Jacob Haymaker

DAR Ancestor #: A052918

Jacob was an Innkeeper in York Co., Pennsylvania in the early 1770s. Sometime between 1774 and 1776 he and his family moved to the District of West Augusta/Washington Co., Pennsylvania. While in this area he served as a Justice of the Peace in the District of West Augusta. During the Revolutionary War, Jacob served as a Private, in 1778, in Captain Duncans Company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers under Brigadier General Hand. In 1781 Jacob was in charge of a boatyard known as the Haymaker boatyard. It was located at the mouth of Georges Creek, assumed to be on the Ohio River near Wheeling, West Virginia. The boatyard was making boats to support General George Rogers Clarks proposed expedition against Fort Detroit. The expedition never took place. By 17S3, Jacob had moved to Pitt Township of Westmoreland Co., Pennsylvania where he owned 300 acres of land. In 1786 he is listed as living in Pittsburgh when he purchased land on Coal Hill in Pittsburgh from John Penn.

It was Jacob Haymaker, a mill wright and carpenter who prospected through Portage county in 1805, who saw the possibilities of the Cuyahoga. He realized that the banks of the river would be a fine place to erect a grist mill. At the time Aaron Olmstead owned the entire township of Franklin. Jacob Haymaker offered to buy 2,093 acre of land. The price was $5,600, just a bit more than $2.50 an acre. Unable to return to Franklin Jacob sent his son John, to clear a spot in the virgin forest along the Cuyahoga for a permanent home.

Links

• http://www.kentohiohistory.org/facts/facts.html
• http://www.lthome.com/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I23145&tree=...