John Stamates[1], hailing from
Muskingum County, came with the Coons, and lived with them during the first year of his
citizenship of York Township. He then bought a place in the Miller settlement, and is
still living there.
Levin Wright came from Fairfield County about 1835, and
settled in the Coons settlement. He remained a lifelong resident of the township. By his
first marriage-with Letitia Coons-he had three children. His second wife was Sally
Thornton, and the children of this marriage still reside in the township.
Not uncommonly, settlements were formed by a number of
pioneers, hailing from the same vicinity. The tide of emigration from a settled locality
would receive its impetus from the success attending the removal of one of the community
to the new country. His neighbors, friends and acquaintances, prompted by a desire to
share in the benefits which are the reward of faithful and persevering labor in an
unsettled region, and preferring the society of old and tried acquaintances as neighbors
to new ones, one after another would leave their old homesteads and purchase new homes in
the vicinity of those who had gone before them. An emigration from Harrison and adjoining
counties to York Township was thus begun by one, who, however, did not live to enter upon
his labors in the township. Duncan McArthur purchased a large portion of the John Bowen
Surveys, in the southeastern portion of York Township, for a small consideration, and
desired its settlement. Samuel Hyde, of Harrison, was slightly acquainted with Gov.
McArthur, who offered to sell him, among others, a farm in that vicinity.
[1] Cemetery Inscriptions from East York Cemetery, York
Township, Union County, Ohio.