The Wilmington News Journal, in an article dated Oct. 1, 2026, looked back at a newspaper series published in 1867. According to the report, the Clinton Republican that year ran six pieces on Clinton County residents who had lived past 80, and the News Journal offered details on where some of them originated and what is known of their families.
Among those described: Thomas N. Adams of Reesville, born in Sussex County, Delaware, in September 1772, who served as a War of 1812 soldier from Ross County; Adam Beaver, who lived near Snow Hill, was born Oct. 15, 1778 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and arrived in Clinton County in 1818; Margaret Coulter of Wilson Township, widow of John Coulter, born Sept. 22, 1784 in County Monagen, Northern Ireland, who reached America at age six; David Harlan, near the Springfield Meeting House in Adams Township, born Feb. 13, 1782 in Randolph County, North Carolina and an 1810 Ohio arrival, reckoned at 86 in the original account; and Christopher Hiatt, near Martinsville, born Feb. 5, 1783 in Guilford County, North Carolina, who married Jemima in 1802 and came to Ohio in 1816.
Others in the summary include Hannah Hoskins of Green Township, born March 16, 1785 in Guilford County, North Carolina, married in 1805 and in Ohio by 1812; William Hoblitt, near Port William, born March 19, 1783 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, father of 12 and repeatedly elected a Liberty Township justice of the peace; Martha Horseman, near Dover Meeting House, born April 16, 1782 in Summerset County, New Jersey, whose account credits her with heavy farm and household labor; Eli Maden, born May 13, 1779 in Chester County, Pennsylvania; Bell Lawrence, born in Guilford County, North Carolina, whose birth year the account says is unrecorded because of slavery, with manumission papers filed in Wilmington in 1835 and an estimated age near 90; and Melissa Merchant of Martinsville, born in Bedford County, Virginia, believed to be at least 85.