With the War of 1812 over, Benajah and Ruth Wilcox Fay and their ten children left Lewis County, New York, for Ohio, drawn by inexpensive, fertile land. Settling in Township 6, Range 13 of the Blake Tract of the Western Reserve, they became the first settlers of Greenbriar, which was named Parma on March 7, 1826. The Fay family cleared their new land, including what later became Theota Avenue, and built a log cabin on the wagon trail connecting Cleveland and Columbus. That cabin grew into the Benajah Fay Inn, Parma's first business establishment, at the site where the city of Parma began.