WAYNE COUNTY OHIO 
**************************************************************************
File Contributed for use in the Wayne County Biographies Project by
Name: John and Cordelia Hall
Email: johnh2all@earthlink.net
Date: March 2004
***************************************************************************

"The History of Wayne County, Ohio" published in 1910 by B. E. Bowen & Co.


Paint Township

   This is the extreme southeastern sub-division of Wayne county and was organized March 5, 
1816.  It derives its name from the fact that a spring existed in its territory, the water 
of which resembled red paint and imparted its peculiar color to the earth and other objects 
it chanced to touch.  According to the 1900 United States census, the township contained a 
population of one thousand two hundred and six.  There are now two town plats within Paint 
township, Mount Eaton and West Lebanon.
   The first person to settle within the limits of Paint  township was Michael Waxler, who 
emigrated from Harrison county in 1810.  He was a true backwoods character, dressed in 
buckskin breeches, hunting shirt and moccasins, and usually armed with his scalping knife, 
tomahawk and rifle.  As the brave are generally generous, even so was he who had the honor 
of first breaking soil in this goodly part of Wayne county.  He frequently hunted with old 
Chief Lyon and Bill Harrison.  It is told of Mr. Waxler that he encamped one night where 
Winesburg is now located and barely escaped destruction from a gang of angry wolves which 
attacked him and to which he offered a stout resistance until morning, having, in the meant
ime, killed several, and in true Indian style, scalped them.
   The next settlers in Paint township were James Sullivan, John Sprague, David Endsley, 
Nathan Peticord, James Galbraith, William Vaughan, Elijah Carr, Samuel Shull, Frederick 
Shull and Jacob Beals.
   The first election held in the township was in 1816, and Frederick Shull and Jacob Beals 
were the candidates for the office of justice of the peace.  Not many votes were cast and 
the result was a tie, whereupon the aspirants cast lots, and Beals was the winner, hence 
became the first justice of his township.  He held the position twelve years.
   Another character of the early days in this township was David Houmard, a native of 
Switzerland, and was among the very first emigrants to pass through the locks on the great 
Erie canal at Lockport.  The family passed through Cleveland, Ohio, when there were but 
about fifty houses there, arriving in Sugarcreek township September 2, 1825.  He was 
seventeen weeks in coming from Switzerland.  At Cleveland he bought a yoke of oxen for 
thirty-six dollars which he hitched to a wagon and in that way came to Wayne county. He 
remained at the Sonneberg colony a month and settled in Paint township in May, 1826.  He 
was a cutler by trade, and made many curious firearms and tools.  His house has been thus 
described:  "The original dimensions of it were twenty by thirty feet, and it was 
constructed of logs, not hewed until after the house was erected.  It was composed of two 
rooms, the second one on the east side being nearly square, and without being filled or 
mudded.  Here his family, consisting of wife and child, passed the winter of 1826 and '27.  
This cabin was without a floor, the fireplace was in the center of the room, and as 
companions of his family, the cow and calf were wintered in the same room, the cabin being 
house and stable both.  The milk was kept in white walnut troughs, strained through old 
garments and cloths and the churn was made of a hollow cherry tree, with a board nailed on 
at the bottom.
   Joseph Perrott was the second Frenchman to locate in Paint township, coming in 1829, and 
Emanuel Nicolet came in 1830.  In 1834 immigration set in in earnest.