User:Wjerdean/Ballad Road covered bridge

Ballard Road covered bridge, near Jamestown in Greene County, Ohio, is a local landmark, built in 1883 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 29, 1975. The bridge, which spans the North Fork of Caesar's Creek a few miles east of Xenia, Ohio, adjoins another National Register property, the Dean Family Farm, along U.S. Highway 35. By 2010, the bridge was seldom used and in need of extensive repair, though inspections had shown its substructure remained essentially sound. Once heavily traveled along Ballard Road, the 79-foot-long span was cut off as a cul de sac during rerouting of a new U.S. 35 route. Adjacent to the bridge is the Dean Family Farm, settled in 1812 by Daniel Dean who relocated his family there from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. A native of Tobermore, Ireland, Dean had sailed to Philadelphia as a teenager, after the American Revolution, to seek out his father, George Roger Dean, who had fought in the Colonial Line with two brothers. Daniel, on finding his father, wed a Virginia lass, Jannett Steele Dean, and homesteaded after 1790 in Kentucky. With expansion of slavery in Kentucky, the Deans moved north to the new, free state of Ohio. At his death, Daniel divided his 2,000 Ohio acres among 11 children and their spouses. Dean and many descendants lie buried in Dean Cemetery, near the farm and bridge.