DeWitt Log Homestead
Oxford, Butler County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
The DeWitt Family 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. The DeWitt Log Homestead 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.
Erected by Ohio Bicentennial Commission, The Longaberger Company, The Oxford Museum Association, and The Ohio Historical Society
The Story
Zachariah Price DeWitt, a New Jersey-born son of a Dutch family, migrated through Kentucky before settling with his wife Elizabeth near Four Mile Creek in the early 1800s, raising nine children and building the hewn-log homestead he completed in 1805. A sawmill operator, house builder, and War of 1812 rifle-company commander, DeWitt reportedly steered Miami University's founders to the nearby hilltop where the campus rose. His pegged-rafter house survives as the oldest building in Oxford Township and one of the oldest log structures in Ohio.
Why it matters
The homestead embodies the pioneer generation that turned the Ohio frontier into settled communities—and, in this case, helped plant a university on the hill.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Zachariah DeWitt completed his log homestead in 1805, Ohio was brand new — admitted to the Union only two years earlier — and the country around Four Mile Creek was still very much the frontier. This was the early republic, the restless generation after independence, when families from the older states poured across the Appalachians to claim and clear land in the Ohio country. What is now settled farmland and a university town was then forest waiting to be turned into homes and fields.
Life on that frontier was built almost entirely from what the land provided. A family cleared trees, hewed logs, and raised a house by hand; food came from corn in the ground and hogs in the woods. Community was thin but essential — a sawmill, a militia company, a lodge, and a church were the institutions through which a scattered population knit itself together.
The DeWitts were part of that first wave, and their homestead is a survivor from the very foundation of Ohio, standing from the years when the state itself was learning to exist.
People & events
Zachariah Price DeWitt was born in New Jersey in 1768, into a Dutch family, and like so many of his generation he moved west in stages. With his brothers Jacob and Peter he went first to Kentucky, where in 1790 he married Elizabeth Teets, a Pennsylvania-born woman four years his junior. By 1805 all three brothers had settled in Ohio near Four Mile Creek — also known as Talawanda Creek — and there Zachariah and Elizabeth raised corn, hogs, and, in time, nine children.
Zachariah became a pillar of his young community in nearly every way a man could. He ran a sawmill, built houses in Oxford, served as secretary of the Masonic Lodge, and commanded a rifle company during the War of 1812. Elizabeth's story carries its own remarkable thread: tradition holds that she wore a black sunbonnet to cover a scar left from being scalped as a child in Kentucky — a haunting reminder of how violent and uncertain the frontier could be. Both husband and wife lived long lives here, Elizabeth dying in 1843 and Zachariah in 1851, and both rest in Darrtown Cemetery.
The homestead they built has a claim to fame beyond the family. In late March of 1810, trustees searching for a place to establish Miami University visited the DeWitt home, and tradition credits Zachariah with suggesting the crest of the hill just west of his house. That, the marker tells us, is where the university was built.
Its place in the American story
The DeWitt homestead embodies the pioneer generation that transformed the trans-Appalachian frontier into settled American communities. The family's path — New Jersey to Kentucky to Ohio — traces the great westward migration in miniature, the movement of people that filled in the young nation west of the mountains within a single lifetime.
The house itself is a document. Built of hewn logs, with four rooms and an attic, floors of ash, ceilings of tulip poplar and walnut, and rafters pegged rather than nailed, it shows exactly how a substantial frontier home was made when there were no factories to supply the parts. As the oldest building in Oxford Township and one of the oldest log structures in Ohio, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is a rare physical survivor of the state's earliest days.
And there is the university on the hill. Whether or not one man pointed to the ridge, the story captures something true about how American institutions began — not in capital cities but on the frontier, close to the homesteads of the people who were building a new country farm by farm. A pioneer's cabin and a great public university, side by side on the same landscape, tell one continuous story.
If you visit
Look closely at how the house is put together, because the craftsmanship is the whole story. The hewn logs, the pegged rafters, the ash floors underfoot and the tulip-poplar and walnut ceilings overhead — every element was shaped from the surrounding forest by hand. Standing inside a four-room log house with an attic, you get a vivid sense of how a prosperous frontier family actually lived more than two centuries ago.
Don't miss the smokehouse that still stands nearby; small outbuildings like it are exactly what usually vanish, and its survival helps complete the picture of a working homestead. As you walk the grounds, remember that this is the oldest building in the township — you are standing on ground that was cleared when Ohio was barely a state.
Then lift your eyes to the hill just to the west. Knowing that Miami University rose on that crest — and that tradition ties the choice to the man who built this very house — turns a quiet historic home into the opening scene of a much larger story. The homestead sits on university land under the care of a local museum association, making it a natural, reflective stop for anyone exploring the Oxford area's deep roots.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Zachariah Price DeWitt
- · Elizabeth Teets DeWitt
Themes & tags
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