OHBROWN-L Archives

Archiver > OHBROWN > 1999-01 > 0916152003


From: "Ron Gaddis" <>
Subject: [OHBROWN-L] Why Brown Co.?
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 20:36:58 0000


Interesting Bunch, you folks are!

We got all sorts of reasons for leaving Brown Co. I will have to try to
summarize them in some way as there is definitely some info of value there.

But now comes a question from , alias Karen Arbogast, a
question which could be even more interesting... What prompted any of our
kinfolk to select Brown Co. (for me Ripley)? Mine came from PA near
Lancaster in 1817, just months before their eldest son got out of the Army
after War of 1812. They never saw him again as he went back to Delaware
where the family landed in 1801 coming from Ireland, County Down.

Why would Ma and Pa Gaddis pack up and leave PA to go to Ripley just
months before Robt (twice wounded) was discharged? Did they think he
would stay in the Army forever? Did Ohio seem not so far away they could
not go see him? Did they think he would follow them?

I think I know a little about it. Apparently Ma (Mary Ann Frazier Gaddis) got
religion at a Methodist camp meeting next door to their home. She went to
the Seceder Church and started shouting Halalooyah and praying out loud
during the sermon, talking in tongues (yes, Methodists really did those things
in that day). The Seceders, being serious folk, told Pa (Robert Gaddis), he
would have to control this woman and make her give up her shameful
behavior. He tried, but finally the Board expelled her from the church. So
they might have moved west to start over...in a new less respectable church!
Maybe...but maybe it was something else too.

But why Ripley? How did they get there? By boat? It is on the river.

One of the sons (the youngest), Maxwell Pierson Gaddis, became a
Methodist circuit rider and wrote several books...one of which is "Footprints of
an Itinerant". It has some answers, but is mostly church stories about semi-
anonymous folk (Mr. T, for example) with only occasional glimpses of the
family members.

The question: What drew people to Brown Co.? Land to homestead? Some
occupation in particular? Was there a mine or quarry? A factory? Previously
settled family members.

Who were the first and in what year approximately? Indians there?

Lots of questions for the history experts on Brown Co.

Ron Gaddis

This thread: