknown, our goal was simple: to uncover and share the forgotten, overlooked, and lesser known stories that shaped our city. Stories like Johnny Morehouse and the Morehouse Family.

Recently, we heard from a descendant of the Morehouse family.

Thank you for the respectful write up of the Morehouse family and the great article about Horace, who was my great grandfather. I never heard a reference to him when I was growing up, since my great grandmother, Kitty Gilbert, had remarried. She is buried between her second husband and my mother in Elmhurst, Illinois. She was an amazing seamstress and very nice woman. I have been to Dayton to visit the grave of my great great uncle, Johnny, and and humbled by the tokens of love left there. Thank you so much!

This email was a great reminder that history isn’t static. It lives through memories, through family legends, and sometimes, these pieces of history find their way back to the people it belongs to.

The Thompson Cow

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In March of 1796, three pioneer parties left Cincinnati to head by river and land to what is now Dayton Ohio. The parties were led  by George Newcom, William Hamer, and Samuel Thompson. The Thompson party was the first to arrive in Dayton at the spot now known as Founder’s Point. The following people and their families are the original settlers of Dayton:

  1. William Hamer
  2. Soloman Hamer
  3. Thomas Hamer
  4. George Newcom
  5. William Newcom
  6. Abraham Grassmire
  7. John Davis
  8. John Dorough

    9. Continue reading →

Dayton Fun Facts

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  • On February 25, 1879, Susan Koerner Wright, mother to Wilbur and Orville, gave birth to twins. Unfortunately, Ida and Otis were not long for this earth. Otis lived for 13 days, and Ida lived 18 days. They were buried at the Old Greencastle Cemetery. In the year 2000, an excavation of the twins’ grave searched for remains, but only found some wood fragments that could have been from a casket. Soil was collected from that part of the grave, roughly enough to fill a three pound coffee can, and buried at the Wright Family plot in Woodland. The marker from the twins’ grave was moved and placed next to the family monument.
  • Dayton’s first known murder occurred on November 20, 1806. John Aiken beat his wife, Rachel, to death. He was arrested and held at McCollum’s Tavern. John was dead before he could appear in court. It was possibly suicide, but records do not exist to confirm what happened

The fun facts below came from the book Ohio Legends Volume 1, written by our late friend Jeff Wilson

  • Eliam Barney and Ebenezer Thresher founded the Barney and Smith Car Company in 1849. Their factory in Dayton produced the finest railroad freight and passenger cars in the country. When Barney started the company, Dayton didn’t have any railroads! The first railroad cars had to be delivered by canal boat and horse drawn wagons
  • The Wright Brothers made their own printing press from buggy parts and a discarded tombstone.
  • Buckeye Bigfoot – the most recent sighting of Ohio’s Bigfoot was in 2012 in Xenia. It was described as a “shaggy beast with glowing eyes” and matched a 1995 sighting in Youngstown.
  • Dayton’s leading newspapers refused to report the story of Wilbur and Orville’s first flying machine because they thought it was a hoax.

1936 “Treasure Hunt” for Dayton History Facts

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In 1936, Dayton Daily News ran a daily column called “The Treasure Hunt”, featuring tidbits of Dayton History gathered by multiple sources. The history covered Montgomery, Preble, Butler, and Warren counties. Here are some of the stories.1. The First County Court in Montgomery County was located in an upper room of Newcom’s Tavern.

  • Presiding Judge: Hon Francis Dunley
  • Associate Judges: Isaac Spinning, Benjamin Archer, John Ewing
  • Officers:
    • George Newcom, Sheriff
    • Benjamin Van Cleve, clerk
    • James Miller, coroner

The court opened July 27, 1803, but there were no cases, so court adjourned that evening. Most of the male population of Dayton had turned out for the opening, and it was met with great excitement. The judges and lawyers slept in one room of the tavern overnight and left together the next morning to open court in Xenia. The next session of court was not held until November 22, 1803, and it was held until a tree behind the tavern. Sheriff Newcom was needed to control the crown gathering to listen to testimony from witnesses and jury deliberation.

2. Dayton was almost called Venice. Before Dayton was settled in 1796, Maj Benjamin Stites, John Stites Gano, and William Goforth had made plans for a settlement to be named Venice. It was located at the mouth of the “Tiber”, as they called Mad River at the time. They had agreed to purchase the land from John Cleves Symmers for 83 cents an acre and a contract was signed. Unfortunately for the men, Symmes had some issues with the government and the Native Americans in the area and the troubles forced them to abandon the plan for Venice.

