Hebron, in Union Township, Licking County, when laid out (1827) by John Smith, at the junction of the Ohio Canal and the National Road, appeared destined to a considerable future. With the building of railways, however, its commercial importance declined, the population in 1900 being but 455.—Ed.
[161] For Newark, now chief city of Licking County, with a population (1900) of 18,157, see Flint's Letters, in our volume ix, p. 305, note 153.—Ed.
[162] Nashport and Frazeysburg, both in Muskingum County, are canal towns which have acquired no particular importance.—Ed.
[163] These are all canal towns, the first three in Coshocton County, of which the first-named is entirely extinct. Roscoe was first named Caldersburg, and laid out in 1816; when the canal came, the name was changed in honor of the English author.
Evansburg was laid out (1830) by Isaac Evans, a pioneer and veteran of the War of 1812-15.
New Comerstown, in Tuscarawas County, is interesting as the site of an early Delaware Indian town, called by Heckewelder, Gekelemukpechink. When the Delawares, in the middle of the eighteenth century, removed from the Allegheny to the Tuscarawas Valley, their principal chief, Netawatwes (the Newcomer), built his village near this site, which was the centre of tribal activity until the Revolutionary War. The American town was not laid out until the time of the canal building (1827).—Ed.
[164] Port Washington, in Salem Township, Tuscarawas County, was originally called Salisbury. It was laid out as a canal town and incorporated in 1827. Abram Garfield, father of the future president, contracted for the work on the canal between New Comerstown and Port Washington.—Ed.
[165] The Moravian missions to the Indians were begun about 1745, in eastern Pennsylvania. In 1772, at the special request of their Delaware converts, the mission was removed to the Tuscarawas Valley, and three towns founded therein—Salem, Shoenbrunn, and Gnadenhütten. The latter was the scene of the massacre (1782) of the Christian Indians by a party of backwoods militia. See Theodore Roosevelt, Winning of the West (New York, 1889), ii, pp. 142-167; and Thwaites, Withers's Border Warfare (Cincinnati, 1895), pp. 313-329. For sixteen years after this atrocity, the village of Gnadenhütten was deserted. About 1798 it was restored by the Moravians, and the following year white settlers began to move in. The first emigrants were Pennsylvania Germans; later, many Germans came direct from Europe to this region, which has still a considerable Teutonic element in its population. The town of Gnadenhütten was incorporated in 1824.—Ed.
[166] Lockport, usually called Blake's Mills, was platted (1829) by two German proprietors above Lock No. 13.
Dover was principally settled (1807) by Pennsylvania Germans. When the canal passed through, Canal Dover became the official name of the town. At one time the village aspired to be county seat.—Ed.