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From: <>
Subject: KEENON, Guernsey Co.
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 19:45:46 EDT

KEENON
Stories of Guernsey County, Ohio by William G. Wolfe
Published by the Author Cambridge, Ohio 1943
Copyright, 1943, by William G. Wolfe
Typography, Printing and Binding in the USA by Kingsport Press, Inc.,
Kingsport, Tennessee.

According to On-Line Database of all the on-line library card
catalogs anywhere in the world (OCLC):
Reprint. Originally published: Cambridge, Ohio: the author, 1943.
work has lapsed into the public domain.

transcribed and/or paraphrased and submitted by:
Marilyn Murphy, Ft. Worth, TX, 2000


pg 953

John Kennon, Jr. is said to have surveyed more land than any other Guernsey
county man. Born in Pennsylvania in 1803, he came with his father, John
Kennon, Sr., to the southeastern part of what afterwards became Oxford
township, in 1806. The Kennon family lived for several months in a rude hut
made by standing up four posts, across the tops of which poles were laid and
covered with brush. Bark was used for siding the hut. At the opening left
for a door a dog was kept at night to protect the family against panthers,
wolves and bears. A log cabin twelve feet square was built later. The roof
was made of clapboards weighted down by poles. The door swung on wooden
hinges.

When other settlers arrived a log schoolhouse, sixteen feet square was built.
Greased paper was used to admit light. The seats were made from split logs
hewn smooth. John, Jr. here learned to read, write and cipher. he became
interested in mathematics, took up the study of surveying without a teacher,
and at the age of sixteen he made his first survey, which was for the noted
stone church near Fairview. When the National Road was built through Eastern
Ohio, he was engaged as an engineer by several contractors. As land
appraiser in 1846, he made what was claimed to be the first true map of
Guernsey county.

John Kennon, Jr. lived to be nearly one hundred years old, dying in Fairview
where the last years of his life were spent.
- -------------------------------------------------
Newell Kennon pg 125 Newell was a member of one of the first families to
settle in Oxford township, his father, John Kennon, coming there in 1806.
>From this one family, the township sent out a state senator, an associate
judge, a probate judge, a county treasurer and a county surveyor.
- --------------------------------------------------
James KEENON pg 1019
James Keenon was determined, by dates available, to be the third white child
born in Guernsey County. "Oxford township had an entrant for the title of
first-born. Claim was made that in the spring of 1806, Alexander Campbell,
from near Winchester, VA, moved to what is now Oxford township, near the
Belmont county line. Shortly after he arrived, John Kennon camped near his
home while looking around for a place to settle, and here his son, James
Kennon was born the following September."

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