RACHEL FORD, sister of Joshua and Benjamin Ford, who accompanied
her brothers to Darby Creek Settlement, near Franklinton, in 1822, must
have been a girl with a mind of her own and plenty of will to carry it out.
She was raised on the plantation of her father in Maryland and owned 25 slaves in her own right. But Rachel did not believe in slave owning. In fact, she actually freed her slaves, for which forward and radical and altogether unladylike and unruly conduct—from the standpoint of her day and her environment— she was very properly disinherited. So Rachel decided to accompany her brothers north. Needless to say, she managed to do so. Her marriage in 1823 was interesting in that it united the daughter of southern slave-holders with the oldest son — David Deardurff— of the erstwhile itinerant salesman who obtained his first 10 acres of land by careful barter.
MARY MINER came with her parents from Connecticut to Franklin County in 1806. Mary grew up, was married to Henry Wharton, an Englishman, was widowed and finally died in the very same house in which she had been born 89 years before. Not only in the same house but in the same bed in which she had slept for more than 50 years.
Mary is said to have been quite a friend of both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. She was, in fact, chosen by the teachers at the Friends Seminary, Philadelphia, to which she travelled back and forth by stage coach, to write a letter to the great Webster, advocating the abolishment of slavery, one might begin to think that Franklin County was the magnet of very emancipated girls, for those early days. But this was not necessarily the case as regards Mary’s letter to Webster. It was chosen because she wrote such a beautiful hand.
The Tombstone of ELIZABETH GOODALE, it is stated in “We, Too, Built Columbus” was found by J. H . Galbraith in the old Franklinton Cemetery, embedded in a tree trunk that had grown up around it. The stone bore the date 1809. It marked the end of a long journey and a brave life.
In the spring of 1789, Elizabeth and Nathan Goodale settled at Belpre, where they endured actual famine the first winter. Toward the end the children were allowed a potato a day, then half a potato.
In the spring of 1790 the famine was so bad that they are said to have used nettles and purslane as food. The following year the Indians went on the warpath and the famous “Farmer’s Castle” stockade was built at Belpre. The Goodales occupied one of these block cabins. But Nathan ventured further, cultivated his farm despite the danger and one day disappeared. It is believed that he was captured by the Indians.
One of the sons, Lincoln Goodale, became famous in two capacities, as a physician and as a particularly obdurate albeit—perhaps although—a particularly charming bachelor. He later took his mother and the rest of the family to Franklinton, where his long service to the community as a physician was centered.
