Balser Hess Family Graves
Sunday, December 27th, 2020
Mary Rodgers, President of the Clintonville Historical Society, did some wonderful research on the Balser Hess family graves at Union Cemetery, in response to a reader’s inquiry about this post. Apparently the reader believed that Balser Hess’s wife is not buried in this location despite the tombstone.
From Mary Rodgers:
There are lots of burials on the Hess property prior to the establishment of the Union Cemetery Association in 1847. The Association purchased the Hess burial ground in 1862. The only known records of the early burials are the tombstones. Unfortunately, there are lots of illegible and missing stones.
Union Cemetery and the Historical Society believe Balser to be the earliest burial. The family arrived in Ohio around 1799. They had a child (John) born in Hopetown in 1799. He lived to adulthood. Attached is a family history that was done many years ago by Frank Hess. It states that Balser was the first burial on the family farm. I confirmed that John was the last of George’s children; she didn’t find any grandchildren prior to his death in 1806.
Balser’s wife (Mary Eva) is represented on the tombstone. We have no reason to believe that she is not buried at Union. The property was still in the family’s control at the time of her death. The tombstone that is in the cemetery is not the original. It was lost to the test of time and replaced by the family.
John was the last child to be born to Balser and Mary Eve. No mention of “lost infants” for that couple.
The only child of Balser who married prior to his death was his daughter Mary Ann. She married Henry Cryder before the Hesses moved to Franklinton. She and Henry ultimately moved to Delaware, OH (then to Illinois) but I don’t see anything that would suggest they had a child that would have been buried on the family homestead in Franklin Co. prior to her father’s death. At that time, they lived in New Hope, OH.
[Images courtesy of Mary Rodgers]
Balser Hess, a cordwainer, tanner and Revolutionary War veteran, was one of the first pioneers to arrive in Clinton Township. Hess came to Ohio with his family and bought 320 acres of land along the west bank of the Olentangy River. His first house, a log structure, was a common stopping place with travelers. Balser died in 1806 and was the first to be buried on the grounds that became Union Cemetery. (Photo courtesy of Terry Miller.)
David Beers was another early pioneer with an exciting life story of having been captured and released by the Native Americans. Beers came to Ohio in 1802. Descendents of David Beers still live in the area to the present day. (Photo courtesy of Terry Miller)
Beers had a log house near the intersection of Dodridge and North High Street. The cabin still exists but has been moved to Norwich Avenue. This photo appeared in the December 29, 1904 Dispatch, on the house’s centennial. The people included friends, relatives, and associates of the cabin’s next owner, Conn Baker, and they were reminiscing with him about early Columbus and marking the 100th anniversary of the cabin after the its move and reassembly to E. Norwich. 
The Beers family operated a mill which existed until the early twentieth century. For many years the father of the well-known poet John James Piatt operated it. The future poet spent his boyhood days playing about the mill, and some say that the impressions made by its surroundings found expression in his work. The mill was considered to be one of the most picturesque spots in Ohio. Built around 1810, the mill burned in 1902. 
The reason for this gathering is unknown, but it includes several Beers descendants (and likely many who are not related) and was taken about 1905, probably at Olentangy Park. (Photos courtesy of Marty Cottrill)
People like to say that the story of Clintonville starts with the story of Thomas Bull Jr., who came to this area in 1812 with his family from Vermont, by way of Worthington. Bull purchased about 680 acres in Clinton Township, and bequeathed land to his children when he died in 1823. Bull and his family were Methodists and abolitionists. The family graves were moved in March 1910 to Union Cemetery, section “new”, lot 176, across from the flagpole. (Despite the section name, this is in the old area of Union Cemetery on the east side of Olentangy River Road.)
This is the Thomas Bull residence which stood on the east side of High Street between Dunedin and Piedmont. Some of the information about the house is conflicting, but Nancy Pendleton states that Alonson Bull helped to build the house around 1821 and lived there until the mid-1860s. The local Methodist congregation held services in this house until Thomas Bull’s death in 1823. Elias Pegg purchased it, along with its farm, in 1862 and raised his children there. The house was torn down in August 1931. This photo is from the Sunday edition of Cols Dispatch March 5, 1950.
Another one of the first families of Clintonville was the Cooke family. According to the family’s history, Roswell Cooke (1764-1827) came to Ohio with his wife and five children in 1800 from Connecticut. His two eldest sons, Rodney and Chauncey, took up land 6 miles north of the state house, their farms adjoining (in the vicinity of Cooke Road and North High Street). They cleared the land and both erected “houses out of round, unhewn logs, with puncheon floors and primitive fire places, with mud-and-stick chimneys.” The brothers lived the rest of their lives on these farms. Family history states that in 1827 they constructed one of the first grist and saw mills on the Olentangy River, which later became known as the Whipp and then as the Weisheimer Mill. They also operated a distillery. (Photo courtesy of Terry Miller.)
