Customer Reviews

New Englanders on the Ohio Frontier: Migration and Settlement of Worthington, Ohio

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NEW ENGLANDERS ON THE OHIO FRONTIER is a witty and scholarly chronicle about migration to Ohio in 1802 for 41 families (settlers, not speculators) from Connecticut and Massachusetts. The McCormicks have used an unusually rich store of primary data to document the transformation of life in Ohio. Into the wilderness these settlers came with an elegant town plat which included a village green, Episcopal church, a school, and a subscription library, and within 10 years attained material culture which matched or surpassed that left in the Northeast. This case study ends in 1836 just after Worthington's incorporation. The McCormicks are scholars who write beautifully and this very accessible, colorful history ends too soon. The reader is primed for a sequel.

"New Englanders on the Ohio Frontier" is more than a history of the founding and settlement of Worthington, Ohio, and subsequently, its impact on the development of Columbus, Ohio. It is the fascinating study of how migration into the Ohio frontier was not accomplished by adventurous individuals in buckskin, but by a well-organized and well-led company of settlers from Connecticut and Massachusetts with a definite purpose in mind. It demonstrates how their New England culture was transplanted into the Ohio wilderness and how it continues to influence the modern city. Virginia E. and Robert W. McCormick have written a scholarly but very readable text on local history. I highly recommend it on many levels. Paul Watkins, Worthington, Ohio

If you want to learn about pioneers, read this book. It is exceptionally well researched and written. The detail is amazing, even with information gleaned from wills. How interesting. I've read many books about people like those featured in this book, but this is one of the best in terms of really giving full, complete figures to these people so you feel as if you really do know and understand them. The book also gives you a sense of how brave these people were to leave perfectly good and safe homes in the east to build entirely new lives in a total wilderness.