{The following information was taken from, The Pathfinders of Jefferson County. This and is an example of some of the important facts found in this record and includes early genealogical and historical information. You can order the The Index to The Pathfinders, Volumes VI & VIII [references to Jefferson County] just by clicking under services on the homepage, and then publications. The author is Mr. Robert Richardson. He donated this work to our chapter.

Vol. VIII, pg. 177 – Jacob Holmes (taken from a letter written by his grandson to The Steubenville Gazette.) “In Vol. VI of Pathfinders, permit me to correct several errors on page 163 mention is made of Jacob Holmes. My information is derived from my grandfather, Jacob Holmes himself, his wife and from my mother. The matter to which I refer is in an old manuscript by Eli McFeely in which he details his first meeting and introduction to Jacob Holmes, giving the date of the meeting as about the middle of July 1828, and the place “the summit of McDowell’s hill.” When he was introduced by his friend S.B. he saw in Jacob Holmes “an aged but erect man” an account of his early life in the western country. In July 1838, Jacob Holmes was living in Highland County, Ohio. He was then nearly seven years of age, but had an appearance of being much older. He was much stooped and in declining health. So I concluded that Mr. McFeely wrote the interview sometime after the meeting and was mistaken. He also listed the wrong birthplace of Jacob Holmes as well as to John Huff being killed by Indians with Dan McIntyre, and David Cox and others in the ginseng party. John Huff, my grandmother’s brother, married Sallie Johnson, a sister of John and Henry Johnson, who were captured by the Indians, killed their captors and returned home. John Huff settled at Columbia on the Ohio river, a few miles from Cincinnati, at about the close of the last century.”

“Jacob Holmes was born December 8, 1768, in Rockingham county, Va. While Jacob was a small boy his father moved to Bedford county, Pa. and a few years later to Washington county, Pa., near Catfish, now Washington; then a few years later to what is now Brooke county, W.Va., and settled on Buffalo creek, not far from the Ohio river. Here our subject grew to manhood, and in 1791 was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Michael and Hannah Doddridge Huff. Shortly after his marriage he was employed by the United States Government as an Indian scout, and in company with his brother-in-law, Kinsey Dickerson and a man named Washburn, was thus was employed for three years. For his services he received a tract of land on Short Creek, a few miles north of where Mt. Pleasant now stands. To this place he moved his family in the spring of 1796, my mother being but six weeks old. He resided on this farm some twenty-five years when he sold to a man named Comley and removed to the northern part of Harrison County. The farm on which he then located is now in Carroll County. He resided here until 1832, when he again sold and removed to Fairfield township, Highland county…bought a farm one mile north of Kenton, Hardin county, to which he removed in the spring of 1839, and there he died October 14, 1841.

On October 30, 1840, he requested all of his children to meet at his home in a family reunion and take dinner with him. The children all met except Mrs. Augustine Bickerstaff of Steubenville, her health not permitting. My mother made the trip on horseback from Highland county, a distance of one hundred miles. His sister, Mrs. Nathaniel Moore, who resided in Little York (Updegraph postoffice) in Jefferson County, also came on horseback. Jacob and his wife are buried in the Grove cemetery at Kenton, and this is the inscription on his tombstone: Jacob Holmes, died October 14th, 1841, aged 72 years, 10 months and 6 days. On the tombstone of his wife: Elizabeth Holmes, died January 27, 1857, aged 84 years, 8 months and 5 days.”

“The Holmes and Huff families all settled in Jefferson, Harrison, and Tuscarawas counties in the early opening of the eastern part of the state. In Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio (the old edition) in his account of Harrison county, several Huff’s are mentioned.”

“Ambrose W. Moore, who was your Sheriff some thirty years ago, is a grandson of Jacob Holmes. There was a large family of his brothers and sisters who some years ago nearly all lived in Jefferson county. His father and mother both died in Smithfield where they had removed a few years before their decease.” Curtis Wilkin, Kenton, O., March 6, 1899.”

Page 181, The Pathfinders: …the first quarterly meeting was held on the farm of Joseph Holmes, in the summer of 1805. This meeting was conducted by Rev. Asa Shinn. Methodists from beyond and about Wellsburgh, on the Ohio and from the Holmes church (built in 1800) on Short Creek came to the meeting…the meeting was held in the grove; the seats were made of rails, logs and puncheons. In two trees standing about six feet apart a notch was cut in each tree, and in those notches was placed a puncheon sixteen inches wide, and on this the preacher laid the Bible…” From The Pathfinders, Vol. VIII, pp. 233-235: Hopewell ME, situated on Warren Ridge, is the oldest ME church organized and built in the Northwest Territory, built at least as early as 1798, two years before Holmes Church. Other sources list as early as 1787 meeting at Hopewell…