Jonathan Alder was captured at age seven by a Native American war party in Virginia in 1782 and taken to a Mingo village north of the Mad River in Ohio, where he was adopted by an Indian family. He remained with the Indians until after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville ended the Indian Wars in the Ohio Country. As white settlers entered the region, Alder frequently served as an interpreter. In 1805, he journeyed to Virginia and was reunited with his original family. He returned to Ohio with his new wife, Mary Blont, and built a cabin on Big Darby Creek. His cabin is now at the Madison County Historical Society Museum in London, and Alder is buried in Foster Chapel Cemetery.