In 1815, John Enoch established a home and a gristmill for grinding grain on part of his family’s extensive land holdings in the Mad River Valley. Two years later, 77 lots were platted for purchase. When Thomas Cowgill was eight years old in 1820, he accompanied his father to John Enoch’s gristmill in West Liberty and later recalled that John Enoch’s farm was nearly all unimproved, partly covered by a dense thicket of hazel, plum, and thorn, with prairie overgrown by wild grass, a few small houses, and John Enoch Sr.’s residence north of the gristmill. Cowgill remembered being surprised to learn they had been to town. In 1826, Dr. John Ordway described West Liberty as having twelve families, one gristmill, one store, one tavern, and a Post Office.