History of Fayette County
From R. S. Dills' History of Fayette County
PIGEON ROOSTS
Beginning at the mouth of Sugar Creek, and extending down both banks of Paint Creek, about one and one-half miles, was a dense grove of cedar trees, known throughout the country as the "Cedar Hole."
At these roosts the pigeons congregated to breed, and in some cases one tree would contain a hundred nests. The noise at night caused by the continual fluttering of birds and the cracking of over- loaded branches could be heard for quite a distance, and each morning, it is said, the ground was strewn with dead and wounded birds, so that the pioneers in the vicinity were bountifully supplied with pigeons without gun or club.
Samuel, John and Frank Waddle, Henry Snyder, William Blair and sons, Frank McLaughlin, Jack Daugherty, and indeed all the neighborhood for miles around, visited this spot at night, arriving about sunset as the pigeons began to come in. It is said that the noise created by their arrival was almost equal to the roar of a cataract, continuing for two or three hours, until they became so far settled down as the breaking limbs would permit, when they knocked them off the trees, wrung off their heads and turned them over to the housewife, who soon converted them into delicious pot-pie, roast, etc.
Dill's History of Fayette County
- Introduction
- Original Possessors
- Political and Military History
- Virginia
- Virginia Military Survey
- Early Settlement of the Ohio Valley
- Early Surveying
- Early Surveyors
- First Survey in Fayette County
- Numbering of Surveys
- First Settlement Upon the Virginia Reservation
- Capture of Andrew Ellison
- Life In The Woods
- Indian Wars
- Organization and Boundary
- The Pioneer
- Old Settlers
- Prominent Physicians
- Original Townships
- Current Townships
- Mills and Milling
- Taverns
- Race of John Edgington
- War of 1812
- Batteal Harrison At Fort Meigs
- Josiah Hunt
- Effects of the War of 1812
- The Old Muster
- Sharp-Shins or Cut Money
- Pioneer Girls
- Corn Huskings
- Game And Hunters
- The Old School House
- Early Mails
- Pigeon Roosts
- The Judiciary
- Jails
- County Infirmary
- Counterfeiting
- The Funk Fight
- The First Man Sent To The Penitentiary
- Execution of William G. W. Smith
- Sanitary
- Drainage
- Stock Sales
- The First Railroad
- Fayette County In The Rebellion
- Fifty-Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry
- Ninetieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry
- One Hundred and Fourteenth O.V.I.
- Twentieth Regiment O.V.I.
- Twenty-Second Ohio Volunteer Infantry