COME WALK ME A WAY DOWN THE LANE OF YESTERDAY The Founder One of the early settlers of Jackson Township was Joshua Howell, the founder of Christiansburg, who came from around Christiansburg, Virginia in 1808, with his wife Mary and eight children; Joshua, John, Thomas, James, Daniel, Jermiah, Abigail, and Nancy. He located on Section 31, part of now within the corporat limits of Christiansburg. He and his sons built a crude log cabin, near a large spring of water. A tract of land was cleared large enough for to furnish food for the family. The Howells set out an orchard started from seeds which bore fruit. The elder Joshua Howell and his children, except Joshua Jr. ,Daniel, and Jeremiah moved on westward into Indiana where the old pioneer spent his last days. The Howells had a large sugar camp which they made large quantities of sugar every year to sell to the early settlers. Daniel Howell (one of the sons of the elder Howell), was married in Virginia before coming to Ohio in 1808. He returned to Virginia and brought his wife and family to Ohio where he entered 80 acres of land west of town by the West Fork Honey Creek, where he built a log cabin, In 1818 he built what in those days was a fine brick house. The bricks for the house were made out of the creek pasture. The brick House still stands and is a landmark of the pioneer days. After Joshua howell Jr. had lived here for 9 years , he convinced the idea for a town and began to plan one. In the drawling his diagram of the town, consisting of 42 lots, the town was started at his sugar camp, extended south 4 blocks south, east and west3 blocks. He felled the trees, dug the stumps, laid out streets and named them north to south Westville, Piqua, Urbana, Troy and Pike. From east to west Monroe, Miami (now called Main) and Dayton Streets. His hopes grew slow because in 3 years there were 6 little log huts. For nearly 12 years the size of the town grew slowly. In 1829 there came a young man to the village to start a store. Because of his business ability the little hamlet seemed to take on renewed life. The man was William McCrea, only 14 years of age when he came to Champaign County with his parents from Scotland. The lad grew to manhood on his fathers farm, attended subscription school north of town, and later became the first merchant in the village. He erected a small building on the north east corner of Main and Second Street. It was the first frame structure in the village. His stock composed of groceries, dried meats, fruits, nails, glassware, hardware, medicine, millinery, and pewter ware. After McCrea opened his store the population of the hamlet almost doubled, thus inviting other business enterprises. Among the first was a tavern which was built just across the street from the McCrea's Store and was operated by Abiel Smith, who was from Maine. Other industries that were started during the early 1830's was a tannery, which was run by William Kelley from 1832 to 1850. It was located close to the open ditch which runs to the West Fork Honey Creek near the northeast corner of First and Main. John Rogers operated a wagon shop on the northwest corner of Main and Pike. Charles Rogers also had a wagon shop. In 1818 Jesse Julian had a small Blacksmithing shop near the village. In 1835 to 1840 a tavern owned by David Kyle made his business an attractive spot. Noah French, who came from Pennsylvannia was a cabinet maker and made coffins that were needed within a radius of 50 miles of Christiansburg. In 1842 the village of Christiansburg changed its name to Addison and in 1915 the name of the town changed back to Christiansburg. The old Pioneer buildings Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiansburg%2C_Ohio