After Christmas Day 1833, Samuel Myers, Sr., a native of Hagerstown, Maryland, and Margaret Hardin, the first couple wed in Putnam County, moved into their log home on the west bank of the Auglaize River. Because settlers were boating their grain to mills in Brunersburg or Piqua, Ohio, Samuel built a grist mill on the east bank and a dam across the river by 1840. These remained in operation until the 1913 flood. The sugar maple grove behind the mill became a popular picnic area, now Cascade Roadside Park. A surveyor of Kalida, Ohio, the first seat of Putnam County government, Samuel also built three miles of plank road west from Cascade to the Miami-Erie Canal in 1845 and the first Perry Township School, and served as a school examiner and county commissioner.