My ancestor, Ebenezer Rathbun, is one of the earliest settlers of Lima. He moved to Lima (then Charleston) in 1792-93, from Old Lyme Connecticut, and settled on land he purchased in the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. He remained in Lima until his death in Jan. 1813.

(His son David was a Presbyterian and I believe Ebenezer was also. He may have been among the members of the first religious society - Presbyterian- organized by Rev. Daniel Thatcher in 1795.)

Ebenezer's son John Clark Rathbun, b. c. 1792 in Lima, served in the War of 1812 in Col. Isaac Stone's NY Cavalry. Another son, Ebenezer, enlisted in the Civil War at age 48. He died in a military hospital in Nashville a few months before his own son Girden Clark Rathbun was killed in a Civil war battle on James Island, South Carolina.