GILBERT DEVOL, Jr., one of the forty-eight, was the son of Hon Gilbert Devol, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, who soon came out with his family to the colony, and was a person of much influence and prominence in the community.  Gilbert Devol, Jr., married Polly, daughter of Major Asa Coburn.  There were a number of Devols who came from Rhode Island in the early years of the settlement, and planted families in Washington County, to which they have given many respectable and valuable citizens; among whom may be mentioned General H. F. Devol, of Union Army, who was promoted from Captain to Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General "for gallant and meritorious services during the war."
Source:  The founders of Ohio : brief sketches of the forty-eight pioneers - Publ. Cincinnati by R. Clark & Co. - 1888

CAPTAIN JONATHAN DEVOL.  Among that body of sterling men who were bold and hardy enough to make the first settlement in the wilderness where Ohio now stands, there was no more remarkable or useful man than Captain Jonathan Devol.  He was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, in the year 1756. His biographer states that "his whole education was embraced in one year's schooling,"  but this was supplemented by his father's library of choice books, which he eagerly read.  When quite young he learned the trade of a ship carpenter, and became noted for his skill in constructing boats of a beautiful model, and famed for rapid sailing.  One of these took a purse of fifty guineas in a race between some gentlemen amateurs of Newport and Providence.  When the revolutionary war commenced he entered the army before he was twenty years old, and performed many daring, heroic services, which are on record, and were of great value.  On the formation of the Ohio Company he became one of the associates, and came with Colonel Sproat's party to Sumrell's Ferry,  General Putnam expected to find the boats ready to descend the river.  The first party, under Major White, were to build the boats, but the mills were frozen up, and lumber not to be easily procured.  In this juncture, Captain Devol's services were of the utmost importance; he surmounted the difficulties, and under his direction the "Union Galley," or as it was later called, the "Mayflower," was built and the adventurers committed themselves to the current of the river and were conveyed safely to their destination.  Here his ingenuity, skill, and industry, were invaluable to the new settlement.
     Captain Devol was soon actively engaged in the construction of Campus Martius, an imposing structure, designed for a fortress and for dwellings.  He erected a house for himself in one of the curtains of the fort.  It was forty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and two stories high, and the next winter it sheltered, not only his own family, who had joined him, but, in all, seventy persons, old and young, were under its roof.  In February, 1790, he settled on a small farm in Belpre, but in less than a year the Indian irruption drove the settlers into garrison, and Captain Devol was called upon to plan, with the advice of other experienced officers, the necessary defenses.  This resulted in the erection of Farmer's Castle in an incredibly short time.  In this garrison, which contained thirteen large block houses, thirty or forty families were sheltered during the war.  The inhabitants had been obliged to grind their corn on hand-mills, a most fatiguing and slow process; to remedy this inconvenience, he constructed a floating mill, which was anchored in the Ohio near the Castle.  He also invented a mill to grind and press out the juice of cornstalks to make molasses.
     In 1792 he built a twelve-oared barge for General Putnam entirely of red cedar, which he procured a few miles up the Little Kanawha, at the hazard of his life, in the midst of the Indian war.  This boat, for beauty of form and workmanship, was said to excel any other ever seen on the Ohio.
     In 1797 he purchased land in Wiseman's Bottom, on the Muskingum, five miles above Marietta, where he made himself a comfortable and pleasant home.  Here, again, he erected mills and engaged in ship-building.  In 1801 he built for a merchant in Marietta a ship of four hundred tons, all of the wood of the black walnut.  The next year he built two brigs, and in 1804 the schooner Nonpareil was built..  Always anxious to aid the destitute colonists, Captain Devol purchased and put in operation the machinery for carding wool, and also erected works for dressing and fulling cloth - both operations believed to have been the first in this part of Ohio, if not in the State.
     Amid all his enterprise and works of usefulness Captain Devol found time at the age of fifty years to study the French language, and with no aid but Boyer's Dictionary, learned to read and translate with fluency any book in that language.  He entered upon the study of mathematics, of which he was very fond; and his knowledge of geography was unusually complete; he also made himself familiar with astronomy, in which he took great delight.  He was remarkable for his conversational powers, his kindness, and hospitality.  He died in 1824, aged 68 years, greatly lamented.  
Source:  The founders of Ohio : brief sketches of the forty-eight pioneers - Publ. Cincinnati by R. Clark & Co. - 1888

OLIVER DODGE, one of the original pioneer party, came from Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.  He owned a share in the Ohio Company, and was, during the war, at Campus Martius.  He joined the colony in Adams, in the spring of 1795, and in company with the Coburns, Davises, and others, began to level the heavy forests which then covered the land.  He lived one year alone in a large, hollow sycamore tree.  In 1800 he married Mrs. Nancy (Devol) Manchester.  He left, at his death, a valuable farm to his only son, Richard Hubbard Dodge.  Oliver Dodge's only daughter, Mary Manchester, became the wife of the Hon. Perley B. Johnson, M. D., of McConnellsville, who, in 1843-5, represented his district of Congress.
Source:  The founders of Ohio : brief sketches of the forty-eight pioneers - Publ. Cincinnati by R. Clark & Co. - 1888    

Source:  Past and Present of the City of Zanesville, and Muskingum Co., Ohio - Published Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1905 - Page 756