Ohio History Journal

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JONATHAN ALDER

JONATHAN ALDER.

 

 

COL. WM. CURRY.

The tales of adventure and bloodshed related by the early

pioneers of Ohio, of their dangers and hardships have been

familiar to me since boyhood. Among others of whom I heard

many harrowing stories related by my father and other pioneers,

was of Jonathan Alder, who was at one time a resident of Union

county, Ohio, and a noted pioneer and frontiersman.

Like Captain Samuel Davis, the famous Indian fighter, he

was taken captive by the Indians, and the latter part of his life

was spent quietly in Madison county, and his remains now rest

less than a score of miles west of the city of Columbus.

"Lest we forget," it is well sometimes to recall the heroic

deeds of our nearby neighbors, for to those men who came to

this section of our state more than a century ago, with rifle and

ax. we owe a debt we can never repay.

 

"Red ran the blood of foemen,

On countless fields of woe,

From Allegheny's shimmering stream

To Maumee broad and slow

On swift Miami's green-clad shores

And by Sandusky's side

And where Scioto's hill-crowned flood,

Greets grand Ohio's tide."

 

WAR OF 1812.

During the war of 1812, Alder resided near Pleasant Valley

now Plain City, Ohio, in the territory now within the bounds of

Union county. A military company was organized at Pleasant

Valley in the summer of 1812 of which Alder was elected cap-

tain and Frederick Loyd lieutenant. There were 70 men in all,

and one Daniel Watkins was made colonel and commander-in-

chief. They were directed to march north toward the lakes

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