3. The first town election was held on the first Monday in May 1805. The select council of the town was comprised of the seven trustees, with the president also serving as the mayor.

4. The first county election was held in 1802. Jerome Holt, County Sheriff, gave notice to Daytonians to convene at Newcom’s on April 1, then elect by ballot a chairman, a town clerk, three or more trustees, two or more overseers of the poor, three fence viewers, two appraisers of houses, a lister of taxable property, a sufficient number of supervisors of roads, and one or more constables.

100 Years of Esther Price Candies

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Esther Price Candies is celebrating 100 years of making delicious sweet treats!

Although the business got its start in 1926, Esther Price’s roots as a candy maker go back to a 7th grade Home Economics class. After partnering with her classmate to make fudge the first time, Esther kept her share to give to her mother, but decided instead to eat that share and make more when she got home. A love affair with candy was born.
Continue reading →

Sara’s 4th Book!

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Our very own Sara Kaushal turned 40 last Friday! Happy belated birthday to Sara!!

It was also a big day for Sara – she signed the contract for her fourth book! Unsolved Dayton will be coming in 2027!

If you have any unsolved cases from the Miami Valley you have always wondered about, please let us know! You can comment here, or reach out to us via our Contact Us page!

John Hinckley’s Visit to Dayton

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During Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign, he came to Dayton as part of a campaign swing through the Midwest. This rally, which took place on Oct 2, 1980, attracted 1400 to the Dayton Convention and Exhibition center. Among the 1400 attending was John Hinckley Jr.

Hinckley had been obsessed with the 1976 movie Taxi Driver, the premise of which was an assassination attempt. He was convinced he was in love with the leading actress, Jodie Foster.

Hinckley had been on a cross country campaign of his own, attempting to leave notes for and make contact with Foster. Her rejection of him sent him into a spiral. He needed to make a name for himself, he decided. After a while he determined the only way to get her attention was to shoot a president. Hearing about Carter’s election campaign, he traveled to Dayton to attend the next rally on October 2, 1980.

Hinckley stayed at the Sheraton Hotel at 21 S Jefferson Street and requested a room with a view of the Convention center where Carter would be speaking. He was given room 818 and paid a total fee of $35.52.

Fortunately for Carter and unfortunately for Hinckley, the crowd attracted was too large for Hinckley to be able to find a good point from which to shoot. Hinckley had left his weapons in his hotel room and was not in the mood to attempt to shoot after seeing the crowd.

After this event, Hinckley made several more attempts to shoot Carter and temporarily turned his sights to a leader of the American Nazi party. After many more failed attempts, he gave up and went home. During that time, he saw a psychiatrist, but did not mention his assassination attempts or his obsession with Jodie Foster.

When Carter lost the reelection campaign to Ronald Reagan, Hinckley turned his sights to President Reagan. He fired 6 shots and hit President Reagan and 3 of his attendants in front of the Washington Hilton before the Secret Service subdued him. President Reagan suffered a shot to the lung, missing his heart. During the chaos, he’d been shoved into the limo by a Secret Service agent and was unaware he’d been injured. He spent 12 days in the hospital before returning to the White House. Press Secretary James Brady was severely injured, suffering permanent brain damage after a shot to his head.

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental health facility. He was ultimately released in 2018.

Dayton Codebreakers – Sir Dermot Turing’s Visit

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Did you know Dayton played a big part in World War II? Local electric engineer and inventor Joseph Desch was the Research Director of the Navy’s program to design and build a bombe – a machine to read coded communications from Germany (coded by the Enigma).

Desch and his team worked in one of NCR’s buildings decoding the messages using the American Bombe Machine and would then send the messages to Washington D.C. as intelligence. While working with the American Bombe Machine, Alan Turing – known for cracking Germany’s Enigma code – visited Joseph Desch in Oakwood and at the NCR building.

Retired RAF Captain Andrew Lloyd, along with the organization he founded, Oakwood Unsung Heroes, have been working to showcase this piece of history by having a City of Oakwood proclamation for the month of May to be Codebreaker Month, and they have an exhibit on display at Wright Memorial Public Library in collaboration with the National Cryptologic Museum.

On May 8th, the nephew of Alan Turing, Sir Dermot Turing, will be speaking at the Dayton International Peace Museum and at Carillon Park. For both events, tickets are free, but limited.

  • May 8th at 11am @ Dayton International Peace Museum
  • May 8th at 7:30pm @ Carillon Park

If you’re interested in reading more about this topic: