John Paul
The career of John Paul is closely connected with the early history of Greene county. Paul was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1758, a son of Michael and Ann (Parker) Paul. The family removed to Virginia when John was only a boy and later established themselves in Kentucky. In 1778, John Paul was with Gen. George Rogers Clark in the latter's expedition against the British posts in Illinois and Indiana. In 1794 Paul married Sarah Thomberry Grover, a sister of Josiah Grover, at Danville, Kentucky, and sometime in the winter of 1799 or the spring of 1800, he brought his family to this region and located on United States land on the present site of Trebeins Station, three miles northwest of the Little Miami river. On this river he established the first water-power grist mill and saw-mill in the neighborhood. When the first constitutional convention of the state was called in 1802, John Paul was chosen as one of the delegates for what then was Hamilton county. When the state government was established he was elected a member of the Senate in the first General Assembly of the state which met at Chillicothe on March 1, 1803. After Greene county was erected John Paul was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas. He served in this capacity, as well as auditor and recorder, until he left the county in 1809. When the question of the establishment of the county seat of Greene county was uppermost Paul was aware that the commissioners were about to decide upon a site at the forks of Shawnee run and he journeyed to Cincinnati and bought two thousand acres of land covering that point, thus becoming proprietor of the new townsite of Xenia. He left Greene county in 1809, going to Indiana Territory and settling with his family on what became the site of Madison, thus becoming an important factor in the establishment of that city. He was the father-in-law of Gov. William Hendricks of Indiana. His death occurred at Madison on June 6, 1830.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918