Charles Williams, The first white settler in Coshocton county, was unquestionably on e of the most remarkable of its citizens.  He was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1764.  In his boyhood, the family removed to Western Virginia, near Wheeling.  He married there Susannah Carpenter, and moved to the neighborhood of the salt works on the Muskingum, ten miles below Coshocton, and subsequently to" the forks of the Muskingum.:  Of hardy stock, he grew up in the severest discipline of pioneer life.  He was a successful trapper, hunter, Indian scout, and trader, and held every  office (being almost all the time in some) in the county possible for a man o his education, from road supervisor and tax- collector to member of the legislature.  He was famous as a tavern-keeper, and in that and other capacities became very popular.  Clever, genial, naturally shrewd, indomitable in purpose, not averse to the popular vices of his day, and even making a virtue of profanity, he was for forty years a controlling spirit of the county, and for twenty-five, the controlling spirit.  He died in 1840 (in his seventy-sixth year), leaving a considerable number of relatives, many of whom are still in the county.  Two of his children were burned to death by the destruction  by fire of the cabin built by him when he first settled at Coshocton.  It is said that one of his daughters (the mother of C.H., Matthew, and Wm. A. Johnston), when twelve years old, was in the habit of doing the milling for the family, taking the grain on horseback to Zanesville, and bringing back the flour.  The family was emphatically of the Pioneer sort.

Source:  Historical Collections of Coshocton County Ohio 1764-1876
Author: William E Hunt, pub. 1876