The Spokesrider

John W. Ogden, the writer of the 1881 history of Champaign County, was interested in some of the same details as I am — such as exactly where on the landscape did the events of long ago take place? In the following section he describes the use that was made of Urbana’s “Lot No. 104″ [...]

I now see that back on September 2, in an article titled “Hull’s Trace in the Mad River Valley,” I gave out some bogus information about the route that General William Hull’s army took in 1812 as it marched from Urbana, OH to Detroit. That day I rode to the east where I should have [...]

It didn’t take long to figure out how to convert those files from my Sony GPS-CS1 to KML files that can be used in Google Earth. Step 1. We had Christmas dinner. (I hope your Christmas was good, too.) Step 2. I went to GPS Visualiser and used their converter, selecting Google Maps for the [...]

This is a screen shot from the output of my Sony GPS, a GPS-CS1. It’s from the September 26 ride from Fort Loramie (in the upper left) to Urbana, OH (lower right). I usually attach the device to the outside of the single pannier I carry with me, or else put it inside on days [...]

I’m still not finished telling about the September 26 ride from Fort Loramie to Urbana, Ohio. By the time I reached King’s Creek, shown in this photo, I had already decided to end the day’s ride at Urbana. This was the second-to-last remaining destination of my revised route plan. There had been a mill here [...]

(Sept. 26, cont) I was riding south on the Upper Valley Pike road, but when I saw the little settlement of Lippincott off to the side, I decided this would be the place to turn east again. That meant climbing up out of the valley and going into the wind. But I was curious as [...]

(26 Sept., cont.) Here is another view of the upper Mad River valley. The bridge over the river is at the little hump on the road just ahead. As best I can tell from the way it is written, it was one of the neighbors living near this place who claimed that James McPherson, the [...]