Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 28 Oct 2004

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The high official positions and characters of Symmes and his associates in the State of New Jersey drew from that State a large number of immigrants to the Miami Purchase. Symmes was Chief Justice of New Jersey at the time he entered upon his Western land project. Gen. Jonathan Dayton, one of his associates, was a Revolutiotary [sic] officer, a distinguished statesman, and, at the inception of the speculation, represented New Jersey in the convention which formed the national constitution. Dr. Elias Boudinot, another associate, was also a Revolutionary patriot, a President of the Federal Congress, and afterward first President of the American Bible Society. It is not strange, then, that so large a proportion of our earliest settlers were from New Jersey. The lands east of the Little Miami reserved by Virginia for the payment of bounties to her troops on Continental establishment, drew from that State large numbers of Revolutionary officers and soldiers, and others who had purchased Virginia Military land warrants. Among the Revolutionary officers who entered lands in this county, but without settling upon them, were Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates and Col. Abraham Buford. Quakers came from Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas, settling largely in the northern and eastern parts of the county, and Waynesville soon became a noted place among the Friends. Opponents of slavery came from all the slave States to the territory dedicated to freedom, and the first State of the American Republic that never had a slave. Emigrants from the State of Kentucky crossed the Ohio to find better land titles. During the seven years preceding the organization of the county in 1803, there must have been an increase of six hundred persons annually in the territory of the county, and during the seven years succeeding the organization more than eight hundred annually.