Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Massie, Nathaniel

MASSIE, Nathaniel, pioneer, b. in Goochland county, Va., 28 Dec., 1763; d. in Paint Creek Falls, Ohio, 13 Nov., 1813. He entered the Revolutionary army at seventeen years of age, served for a short time and subsequently became a surveyor and locater of lands, gradually acquiring large tracts of uncultivated territory. He surveyed the first settlement within the Virginia military district of Ohio in 1791 between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, and in 1793-'6 was engaged in an extensive survey of the same region, in the latter year laying out on his own land the town of Chillicothe. At the beginning of the 19th century he was one of the largest land-owners in Ohio. He was active in the early Indian wars, was state senator, and for a term speaker, major-general of militia for several years, and a member of the Ohio constitutional convention in 1802. He was a candidate for governor in 1807, and his opponent received the largest number of votes, but was declared ineligible. The office thus devolved on Mr. Massie, but he declined it.