(September 26, continued) Finally I had the wind at my back as I rode from the Vance Fort location back to Logansville and then to DeGraff. Just before I got to DeGraff I stopped at this windmill. There weren’t any No Trespassing signs, so I invited myself to go take a closer look.
My GPS says it was at a location identified on the 1875 atlas of Logan County as belonging to a John Murphy. (The base map above is courtesy of Historic Map Works. If you click on it, you’ll go to the page containing the map for the entire township.) He was the son of a James Murphy who happened to be one of the early settlers — one of those who came prior to the War of 1812. He may not have lived here at the time of the war, though. Here is what the 1880 county history (page 360) says about him in its chapter about Miami Township (i.e. the township just to the south, which is the township in which DeGraff is located):
In this year [1810] James Murphy came and settled on land just over the line, in Pleasant Township, He brought no family, but put up a cabin and made a deadening. This was a lonesome life, and he soon left, to return a few years later, however, with a family.
If this is the exact spot where he had his first cabin (and it’s the most likely guess available) it’s now a lonesome place again.
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