The DeWitt Family / The DeWitt Log Homestead

Side A: Zachariah Price DeWitt was born of a Dutch family in New Jersey in 1768. With brothers Jacob and Peter, he migrated to Kentucky where, in 1790, he married Elizabeth Teets, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1774. By 1805 all three brothers had settled in Ohio near Four Mile (Talawanda) Creek. Here Zachariah and Elizabeth raised corn, hogs, and eventually, nine children. Zachariah became a prominent community leader, operating a sawmill, building houses in Oxford, serving as Masonic Lodge secretary, and commanding a rifle company during the War of 1812. Tradition has it that Elizabeth wore a black sunbonnet to cover a scar from having been scalped as a child in Kentucky. Elizabeth died in 1843, followed by Zachariah in 1851. Both are buried in Darrtown Cemetery. Side B: Completed in 1805 by Zachariah DeWitt, this two-story log homestead is the oldest building in Oxford Township and one of the oldest remaining log structures in Ohio. On Miami University land and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, it has been under the care of the Oxford Museum Association since 1973. Constructed of hewn logs, the four-room house (with attic) has floors of ash and ceilings of tulip poplar and walnut. Its rafters are pegged, not nailed. A smokehouse still remains nearby. Visited in late March 1810 by Miami trustees looking for a site to build the university, it is believed that Zachariah DeWitt suggested the crest of the hill just west of his home. And that is where the university was built.