Record of the descendants of John Alexander

1 82 The (Descendants of
tween the Big and the Little Miami rivers, on which
he settled in the same year, 1807.
After residing that year in a pole hut which some
pioneer had built and deserted, he built the first frame
house in Washington Township, Montgomery county,
in 1808, near the present site of Centreville. Having
the means of hiring assistance in clearing the forest,
his land soon began to yield abundant supplies.
As time moved on, new farms and settlements ap-
peared; discouragements, inconveniences, and wants
disappeared with the progress of improvements in mills,
stores, villages, churches and schools. The rich, virgin
soil bore abundant crops, and cattle, horses, sheep, and
hogs ranged at large, and fattened on the wild and
luxuriant pasture.
John Taylor died Nov. 29, 1843, aged sixty-five
years, nine months, and eleven days. His widow, Mrs
llosannah A. Taylor, has survived him nearly thirty-
two years, and yet lives, with three of her sons, upon
the old homestead, at the advanced age of ninety-one
years, the last of the heads of families who settled in
Washington township in 1806, the oldest citizen of the
community, and the only surviving child of James and
Rosey Reed Alexander. She. is the fourth daughter
and the eleventh of twelve children. Though she did
not remove to Ohio, until she had been married and had
become the mother of three children, she has witnessed
changes in her new home that seem almost incredible.
During those seventy years the wild wilderness of
almost unbroken forest, which seemed too vast for
any power of men to subdue, has become one of the
most productive, populous, and prosperous States of the
Union, abounding, in every direction, with villages,
towns, and cities, and enriched and adorned with the