The site of the present city was purchased in 1795 by a group of Revolutionary soldiers and laid out as a town in the following year by one of them, who named it after Jonathan Dayton, a Jerseyman who had fought in the Revolution and who later served in Congress and the United States Senate. It became the county seat of Montgomery County in 1803 and received its city charter in 1841, something more than a score of years after the opening of the Miami Canal gave a boom to its growth and prosperity.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Crowds at the end of one of the streets which was turned into a racing river. Many persons floating down on the debris were rescued by willing hands as they neared this point
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Copyright by George Grantham Bain. Even before the flood reached its height, the wood-working department of the National Cash Register Factory was busily putting together improvised boats that were afterwards of great value in rescuing marooned residents from their flooded homes
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