14  HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

sequently, the lands west of the river were disposed of as opportunity
offered, one eighty-acre tract having heen traded to a peddler for several
wooden-wheeled clocks of the Seth Thomas make, who neglected to have
his deed recorded, and later the land was sold for taxes, Cooprider de-
clining to repossess himself of the property, for the reason that he had
his pay for it.
    William Maxwell and James H. Downey had previously settled on
the Sand Hill, in 1823, and very soon after the Coopriders came the little
colony was joined by Thomas G. Gillaspie and Zachariah Denny. James
Briley built his cabin near the river, a little east of the Edmond Phegley
residence. Here Dr. Absalom Briley was born, February 21, 1823, the
first white child born within that part of the county lying west of the
river and south of the Old Hill. Elijah Rawley pitched his tent on the
hill-side near the confluence of Splunge creek with the river, where, in
the summer of 1823, he built the first mill ever put up on Eel river, which,
for a number of years, cracked the corn for the pioneer settlers through-
out a circuit of many miles. Elijah Mayfield settled on the bluff near
the Woodrow, or Sanders, cemetery, a mile east of Coffee, where, in 1822,
was buried one of his children, the first person interred within the borders
of the county west of Eel river. This locality was settled, also, before the
organization of the county, by William Stewart, Levi Reed, William
Shepperd and others.
    In 1822, William Christie settled on what is known as the Gilbert
place, just south of the Lower Bloomington road, the first settlement
made within the present limits of Perry township. His son, James B.
Christie, born here in 1824, was the first white child born within that
part of the territory of the county lying west of Birch creek,, between
the Upper Bloomington road and the Old Hill. At the time of his birth,
his mother was the only white woman within a circuit of several miles,
one or more squaws officiating as midwives. Before the close of the year
1824, Mr. Christie was joined by his brother, David Christie, and a little
later on, by Ebenezer Gilbert and others. Settlements were made at as
early a date as the organization of the county, on the river between
Bellaire and Anguilla, and at points two or three miles south. In 1824,
or earlier, Daniel Harris and his son Thomas, who then lived near
Spencer, on coming up Eel river to the Rhodes Bluff, found Michael
Luther on the present Hudson place. About this time, William Luther
settled on the Wilkinson place and Joseph Luther on the Isaac Stwalley
place. Peter Luther and son, William Luther, came in 1827 or 1828,
driving hogs with them all the way from Crawford county, on the Ohio
river. Ephraim Walker and William Cole were among the earliest
settlers in this part of the county. In 1827, this locality was settled also,
by Jacob Hudson and William Kendall.
    Between Middlebury and New Brunswick, settlements were planted
as early as 1827 by William Edmonson and James Buckallew, and a
year later by Joseph Alexander and others, who came from Tennessee.
Among the first to locate in the central part of the county, following
Levi Walker, who has been elsewhere named, were Eli Melton and
George Moss. Melton began the improvement of the C. W. Moss place,
(now the Jeffers place) adjoining the town of Center Point, in 1830.
George Moss first stopped on the John J. Peyton place, now the Fogle
farm, but in 1830 bought out Melton’s improvement, giving him in ex-
change a two-year-old colt. George Moss sowed and produced the first