PIKE COUNTY'S TIMELINE
Piketon was first called Jefferson.
1796 - First settlement in Piketon before Pike County was a county. Prior Ross, Scioto, Adams or Washington County.
1812 - Joseph Lewis built the first ferryboat to cross the Scioto River.
1815 - Pike County was established from Ross, Adams & Scioto.
1815 - Arthur Cheneweth's house in the Pee Pee Prairie - first courthouse.
1815 - First recorded marriage - James Walls to Polly Star on May 4, 1815 - Justice of Peace Hezekiah Merritt officiating.
1816 - Early Piketon house of worship were the Methodist Episcopal Church organized in 1816.
1816 - Gen James Rowe first mail carrier traveling from Chillicothe to Portsmouth traveled over the roughed out trail known as Yoakum's Trace.
1817 - Piketon was named the first county seat.
1817 - First Post Office was built Late 1820s.
1829 - Waverly was platted along the Erie Canal.
1831- Jasper was platted as a town.
1833 - Canal was completed.
1835 - Mail by air - first in United States - English balloonist - Richard Claytson.
1837 - In 1837 a small pox epidemic hit Waverly. (see R. Emmitt's bio)
1839 - Pike County had five sawmills & five gristmills.
1840 - Steam tannery started operation in Waverly.
1840 - In Piketon, there were 507 people, three churches, one school, four general stores and one newspaper.
1845 - Piketon House of worship was the German Lutheran Church.
1859 - The first county bank was established in Piketon by George Corwine & John Gregg.
1861 - The county seat in Piketon was moved to Waverly.
1861 - 1865 - Civil war in Pike County
1862 - First boat to Waverly on the canal was the "Governor Worthington."
1864 - Early house of worship in Piketon German United Brethren Church.
1877 - May - The initial shovel of dirt for the Scioto River Railroad was taken from Snowden Sargent's field.
1877 - Nov - the Scioto Valley Railroad's first passenger train arrived in Piketon.
1877 - Iron horse (trains) moved through the county.
(Updated August 2003)
Copyright © 2003
Pike Co. Genealogy Society a Chapter of O.G.S.
P. O. Box 224, Waverly, Ohio 45690