Submitted by Dr. Jack States

Huron County First Family Member #202

Woodward and Elizabeth (BUTTERS) STATES, early (1810) settlers of Covert Township, New York, purchased property in Greenwich Township of Huron County, Ohio, from Calvin Mead in June of 1833. The Meads of Fairfield County, Connecticut, were the original "Fire Lands" proprietors of the property and both families had been previously acquainted through the association of Woodward’s grandfather, Adam States, and Abraham Mead in the mid 1700's. Adam was considered to be Connecticut’s first stoneware potter and Abraham was his apprentice. The STATES family moved onto the Ohio land in late 1833. As was often the case with early settlers, they moved together in family groups. Woodward’s married sons, Peter and John, and his daughter Mary, married to Andrew AUBLE, were also members of the emigration party, and all settled in the Greenwich area. Woodward purchased a tract of land in Ruggles Township (now in Ashland County) and moved there in 1834. In the years following, all of Woodard’s sons acquired farms in Huron County; Peter and Benjamin in Greenwich, John in Sherman, Thomas in Ruggles, and George in Fairfield and Ruggles Townships.

George STATES  was born in Covert, New York, and was only a boy of ten when his parents, Woodward and Elizabeth moved to Ohio. In 1847, while living in Fairfield Township, he met and married Eliza GRAHAM, the daughter of another Firelands pioneer couple, John and Jane GRAHAM of Huron Township (now in Erie County). George and Eliza farmed in Springfield Township, Williams County, Ohio, on land originally purchased by Woodward in 1837. Following the STATES family tradition of moving with the American frontier, they moved to Benton County, Iowa, in 1854, wrestling farm land from the wilderness. And once again in 1869, they traveled as pioneers by covered wagon to Lancaster County, Nebraska. There they constructed a one-room "soddy" for their family on the banks of Oak Creek, the remnants of which can still be seen today. The pioneer legacy was once again invested in their son, Gustavus STATES, who traveled with his son, Herbert (my grandfather), from Nebraska by horse drawn wagons, to take up a homestead in frontier Wyoming.