The Doty Settlement / The Pioneer Farmstead

Side A: As Oxford Township was developing in the mid-1800s, a cluster of farmsteads near its northern border developed and was designated the “Doty Settlement.” As was the custom, the community took its name from a prominent family in the area. In or near the settlement were a church and cemetery, a school, a blacksmith shop, a sawmill, a distillery, a furniture shop, and a fulling mill for cleansing, shrinking, and thickening cloth. With the frontier spirit of self-reliance, it was seldom necessary to travel several miles into Oxford village for additional goods or services. Working together, the community farmed local fields and bartered for other items. Men, women, and children worked long, hard hours in the fields harvesting corn and wheat. It is evident that these families, living in an agricultural society, possessed many useful skills for surviving in the Ohio country. Side B: Joseph Morris established the Pioneer Farmstead in the mid-1830s. Tradition says that he lived in the “cave” or root cellar while he fashioned his two-story home of locally made brick. Early construction also included a well, a privy, a smokehouse, and a woodshed. Morris made his fortune by taking whiskey to Cincinnati and returning with groceries for the Oxford area. During a recession, the Panic of 1837, Morris fell onto hard times and had to sell everything. In 1844, the farm was purchased at a collector’s sale by his brother-in-law, Samuel Doty, who was a descendant of Edward Doty, a passenger on the Mayflower that sailed from England to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. After the death of Samuel in 1859, his brother Jesse became owner of the farm. In the 1950s, the Pioneer Farmstead was added to the Hueston Woods State Park.