Civil War veteran Jonathan Wood lived near Hunt Station on Lookout Mound Farm

MOUNT VERNON — One crossroads we’ve never had occasion to mention in History Knox is Hunt Station, in the southwest corner of Pleasant Township.

It never had more than a post office and general store, so it was never a substantial settlement, but today, one probably wouldn’t even register that it once had a name.

The place is best described as the intersection of Sycamore Road and the old Baltimore & Ohio railroad line. In the mid-1800s, before the B&O bought it, the tracks were part of the Sandusky, Mansfield & Newark Railroad. Hunt Station was the only train station in rural Pleasant Township.

Not a great deal ever seems to have happened at Hunt Station, but it came up when I was looking at one of the charming engravings included in the 1871 Caldwell & Starr atlas of Knox County.

Such commissioned drawings were part of how the publisher made money off county atlases, because there were always some residents willing to pay to have a nice rendering of their home included in the book.

It was a good way to announce to the world that you were a success in those days.

And it likely wasn’t cheap.

The atlas proudly identifies the engravings as being executed by Worley & Bracher of Philadelphia.

It isn’t clear whether they were based on photographs or an artist was actually commissioned to go sketch the properties.

I would guess the latter, because the perspective would likely be more realistic if the engravings were based on photographs.

In those days, though, the cost of photographing all these locations was likely prohibitive.

It was probably cheaper to commission a young artist to travel to the county in question and sketch the properties, which would account both for the old-fashioned perspective difficulties and the frequent appearance of quaint details such as numerous animals, carriages, and people.

One of these engravings caught my eye because of my simmering interest in prehistoric mounds in Knox County. This farm, the residence of one Jonathan Wood or Woods, was called Lookout Mound.

The house and, more specifically, the barn of the house appeared to be perched on high ground, with the barn itself possibly sitting on a mound at the peak of the property, right next to the road.

The location is simply described as the residence of Jonathan Woods, Pleasant Township, Knox County.

A check of the map itself is slightly confusing, as first names are rarely given.

In the case of the Pleasant Township map, no one named “Woods” is shown, either.

But there is a property marked “J. Wood,” which seems close enough to accept.

Research indeed shows that Jonathan’s name shifts in paperwork through different spellings, including both “Wood” and “Woods,” as well as multiple versions of his first name. To settle on one definitive spelling, though, I’ll go with his grave marker, which says “Jonathan Wood.”

These early atlases are not always the last word in accuracy, but it does show a dot indicating a house on the Wood property.

The location is on the east side of the Mount Vernon to Newark Road, today Ohio 13, about halfway between Esther Lane and Sycamore Road.

Records of the day state that Wood’s post office was Hunt Station, which is just around the corner, less than a quarter mile away. Woods would have been able to watch the trains from his front porch.

If the house remains today, it isn’t obvious.

There is an old two-story house that has been modernized and added onto that sits across from Esther Lane. If you ignore the additions, the main house structure has the front door in the same location as the Woods house, and the upstairs windows would match if you cover the central one.

There is, however, no trace of a barn to the left, nor is the ground where the barn would have been mounded up.

An additional consideration is that this house sits about 500 feet north of the spot indicating the house in the 1871 atlas.

But experience has shown that the atlases are not always highly accurate in the placement of houses. If the barn was later razed, the mound could very well have been taken down with it, either to make the field plowable, or to improve the view from the house — or both.

This house across from Esther Lane remains in the sort of ridgetop position that would make it a natural lookout point.

So, it could in fact be the house depicted in the sketch, but its location matches the spot shown on the map as a schoolhouse.

If the atlas was right, and the Wood residence sat a few hundred feet south, that spot is now empty field.

The highest spot along this stretch of road, and the one that most resembles the land in the sketch is a wooded spot about halfway between the empty field and Esther Lane. If that is the spot, house and barn are long gone.

Jonathan Wood was born in Muskingum County in 1818 and moved to Knox County as a young man around 1840.

He married Elizabeth B. Dunn in 1841, and they proceeded to have several children before the Civil War erupted. Jonathan rushed to enlist, like many other local men, at the recruiting center in Delaware, Ohio.

He was in Company G of the 121st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served for the duration of the war.

The 121st OVI saw some ferocious fighting, from the first major battle of the western theater of the war, the Battle of Perryville, on to such infamous fights as Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain (perhaps an inspiration for the name of the farm?), the siege of Atlanta, and Sherman’s March to the Sea.

Wood must have seen some deadly battlefield action, but survived the war to return, unlike many of his comrades.

The farm name could indeed have been inspired by the war, for census records suggest that Wood did not move there until after the war, having been located in Fredericktown for the 1860 census.

Whatever the case, he did well as a farmer if he could afford this portrait of his home in the atlas, and a handsome monument when he passed away in 1887 at the age of 68.