Day Thirteen- Big Creek Park

10 miles- Today was a very short day and I didn’t really see much that struck my fancy, so I thought I would fill in a bit why I am in Ohio in the first place. It all goes back to a marriage in October 1814 in Vermont.

My Great Great Great Grandfather and Grandmother, Silas & Sophia Hill Hurd, had only been married a few months when they moved from Tinmouth, VT. to Ohio in 1815. He was 23 and she was 22. They were both from farming families and so they came to farm in the wilds of Ohio. In October of that year they had their first child, a boy, Daniel, named after is Grandfather Hurd back in Vermont.

I was trying to find out where they lived in Ohio and the first indication I have is their son. He was born in Guernsey County, OH. which had just been created in 1810 from a piece Muskingum County. And later his sister Julia Ann was listed as being born in Morgan County. But I don’t think they moved, rather a chunk of Guernsey County was given up to make Morgan County just before she was born. And Julia was noted to be born in the town of Brookfield. Well now we’re getting somewhere. But, Brookfield no longer exists and it was never very big. So I still don’t have a real location. Wherever it was in Morgan County, Silas and Sophia lived there and they had 8 children. One of those children was Eli and he was my Great Great Grandfather.

Now family lore was the Silas was a farmer all his life, but then I found him in the 1850 census along with Sophia and a couple of the younger children. Lo and behold they were living in Zanesville, OH, probably sixty or a hundred miles from Morgan County. He was 58 and she was 57 and he was an innkeeper!

Now Zanesville was a happening place in the 1840-50s. Located on the Muskingum River, the National Road, and an important local road, Zane’s Trace, there were a lot of travelers always coming through. I don’t know if Silas actually owned an inn or if he just rented out rooms in his home, but apparently someone told the Census taker that he was an innkeeper. Ok, maybe not very exciting for most folks, but it was for me.

Silas would die 9 years later in Zanesville and Sophia would follow him 3 years after that. He was 68 and she 69 when they passed.

Their descendants still live in Ohio. And those amazing people, that I am related to, are the main reason I came to the state. The fact that it had an interesting long trail was incidental.

I am now camped in the Geauga County – Big Creek Park in a lovely woods at a campsite with a picnic table. Pretty upscale! :^) Tomorrow I have another kind of short mileage day as I wind down here near the end of my trek.

Until tomorrow, Happy Trails!