Look at the Past: Daniel Kilgore

Daniel Kilgore, merchant, son of William and Nancy Kelly Kilgore, was born May 24, 1794, at King’s Creek, Hancock County, VA (now WV). In 1812 at the age of 18, Kilgore moved to Steubenville and learned to make nails by the old manual process. The following year he moved to Cadiz and opened a store specializing in handmade nails and other ironware. In the spring of 1816, he married Mary Pritchard, daughter of John and Sarah Brownfield Pritchard. He and his father-in-law opened a general store in Pritchard’s house. Later, Daniel opened another general store under the name of D. Kilgore & Co in his home on East Market Street. Daniel went on to become the town’s most successful merchant. In addition to merchandising, Kilgore was active in the anti-slavery movement, the Associate Presbyterian Church, and the promotion of education. He served as secretary of the Cadiz Academy, later organized the Cadiz High School, and raised funds to build the first high school building on a corner of the courthouse lot in 1840. In 1828 he was elected to the Ohio Senate and was reelected three times. He later served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1834-1838 and was also a commissioner of the Ohio Canal Fund from 1834-1840. Kilgore vigorously promoted canals in Ohio. He and a few other Cadiz businessmen laid out the Village of Eastport in Tuscarawas County, from which wheat could be easily shipped to the Ohio Canal from Harrison County. Today, the early canal port is remembered in Scio’s Eastport Street, which once led westward to Eastport. In 1846 Kilgore succeeded in establishing the county’s first permanent bank, the Harrison Branch of the State Bank of Ohio, a forerunner of the National City Bank of Cadiz (today PNC). Daniel became interested in the new technology of railroading and led the movement to build the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad from Pittsburgh to Columbus via Harrison County. He was elected President of the railroad and moved from Cadiz to Steubenville to superintend its construction and worked tirelessly to raise funds for the new enterprise. While on a fundraising trip to New York City on behalf of the railroad, Kilgore fell ill and died in his hotel room on December 12, 1851. He was buried in the Union Cemetery at Steubenville. Kilgore’s dream of a railroad through Harrison County was realized by others and is still in operation today. Kilgore was married twice, first to Mary Pritchard of Cadiz, who died in 1825, and then to Ellen Downey of Steubenville. He was the father of 13 children, four by his first wife and nine by his second. Today we should remember him as a man who brought Harrison County its first prosperity by way of well-funded state canals, its first permanent bank, and its first railroad. When Mr. Able plotted the hamlet of Kilgore in Carroll County in 1833, he named it after Daniel Kilgore. Daniel Kilgore was remembered as a man of impressive character, resourceful, unlimited energy, a kind, wholesome personality, with a high standard of honesty. Information from an article by Charles B. Wallace on May 12, 2003, in the Harrison News-Herald. Picture from Harrison County Historical Society.