HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
CHAPTER 3
EARLY LAND ENTRIES
The following is a full list of all land entries in Stampers Creek Township prior to the year 1820: Township 1 north, Range 1 east. Asa Burt, October 11, 1811. 160 acres in Section 1, Township 2 north, Range 1 east, William Bush, November 25, 1812. 160 acres in Section 25, Peter Mahan, March 10,1812, 160 acres in Section 35. Township 1 north, Range 2 east, Thomas Hopper, September 21, 1811, 150 acres in Section 5, Thomas Copeland, April 1,1812, 160 acres in Section 18. Township 2 north, Range 2 east; Thomas Scott, September 18, 1812, 160 acres in Section 32, Thomas Hopper, September 26, 1810, 160 acres in Section 32. In 1813 came David Finley, William Wire, Benjamin Vancleave, George Hinton and William Rigney. In 1814. George and Samuel Dougherty, James J. Murphy, Jacob Wagoner and James Conley. In 1815 Joshua Reed, George Peters, William Brooks and Peter Cornwell. In 1816 William White and Francis May. In 1817 James Baker, John Gresham, Robert Hollowell, Zachariah Lindley, Harvey Findley, Hugh Holmes, Presley Allgood and Humphrey Smith. In 1818, William and John Dougherty, J. W. Doan, Robert Dougherty, Jacob Wagoner, Cornelius King, Samuel Wible, Henry Wolfe and William Dillard. In 1819 Henry Dougherty, Robert Sanderson, J. Rigney, Robert Montgomery, John Wolfe, Robert Martin, John Vandeveer and J. Raney.
ANECDOTES
The first settlement made in this township is said to have been on the farm where Samuel Mahan now lives, in the western part. Here for several years stood what was known as the Moore Fort, where the earliest settlers resorted for protection from the marauding Indians which then infested this section of the country. All traces of this fort are now gone, but Mr. Mahan is able to point out the spot where it stood. So far as can be ascertained, Edward Kirby kept the first "corn cracker" in this township. This was a horse-mill on the farm now owned by Henry Edwards; but Cloud’s Mill, now known as Spring Mill, near Paoli. soon superseded this, as the latter was run by water-power and was an improvement over the horse-mill. It was here that the first settlers repaired with their grists for a considerable time, but after a while several mills were established along Stampers Creek. Among these Hugh Holmes owned one at the present site of Millersburg, which he operated until his death. Jarvis Smith operated another on the present Henry Wolfe farm about 1840, and William Brooks had a corn-mill a short distance further down the creek; but these have long since disappeared. The only gristmill in the township at present is the one owned by Allen McCoy at Millersburg. It has two sets of "buhrs" operated by water-power. In connection with his grist-mill Hugh Holmes had the first saw-mill in the township, and is said to have done a good business. The Tarr brothers built a steam saw-mill in the western part and it was operated by them and others for several years with good success, but has recently been moved and the township is now without any saw-mill.
DISTILLERIES
In grain distilleries Stampers Creek Township has been prolific. Among the men who have been engaged in this may be mentioned Edward Kirby, Abram Peters, Joel Kirby, Peter Mahan, Mason Burgess, Edward Moore, John Rigney, Daniel Murphy, Jarvis Smith, William Brooks and Henry Wolfe, Sr. In the days when these distilleries flourished, corn was an abundant crop, and there was no outlet for it to the great markets of the world. As a consequence it was very cheap, the ruling price being about 10 cents per bushel, and the distilling of it into whisky became the only means whereby it could be turned into profit. Those were the good old times that the old men who still linger around these scenes of their early years are often heard lauding times when pure whisky flowed freely at 12 1/2 to 20 cents per gallon, and drunkenness was a thing unknown. That is what the old men say, but if some of the "boys" of today had been there then, how sadly would their tale be changed. Besides this Abram Peters and Henry Wolfe, Sr., did a considerable business in fruit distilling, mostly making apple and peach brandies, from those fruits. They could be obtained for this purpose at 5 to 10 cents per bushel, and this business was at one time very profitable. The only institution of this kind in the township is the steam distillery of G. B. McCoy & Bros., about one half mile east of Millersburg, where a large business is carried on in the fruit seasons, and many gallons of these brandies are manufactured.
Dr. James Baker, who has been raised in this township from his infancy, is at present the only physician in it, and has been so for a long time, with the exception of the year 1857, when Dr. Joshua Springer was located here in the practice.
The people here have been fully up with the balance of the county in matters of temperance, and no crimes of consequence can yet be recorded to the disgrace of the sturdy citizens of Stampers Creek. The worst, and they are bad enough, were some horse stealings, one of which was from Dr. Baker, in August, 1876, and no clue to either horse or thief was found. Some years before this, in 1853, Edward Burgess, who had just returned from California, was robbed of $1,500 in gold. It is supposed that he had been followed by the robbers for some distance, and when a favorable opportunity presented itself they entered the house and carried away his treasure. The perpetrators of this crime were never discovered. Somewhere in the fifties Benjamin Vancleave was fatally injured at a barn-raising near Millersburg from a falling of some of the heavy timbers. Death occurred in a few days.