MIDDLETOWN HISTORY
STEPHEN VAIL
The Man Who Put Middletown on the Map BY RICHARD O JONES ■ EARLY IN THE MORNING of November 1, 1802, 65-year-old Stephen Vail left his log cabin on the east bank of the Great Miami River on horseback. Accompanied by his neighbor James Sutton, Vail was on his way to the Cincinnati, Hamilton County seat, with important documents, including the maps that would create a village of 52 lots on his property. He had already built the first cabin in the section on what was to become Main Street and his large family several others, with still more already under construction on Third Street.
Aerial view of Middletown. The Great Miami River is near the top of the photo.
When he returned that evening, he showed his neighbors the advertisement he had placed in the Cincinnati newspaper. Middle-Town. The subscriber has laid off a town on the eastern bank of the Great Miami River, about one mile above the prairie, where lots are now ready for sale. “The town is beautifully situated, on ground high and dry, which has heretofore proved healthy. There is adjoining the town a grist mill, a saw mill, and fulling mill, all going. Water of good quality may be had by digging 15 to 20 feet. From its central situation and many other advantages which it enjoys, expectations are entertained that it will soon become the seat of justice of a county as soon as a division 20
The Middletonian
takes place and for this it is calculated — ground for a court house, jail, grave yard, church, et., having been laid off in good situations. The terms of sale may be known, and a plan for the town seen by applying to the subscriber on the premises. Stephen Vail.” Although he had only been in the section for about two years, Vail clearly had a great vision for the area. In October 1787, John Cleves Symmes applied to purchase over a million acres of land between the Great Miami
and Little Miami Rivers, which had been opened for settlement under the Land Act of 1785. The first families to come to this section of the valley were, like Symmes, from New Jersey, including Daniel Doty and Stephen Vail, who had purchased portions of this land, and began arriving as early as 1796. Stephen Vail was born October 19, 1739, and fathered 10 children in three marriages. He was a Quaker, and known as a man “quiet and temperate in his manners.” The 1905 Centennial
