Week 9 "At the Courthouse"

Daniel Hutchison

Born 30 June, 1784 in Pennsylvania

Died 10 March, 1869 in Exline, Iowa

My 4x Great Grandfather
1st wife Nancy Armstrong
2nd wife Rebecca Caster (my 4x great grandmother)

(Mom's Mom's side)

I became interested in Daniel many years ago when we were visiting his tombstone one Memorial Day weekend. I realized that he was my 4x great grandfather. At the time I was just getting interested in genealogy and I was just starting to wrap my head around that I was visiting such a distant relatives grave. At that time he was probably the oldest relative I had visited or remembered visiting and I became interested in learning more about him.

So I took first to Ancestry where I found a document someone had done for their family history and it mentioned that Daniel was the first sheriff of Holmes County Ohio. Wow that's a cool thing I thought. So I started searching for more resources to prove that. We happened to be in a genealogy library in Princeton Mo (the one I talked about a couple weeks ago) when I came across a book about Ohio history. I thought that might have some info on Holmes Co. Ohio. Sure enough it talked about Daniel and his brother William were crucial to the founding of Holmes county.



Holmes County Courthouse in Millersburg Ohio

For some reason I became really fascinated with Holmes Co and knew I had to go there some day! In 2017 I made the trip East and visited the beautiful county that my ancestors helped found.

 While I was there I had scheduled myself to be there when the Holmes County Genealogical Society was open to see if I could find documents pertaining to my ancestors. They happened to have many of the original early court documents at the Library. Since Daniel was the Sheriff he was involved with many court cases and his signature was on many papers. It was so neat seeing his signature on these original documents that he would have touched!!! I'm mad at myself because I can't find where I put those papers!! I scanned probably 50 pages of documents from that day. Daniel didn't get to see the courthouse built in the photo above he would have been in the 1st courthouse built in 1825 which was built at the same location where the present one stands. 

You can learn about the Holmes County courthouses from this VIDEO done by the Ohio Channel. 

After visiting the library I wanted to find Daniel's parent's graves and they were located in a town just north of Millersburg in Fredericksburg Ohio. There are 2 cemeteries in Fredericksburg the Old West Fredericksburg Cemetery and the East Fredericksburg Cemetery. It said they were buried in the West one so I started there. On the website there was a photo of the grave so I had an idea of what it looked like but I walked and walked and looked at every stone and couldn't find it. So I decided to check out the other one. Sure enough it was listed in the wrong cemetery!! But I found it and was so excited. Here were my 5x great grandparents.

James and Jane (Kelly) Hutchinson's tombstones

Jane (Kelly) Hutchinson's obituary I found just last week!!! 

As someone who loves wandering around cemeteries, the above photo was the view from the first cemetery I visited in Fredericksburg. Even though it didn't have the people who I was looking for the view was spectacular!!! Right in the middle of Amish farm country.

My connection to Daniel:

Daniel Hutchinson- 4 X Great Grandpa

Rebecca Hutchinson Withrow 3x Great Grandma

Louisa Withrow Walter- 2x Great Grandma

Mearl Walter- Great Grandpa

Carolyn Walter Van Dorin - Grandma

My Mom

Me