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In July, 1841, he moved from Athens, Ohio, to Fulton County, Ohio, then a part of Lucas. Later he was a delegate to Columbus to use his influence in having the new county organized. Although he did not live to see the completion of this, his efforts and the able articles written by him and published in the Maumee River Times, supplemented by the work of his son, Mortimer D. Hibbard, Stephen Springer, Nathaniel Leggett, Alfred C. Hough, Michael Handy, and other prominent men, finally brought about the separation from Lucas in 1850.
He was a strong temperance worker, and the first temperance address delivered in that township was given by him to over a hundred pioneer settlers, at the home of his son, Mortimer Hibbard, July 24, 1842.
He was also a strong anti-slavery man, and his house in Southern Ohio was sometimes used as one of the stations on the "Underground Railroad" from the Ohio River to Canada. One young colored boy, Robert Flynn, who came to him in this way, remained for many years, following the family north and finally enlisting as a soldier in the Civil War.
Elisha Hibbard, with his second wife, Selah, is buried in the little cemetery east of the village of Spring Hill, both village and cemetery occupying a part of a tract of about six hundred acres, once the property of his oldest son, Mortimer, and two grandsons, Jason and Oscar.
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