OHIO
OHIO was named
by the late William Thatcher Baker, father of Dr. Charles C.
Baker, Sr., for his native state, Ohio. William Thatcher Baker
was born 10 October, 1830, in Licking County, OH. On 10 August,
1877, William T. Baker purchased 320 acres of land nine miles south
of Hamilton from A. E. Fort for $640. His two oldest sons, Jim
and Francis, were sent to oversee the building of a new house to
which the family moved. Mr. Baker also built a store.
When William
Thatcher Baker was
appointed postmaster on 4 May, 1882, and he named the post office Ohio.
His salary as postmaster was $4.00 per year. Mail delivery was once a week
to Mr. Baker’s store. Mail service improved to twice a week in
1883. William T. Baker died on 12 August, 1884, and Ramer Gooch
purchased Baker’s store and moved the store and the Post Office
of Ohio from the Plum Creek
location three miles south to
the village which had sprung up around James A. Carter’s mill on
the Cowhouse and thence, the village at
Carter’s Mill became
known as Ohio. The Ohio Post Office closed 30 October, 1920,
when mail service was moved to Evant.
The second location of Ohio
was 11 ½ miles southeast of Hamilton.
In 1874 the brothers, Archie and
James C. K.
Hogg, arrived in Hamilton
County, TX, from Scotland and
bought 4,000 acres of land on the Cowhouse.
The picture of the Hogg
Ranch House is from the July 22, 2004 issue of The Hamilton Herald-News.
This picture was sent to The Hamilton Herald-News by Elizabeth
Grahame, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Ms. Grahame is the granddaughter of
James C. K. Hogg.
Before 1900 the Hogg
Ranch was divided into smaller tracts and the brothers returned to Scotland.
Other early Ohio settlers were the families of Clint Owens, Wm.
B. Ballard, James N. Billingsley, J. J. Ray, Sterling Gooch, Sam Stiles,
M. N. Elam, Sr. and the Handys, Rhoads, Parrishs, Boyds, Hedgepeths,
Blairs Hamptons and Pattersons. Sam Stiles purchased a 1500 acre ranch
near Ohio in 1875. In 1879 Stiles built a nice home with
lumber being hauled from Waco. The Stiles home then became
the social center of the community.
From about 1886 to 1920 Ohio had
a cotton gin, a flour and corn mill, a post office, drugstore, blacksmith
shop, a woodsman lodge, and a few retail businesses. Electricity came to
the Ohio community in the 1940's. The general store at Ohio
closed in 1943. Live Oak School located about half way between
Ohio
on Plum Creek and Carter’s Mill on the
Cowhouse
opened in the 1880's. Live Oak School was located on the property now
occupied by Live Oak Cemetery. In 1871 Henry Jones Carter sold his property
at Ohio to J. M. Owens and moved to Blue Ridge.
No traces of the village of Ohio
remain. FM 1241 runs through the Ohio Community which was located
east of the Live Oak Cemetery on
County Road 424 and west of the Liberty
Community at County Road 420.
"OHIO,
TX." The Handbook of Texas Online
PARSLEY CROSSING