By Randy McNutt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

They started with nothing but hope and timber, and built two counties. From 1803 to 1810, Butler County's judges met in a former mess room at old Fort Hamilton. They sat on a platform made of rough boards and at a long table.

Judges decided to use Fort Hamilton's old magazine as the county's first jail. It was used until 1809.

"Escapes were almost as frequent as commitments," wrote the editors of A History and Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio. "In 1808 two persons were confined in this prison - one of them, named Henry Wason, a wild, drinking Irishman, somewhat notorious at that time, had been committed for disorderly conduct or a breach of the peace. Having by some means procured a stone, he commenced beating against the door, and finally, putting his arm out of the aperture, he beat off the padlock, opened the door and came out, leaving the other prisoner, who was chained to the floor, still in confinement.

"He went directly to the clerk's office, which was only a few rods distant, and told the clerk to inform the sheriff, and get him to `take care of that d-d horse thief who was in jail;' for he was determined to stay no longer in such company; and he, accordingly, went home. No further notice was taken of him."

Warren County started with the community of Bedle's Station, settled in 1795 by William Bedle, a New Jersey native.

"Among the earliest white men who made their homes in the county were those who settled on the forfeitures in Deerfield Township," wrote the editor of The History of Warren County in 1882. "They were poor men, wholly destitute of means to purchase land, and were willing to brave dangers from savage foes and to endure the privations of a lonely life in the wilderness..."

E-mail rmcnutt@enquirer.com