When I found that Dr. Mason spent that night in the Sears home, I did some scrambling, since this was 1819 and the Isaac Whealdon family had owned the land for two years, which wouldn’t be owned by David Sears until 1869.   When the township historian gave me a copy of her photo of the Jonathan Sears log home she told me it was located in the same quarter section  that his son, David, purchased in 1869. Returning to the Poll Books of Nottingham – Freeport townships, we have Jonathan Sears’ name on the January 10, 1814 document, which indicates this is true (see dissertation below).     Jonathan Sears⁵⁸  and his wife, Susan, former natives of Pennsylvania from Chester County, were David Sears’ parents. I found this was perfect timing to share with my readers a picture of that log home. It was sent by Granville Sears to Mr. Paul Morton, husband of Freeport Township historian, Alice Hayhurst Morton. She was gracious enough to offer a copy for my files. David Sears married Margaret Morton, a sister of John S. Morton, who was Paul Morton’s grandfather.

     Again, from the 1921 county history,⁵⁹  “Jonathan [Sears] came to Harrison County prior to the War of 1812, in which struggle he participated for a short time, and lived in Nottingham Township until 1818, when he went to Freeport and became a tanner, a business which he followed during the remainder of his life.”⁶⁰  I would clarify the statement that he “moved” from Nottingham Township to Freeport Township in this way: On January 10, 1814, Jonathan Sears was the twenty-fourth voter in the poll book for the election of officers in the Township of Nottingham, Harrison County. Five months later, on June 6, the township was divided into two parts, the new west half getting a new name, Freeport Township Chart 203.

    There were seventy-one signers in that election, so you might say about half of them did not move to another town, but the boundaries were changing, making it appear to be so. I have seen, occasionally, where a researcher goes strictly by a single written record and has mistaken a move to another location like this in error. It is not unusual to see this occurrence in early town histories where boundaries were changing. Even though these townships were divided into separate townships in the middle of 1814, early Harrison County tax records still combined their tax list in 1816 and called it Nottingham and Freeport Townships.⁶¹

      To take this example of Jonathan Sears moving from Nottingham to Freeport a step further: On January 10, 1814 Jonathan Sears was on the Poll Book of voters for election of township officers for Nottingham Township. Some of the other voters were John Cadwallader, Sr., John Cadwallader, Jr., Daniel Easley, John Carver, Joseph Cadwallader, John Johnson, Daniel Winder. These were all the same people who lived in sections 12 and 7, the same as Jonathan, that we are featuring in this chapter. You can view their names on some Poll Book exhibits in Freeport Township records.  In the 1820 Federal Census,  I found Jonathan Sears (Sayers) in the Freeport (formerly Nottingham) township with Isaac Whealdon, Daniel Winder, John Dicks and Daniel Chicken, all owning property in Freeport, which portion was formerly Nottingham.

    One thing I noticed after I put my information together is that though it probably will not impact on our study here,  the 1875 Plat Map shows an additional 100 acres own by David Sears in the section just north of his 140 acre farm, the address being Range 7, Township 12 Section 7. It is the eastern 100 acres of the southeast quarter of Section 7.  I have not had an opportunity to look at the deeds at the courthouse, but I have not found any records in Range-Township-Section documentation in my own source material, which means I don’t know if David Sears bought this 100 acres after he bought his 160 acre farm, or if, in fact, it was land that had belonged to his father.

    And by the way, Dr. Mason did not come into Ohio on the National Road, since it had not quite reached the Freeport area, but he was coming from Pittsburg. Since his next stop would be Cambridge, he was on what we now see as U.S. Route 22. U.S. Route 22 follows the path of one of the Indian thoroughfares of Ohio.⁶²  (Rt 22 SE corner of this map) It was known as the Mingo Trail and led from the Mingo Bottoms (Steubenville on the Ohio River to Duncan’s Falls, a short distance below Zanesville). Sometimes, these days, it is called the Steubenville to Cambridge Road. It was not until the Steubenville Land Office opened that this and other trails were widened to make way for wagons.

    I have not found a record of the exact road linking Rt. 22 with the Jonathan Sears home, though the 1921 history of Harrison County documents people passing on those early roads.  As he was entering Harrison County on Rt. 22 and coming into the southeast corner of Freeport Township he would pick up Route 10 (Piedmont-Freeport Road or the equivalent), drive through John Knox’s farm, and link to Town Road 306 (Cummins Road) or equivalent. Map 205 can identify this part of the trip.

    With such winding roads, Dr. Mason’s conveyance would have traveled about two miles after leaving Route 22, to reach the Jonathan Sears home for the night, then back to Route 22 heading for Cambridge the next morning.

    I went back to Margaret Gunning’s collection of historical writings to see, again, how she introduced a road that “forced the Friends to move their place of meeting” from the original location of the first Quaker meeting place and cemetery property to the area called Greenmont Union Cemetery.  I may not have it exactly right, but first, I’ll quote from her description, and then justify it with my other observations. She says,

“The Friends built their first church of logs located on the farm now owned [1954] by Albert Sears, and the spot is marked by an abandoned graveyard. At one time there was a public road that turned off  No. 8 highway near the home of Bert Marsh, which passed by this old church and on down and across Big Stillwater, a fording place, just below where the buildings were at one time on the Knox farm, thence on toward Moorefield.”⁶³ 

    I couldn’t find a Bert [Wilbert] Marsh plat, but we know where the Sears farm was and my 1875 plat map shows the Knox property with its buildings.