“The party led by George Newcom overland met with few difficulties as far as Fort Hamilton, the road to that place being kept in good condition by the army. From that point on, the road had been only recently surveyed by Mr. Cooper and his corps of helpers, and was in such primitive condition that it was necessary in crossing small streams to fell trees for footbridges. For the larger streams rafts were made to carry the people and the freight, the cattle and horses swimming across. All the property was carried in creels [a kind of wickerwork basket] on packhorses, the children that were too small to walk being also carried in the creels, their heads only showing. Game being plentiful the party suffered no hardship from lack of food, but the nights were cold and the hastily constructed camps afforded but little shelter, the beds being made in the open air by spreading blankets over brush. This party was about two weeks on the road.” Edgar got his lime mortar by burning stones from the river. The size of the cabin was doubled two years later by addition of the section on the left. (The joining point is marked by the vertical logs just to the right of the present doorway.) The new house, completely whitewashed at first, became the hub for much of Dayton’s early activity. It housed the town’s first school. The first church service was held there. It served as courthouse, council chamber, store and, most colorfully, as a crossroads tavern for the wagon men and drovers who were fanning out into the lush Northwest Territory. In addition to service as Dayton’s first tavern and trading post operator, Newcom was Montgomery county’s first sheriff and jailer, was elected to the State Senate in 1815, and succeeded Benjamin Van Cleve (one of the men who came north by flatboat) in the office of clerk of the court. The Colonel also was first president of Dayton’s first bank, and somehow found the time to serve in the War of 1812. He died in 1853 at the age of 82, having lived to see his community’s crowning glory—the stately Grecian courthouse that was dedicated in 1850, and is still standing at Third and Main. [Illustration: Serene view of the Tavern on its Monument Avenue site. Skirmish with Indians took place on the point of land at the left of photograph.] After Ohio achieved statehood in 1803, Montgomery county was formed. (It is named after General Richard Montgomery, who was killed in the Revolutionary War attack on Quebec.) An act of Congress made Dayton the county seat in 1804, and designated George Newcom’s log house a temporary courthouse. The Tavern was quartermaster headquarters for General Hull’s army in the War of 1812 under the command of Colonel Robert Patterson, grandfather of the founder of The National Cash Register Company, John H. Patterson. The first “native Daytonian” was, incidentally, born in Newcom Tavern. She was Jane Newcom, daughter of the owner and his wife, Mary.