James Cunningham
The first immigrant to the territory now covered by Sycamore township was James Cunningham. He was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and emigrated to Kentucky while still a comparative youth, about 1785, there engaging, with four others, in building cabins for settlers, about four miles back of the present site of Covington. They were presently assailed by the Indians and one killed, when Cunningham and the remaining three decided to abandon their business in that quarter and settle upon the Beargrass creek, near where Louisville was afterwards founded. He was there married to Miss Janette Park, of another Pennsylvania family, in 1787, and in the second year thereafter, the first year of Cincinnati or Losantiville, and on the twenty-sixth of May, 1789, he entered a land-warrant which entitled him to locate on a half-section of land, which he chose on the west half of section twenty-eight in what is now this township, in the valley of the East fork. He soon began improvements upon his place, assisted by Arthur, Andrew, and Culbertson, his brothers-in-law and three of the first settlers of Reading village. They were the first to make a clearing in Sycamore township. It is supposed, as there was then comparative peace between the white settlers and the Indians, that Cunningham moved his family to the place and resided there until the Indian troubles of the next winter, when he removed to Cincinnati, where he is known to have bought a lot and built a cabin near the corner of Walnut and Second streets. He afterwards entered the Government service for a year or so as a teamster, and in the fall of 1793 removed finally to his farm, where the rest of his life was passed. He built and ran the first saw-and grist-mills in this part of the county, and about 1808 had a distillery in connection with the grist-mill. Among his surviving descendants are: a son, Francis Cunningham, lately living north of Sharon, on the old place, near the county line; two grandsons, Elmore W. Cunningham, of Cincinnati, and James F. Cunningham, of Glendale; and a granddaughter, the wife of Mr. Andrew Erkenbrecker, of Cincinnati.
From History of Hamilton county, Ohio, Henry & Kate Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881