Faith Works 12-1-23

Faith Works 12-1-23
Jeff Gill

How Our Christmas Has a History
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What I want to do this December is go back to a few particular years, and look at our local roots, which have a wide reach, for how Christmas came to be in Licking County: what we can easily think of as "how it's always been." 1800, 1844, 1865, and 1944. There are other points of interest along the way, but I'd like to visit, each in turn, a Christmas memory out of each of those four years.

1800 marks what is effectively the first Christmas observed as such in our area. We have some historical records of people passing through in other months during earlier years, 1751 and 1773 in particular, but not during December.

What we call pioneers were the first European American visitors to leave records; there were Native Americans here for thousands of years, and as I wrote previously, there were African Americans here through the winter of 1773, with a community presided over by a Shawnee woman who was chief of a mixed Delaware and Shawnee settlement, but we know nothing more about their story, or if they marked Dec. 25th in any way.

The first pioneer settlers out of Pennsylvania and Maryland that we have confirmation for arrived in the spring of 1800, most of them men without family at first, but not all. The initial work to clear land, plant crops, then build cabins came first, and for most the word would be sent back through the nearest post office at Zanesville to come on west.

Isaac Stadden and his brother, Col. John Stadden were among that earliest group of arrivals; Isaac is buried just east of the giant basket, in the Bowling Green Cemetery which holds so many of our early settlers. They worked to prepare a place, planting often in openings left by earlier Native American clearing and burning efforts for their crops, speeding the pioneer process.

Benjamin Green and his son-in-law Richard Pitzer had tried out some land for a year near Marietta, then came up the spring of 1800 to land about where O'Bannon Ave. is today, but Benjamin and Catherine had eleven children, some full-grown, so their whole family were involved from the start (they would have three more, after relocating to the Hog Run/White Chapel area south of Newark a few years hence).

Isaac Stadden left his brother in charge once the crops were in and the cabin built, and went back in person to escort his wife, also a Catherine, and their two children to what would become in 1808 Licking County.

By the time they arrived, fall was in the air, and so was something else. John was a widower, and Benjamin Green had a daughter Elizabeth, better known as Betsey. She and John were about the same age, and had determined to share their challenges together in marriage, had set a date of Dec. 10, 1800 to be married. By all accounts everyone was happy for them, including brother Isaac. As he had business with the territorial magistrate, Judge Henry Smith back in Zanesville, he offered to call on his services to marry the happy couple.

But the judge explained to Isaac that the law required notice be posted at three prominent places for a minimum of fifteen days before a marriage could be solemnized. As a good brother, Isaac took it upon himself to ride about, post the notices, and then on Christmas Day escorted to the bride and groom their officiant.

Our earliest history of Christmas is practical, functional, but not without a small note of romance. That's very much what Christmas was in the earliest days of settlement in Newark and Licking County.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows he could have picked other years, but believes you'll learn from the ones on offer. Tell him about your customs of Christmas at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.