Cummins Family

The ancestor of the Henry County branch of the Cummins family was David Cummins. Cummins came from Virginia in 1818 to Crawford County, Ohio.

David Cummins purchased eighty acres of land in Auburn Township and built a saw mill on Honey Creek. The mill was a small frame structure and was run by water power from a dam that he built. This was about the year 1827. But there was little demand for lumber in that time for the settlers were content with their log cabins.

Prior to the erection of the Cummins mill, frame houses erected were built of lumber obtained a dozen miles away on the Mohican or the Huron Rivers.

The saw mill of Cummins was abandoned in 1855 after passing through several hands.

The Cummins farm also had a deer lick on it. John Pettigon, a soldier in the War of 1812, had a small cabin on the farm about 1814. He built a cabin in 1814 on the farm he had purchased in southern Auburn Township and moved his family into it. He was the first land owner in the county, but devoted his time to hunting and trapping. The support of his family was his rifle, and the sale of furs procured what necessaries of life the forest could not furnish. He used the cabin in Vernon Township, later the Cummins farm, because it was convenient to procure deer that came to the salt deerlick. He found it easy to hide himself and kill the deer as they came to drink.

In 1818 the new settlers of Crawford County included the Cummins family. In 1833, Seneca County Original Land Entries include the names of Matthias Cummins and John Cummins.