History of the Bauer Brothers Farms
2735 Beechgrove Road, Wilmington, OH 45177
Looking around us in Clinton County today, it is difficult to imagine the area as the early settlers was it two hundred years ago. Massive forest trees and a tangle of shrubs growing beneath covered the entire county. It was not uncommon to see poplar, oak and walnut trees that were from four to five feet in diameter and devoid of limb or branch to the height of sixty feet. Prior to the 1800, the population of the county was comprised of trappers, and Indians. The first white settlers, the Lees came to Clinton County around 1803. A wave of settlers soon followed, and between 1805 and 1815, the Hadleys, Harveys, Edwards, Osborns and Greens, among the other came from North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Many of the new settlers were Quakers, although other early denominations, such a Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptist were also represented.
It appears the earliest settler of the Bauer Brothers Farm was Joseph Stratton. Joseph, along with cousin Mahlon Stratton were born in Virginia. Joseph settled on Lytle’s Creek in 1809, where he built a cabin and began to clear some of the land. Unaided, a settler could clear about an acre of land in three weeks.
Asa Green, a neighbor of Joseph Stratton recorded this account of early life in Clinton County:
“I was born January 5, 1805. I remember leaving Virginia. My father and family, of which I was one, moved out to Ohio in a wagon. We had five horses. We drove seven of eight head of cattle, and were five weeks on the way. We first settled near Centre. This was in the fall of 1811. I remember attending meeting there. It was held in a hewed-log house. When we moved to Lytle’s Creek where my father build a hewed-log house, twenty by twenty-four feet, one story. It was build near a spring on the hillside, about one hundred yards north of the creek, a short distance east of Ogden, and near where the railroad now is. My father planted out an orchard soon after, a few of the old trees of which are still standing. A few years afterward, he took the house down and moved it from the hillside where first built to the top of the hill, where there was a better situation. When he rebuilt it, he weather boarded it. This house is still standing, and is in a fair state of preservation, and is still occupied as a family residence. When we first moved, there was no clearing, except about four acres across the creek on the bottom, which had been cleared up by Charles Stout, who then lived near where Rodney Jenks now lives. He had opened up a small clearing there, but was not the owner of their land, but only a renter, or squatter, upon it. Samuel Andrew had a small clearing where he lived. Nathaniel Carter had made a small beginning on his land, bough of Lytle, and lived in a log house south of the small creek, or run, that passes through the Carter farm. Benjamin Howell made the first clearing on the Howell farm. Charles Howell made the first clearing on the Quinby farm. He was the son-in-law of a man by the name of Stout. He moved away afterward, Joseph Stratton having bought 150 acres of Lytle and divided it between his sons, Micajah and Joseph. The latter built the one story frome house on the Quinby farm, but, as he was single himself, rented it. Joseph Straton lived where Caleb Moore now Lives. He built the old two-story frame house tha is still standing there. Micajah Stratton built the brick house on the Rodney Jenks farm, recently taken down. I attended school in a small log house on the Stout farm, east of Lytle’s Creek. This was in 1814. I also went to school at a schoolhouse on Nathaniel Carter’s place. We went to Springfield to meeting until the Lytle’s Creek Meeting-House was built. It was built in 1817. In 1820, my father built a frame barn, the first one in the neighborhood. Persons came quite a distance to see it. It is still standing. It is tweny-four by fifty feet. I remember that, after the rafters were raised, in a feat of daring, my cousin, Reuben Chew, walked on the points of the rafters from one end of the barn to the other. We went to mill at the John Hadley mill, on Todd’s Fork, until the Holaday Mill was built. They ground wheat and corn on the same stone. They ran the bolt by hand.”
Around 1832, Joseph Stratton sold his farm to a new settler, Caleb Moore, who had moved to the area from Pennsylvania, along with his wife Nancy and their six children. Nancy’s father, Andrew Jack, a Revolutionary War veteran, also came from Pennsylvania. Nancy Moore passed away in 1845, and afterward remarried. They are all burried at the Springfield Friends Cemetery.
Caleb passed away in 1892, leaving his farm to his third son, Harris C Moore. Harris had worked for a time as a carpenter, but Caleb’s health began to decline, he moved back to the farm. Harris continued to farm for the rest of his life. He was married twice, first to Guillema Green, and after her deah, to Rachel Walker. He had four children, and it was son Mordecai C Moore who took over the farm in the late 1800’s. Harris passed away in 1915.
Mordecai married Elma Garber. They had two children, son Jacob C Taylor Moore and a daughter who died in infancy. The family continued to live on and work the farm. Taylor Moore married Veda Hadley, and they had four children. Taylor passed away in 1935 at the age of 39, due to illness. The rest of the family Mordecai and Elma and Taylor’s widow and children continued to work the farm until shortly after Mordecai and Elma’s deaths in the 1940. None of Taylor and Veda’s children wanted to continue farming and so the farm was sold passing out of the Moore family’s hands after just over one hundred years.
Orlie Butterbaugh took ownership of the farm in 1940 and maintained it for 10 years. Ralph and Betty Kip purchased the farm September 30, 1950 and sold the farm to Harold and Edna Brown August 31, 1959. Harold Brown sold the farm December 21, 1963 to Thomas E and Carolyn Bauer. Tom had been raised on a dairy and truck farm in Mt Healthy, Ohio on Hamilton Pike. Tom continued to live in Finneytown, work for Procter and Gamble and share cropped the farm with Wilbur Reveal and later his son Jim Reveal up until 2007. Tom loved working on he farm almost every weekend. He taught his three sons a lot about the value of hard work. He said many of his best thought came when he was walking though the fields. In retirement Tom let the local fire department practice on the old farm house and replaced the house with a double wide manufactured home. This was a first for the farm, a home with indoor plumbing and a bathroom! In October 2005 Tom was on the farm bush hogging the grass when his Maker called him home. Today Donald Cocheran and his son-in-law, Shae Schneder are currently share cropping the farm with the Bauer Brothers, John, Dale, and Tom.