THE SETTLEMENT OF CHILLICOTHE

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This file was contributed for use in the OHGenWeb Ross County by: David Nihiser

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The below comes from a paper written for my grandmother, Mildred (Michaels) Campbell, by a friend performing research for a DAR chart.

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Someone has said "No class of men who became residents of Chillicothe at an early date accomplished more to bring the town to the favorable notice of the great outside than the physicians of the earlier period."

One of the pioneer settlers of Chillicothe in 1796 was Dr. Samuel McAdow.

Dr. Samuel McAdow was the first settled member of the profession engaged in active medical practice.

He was born in Hrford County, Maryland, Sept. 23, 1772. His parents were natives of Scotland and his father was a deacon in the church. Samuel, the youngest of nine children, was carefully educated and trained and graduated from Cokesburgh College in his native state of Maryland.

He was a fine Classical scholar, and continued reading Greek during his life while carrying out the duties of a country practitioner. After his graduation at an early age, Samuel McAdow studied medicine under the celebrated Dr. Archer of Maryland and Dr. Rush of Philadelphia.

In 1793, just arriving at his majority, he settled in Cambridge, Bourbon County, Kentucky. Here the young doctor was not long in securing an extensive practice; he also began the courtship of Polly Howe, to whom he united in marriage, Oct. 21, 1794.

Polly Howe was the sister of the Reverend Joseph and the Reverend John Howe, both well known in that part of Kentucky.

In 1796, a party of twelve persons from Bourbon County, Kentucky, one of whom was Dr. Samuel McAdow, entered the valley of the Scioto; arriving at the town of Chillicothe whose street corners were then indicated by the blazing of trees, they pitched their tent on the corner of Main and Paint Streets where the court house now stands.

A large Indian community occupied the land in the vicinity of the mouth of Paint Creek, three miles below the town of Chillicothe just laid out in the dense forest by General Nathaniel Massie. The men from Bourbon County, Kentucky, after viewing the prospective city from all points, returned to Kentucky; and in the next year, 1797, Dr. Samuel McAdow moved to Chillicothe to make it his permanent residence. Here he spent the remainder of his life.

Dr. McAdow has been described as a man of fine appearance, and was possessed of great powers of endurance.

Drug stores not having become a "drug on the market", about 1802, Dr. McAdow with George Renick and Nathan Gregg, started on horseback from Chillicothe to the city of Baltimore. The object of this expedition was the purchase of a stock of medicines by Dr. McAdow and a stock of dry goods by Messrs, Renick and Gregg. The purchases were sent by the way of the Ohio River to Portsmouth, Ohio and thence up the Scioto River by keel boats.

Dr. McAdow was a successful amateur horticulturist, obtaining his fruits from seeds; he was the firs man who inserted a bud into a tree in the town of Chillicothe.

Dr. Mcadow's home was on the south side of West Second Street, east of Walnut Street, in a large two-story log house with an orchard extending toward Main Street.

Margaret Howe McAdow, Dr. McAdow's wife, gave birth to the first white child born in the town of Chillicothe. Their children were named John, Margaret, Matilda, mary, James and Samuel Jr.

During the War of 1812, Dr. McAdow was attached to General Duncan McArthur's regiment as surgeon, and he served in that capacity during the war.

Dr. McAdow was esteemed by all who knew him as a man faithful in all the relations of life, as well as a devout and conscientious man in his religious duties. He was for more than thirty years a faithful and consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in whose communion and fellowship he died on the fifth of April, 1849.

The grandson of Dr. McAdow, Josiah M. Lyons, son of his daughter, Margaret, was the architect who drew the plans for the Court House built in 1849-50. "they could not lay a stone unless he was there".

(In 1865, some men came from Cincinnati and told Grandma Lyons that if she would let them have the Court House plans, they would pay her well; but she did not have them. Josiah died in 1863 at Camp Dennison near Washington City. He was a soldier in the Civil War.)