The original Gamble farm seems to have been called “The Old Farm". It was created by William Gamble (1770-1843), who was an immigrant from near Bailieborough, Corraneary parish of Knockbride, County Cavan, in Northern Ireland, arriving with his wife and young children in America about 1801, settling at Fort Redstone, Pennsylvania.
William took time off of farming around this time to serve in the First Ohio Militia regiment during the War of 1812. A veteran’s marker on his grave is a testimonial to this service. Returning from the war, he moved his young family again, to the area of Short Creek, in Jefferson County, Ohio, and not too many years later, to old Indian lands recently opened to white settlers, in what was then Tuscawaras County, Ohio.
A Gamble family story recounted how, in the time when the elder William had brought his wife Nancy and their children to their new land, there was a local tradition requiring people coming into the community to blow a horn to announce their arrival, a custom he was ignorant of. As a result, he didn’t blow the horn, and met by the locals and was carried out of the community on a wooden rail. The context of the story seems to suggest this was done in fun, but a rough crowd, from the sound of it.
Another story remembers how William settled his new land. He first built a lean-to (common practice of new settlers, witness Abraham Lincoln's father), and a barn for his animals. The house would come next: in the coming fall, he built a one room cabin and later another room. The William Gamble house itself, seems to have been in existence as recently as 2007, still having the split “puncheon” wooden floors that William Gamble had made himself in the time of Jefferson and Madison. Gamble descendants still living into at least the 1960’s knew the location of this home, and also seemed to be in possession of The Ould Wan’s family Bible, that he purchased on June 18, 1821which included family birth records.
A look at the census data of 1860 gives a glimpse of the scope of crops and produce as the Civil War began. The farm, now owned by Alexander, was the more extensive holding of the two Gamble farms, encompassing 230 improved acres and 111 acres of unimproved land valued at $7100 (about $200,000 in 2017 dollars adjusted for inflation). It was situated at (N.E. 1/4 of Section 3, Township 14 North, Range 7 West), adjoining on its south border the land of William Clifford.
Alexander owned farm implements valued at one hundred fifty dollars. He had six horses and nine milch cows. He had thirteen other cows. 150 sheep, thirteen swine, with his livestock valued at $955. Alexander’s Old Farm produced one hundred ten bushels of wheat, thirty bushels of rye, one hundred bushels of Indian corn, two hundred bushels of oats and 430 pounds of wool. Alexander produced two bushels of peas and beans, two hundred pounds of Irish potatoes, fifty bushels of buckwheat, eight hundred pounds of butter, fifteen tons of hay, five bushels of clover seed, fifteen gallons of “s” molasses (probably sorghum), eight dollars was the value of homemade manufactures, and one hundred fifty dollars for the value of animals slaughtered at the Old Farm.
The Old Farm passed from Alexander Gamble to his son John D. Gamble (Wilson Gamble's first cousin) after the Civil War. The farm continued in family possession until the 1930's. John D. Gamble was Alexanders second son. The eldest, William T. Gamble, died in a Confederate prison at Danville Virginia in 1864.
The Tunnel Farm of William's son William Clifford Gamble--Wilson Gamble's father, was split from the Old Farm in 1821 for William Clifford.