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NOVEMBER 2020
From Forest To Farm To City Center History of the McCormick Farm and Family
W
hile some of Fairfield Township was open prairie before the arrival of white settlers, when Judge John Cleves Symmes made the famous Symmes Purchase, the area that is now the heart of Fairfield was covered with forest. The proximity of native earthworks suggests that there may have been small clearings created by the local natives, and General Arthur St. Clair’s army followed an Indian trail through the area. On August 25, 1796, Judge Symmes granted a deed of a little less than 107 acres to Cornelius Hurley for a little more than 33 cents, but it’s not clear how much time, if any, Hurley actually spent there. A year later, he sold most of the land to Patrick Moore for $65, garnering quite a profit. In 1799, the price was $248 when Moore sold the tract to David Beatty, an early Butler County settler who would by 1805 own 885
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acres in Fairfield and Hanover townships, including some adjacent land. The land changed hands several times within the Beatty family until 1836 when John Hart purchased 138 acres that was still then known as “the Old Beatty Farm.” Around that same time, the turnpike came through, roughly along the eastern border of the parcel, close to but not quite where Pleasant Avenue runs through the city now. This allowed for the development of Symmes Corner, carved out of surrounding farmland. None of the owners up to this point ever lived on the land, but likely rented it out to tenants who cleared the land and began tilling the soil. Neither did the next owner, Samuel Houston, who bought the parcel from Hart for $7,000 in 1838. In 1847, Hueston gave it to his daughter Lucinda Ann and her husband John Pottenger as a $9,000 advance against his estate. The
