Milford is a city in Clermont and Hamilton counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. Settled in 1796, Milford is the westernmost city in Appalachian Ohio, and located along the Little Miami River and its East Fork in the southwestern part of the state, it is a part of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The population was 6,582 at the 2020 census.
At a Glance
- Counties: Clermont County and Hamilton County
- State: Ohio
History of Milford
The area covering the City of Milford, O’Bannon (Miami) Township, and part of the City of Loveland is from a single 1788 survey by John Nancarrow, a Revolutionary War veteran from Virginia. As one of Clermont County’s major historians noted, "No wonder, then, that it struck with rapture the quaint and eccentric John Nancarrow, who had it surveyed for him on May 28, 1788 as Dutch burgomaster intended to found a city that should become the future metropolis of the West." O’Bannon Township was named after O’Bannon Creek, which itself was named for Clermont’s first surveyor who was not connected to, responsible for, or interested at all in Nancarrow’s survey area.
The settlement of Milford, which was the first settlement within the 1788 Nancarrow survey’s area, commenced in 1796 near where two riverways, the Little Miami River and its East Fork, come together; making Milford tied with Williamsburg as the oldest settlement in Clermont County. The first settler to arrive in the area was the Reverend Francis McCormick, a Revolutionary War soldier with a thousand acre land grant, in 1796. McCormick built his log cabin on the hill at the present 1000 Forest Avenue and he founded the first Methodist Class in the Northwest Territory in 1797. Nancarrow, the first surveyor, sold his share of 230 acres (0.93 km) of land to Philip Gatch on December 20, 1802, for a total of $920.00. Four years later, Gatch decided to sell 125 acres (0.51 km) to Ambrose Ranson who, soon after, sold 64 acres (260,000 m) to John Hageman. Hageman became the first long term settler (as Gatch relocated slightly outside town limits), naming the valley Hageman’s Mills. Hageman laid out a village of 46 lots; the choicest lot was #1 where the Millcroft Inn was located at Mill and Water Streets, with a price of $35.00 with most of the other lots selling for $25.00.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Milford, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.