The Dairy House was used to keep perishable foods cool. When the home was completed, a Dairy House and Land Office were also constructed nearby. Lytle brought the square nails used in construction all the way from Philadelphia at the time, nails were so valuable that if a home was destroyed, the nails were salvaged to be used again. This was the first structure in the survey area to have glass windows. The home was constructed with lathe and plaster lined with brick for protection from Indian raids. He employed John Charles to build his home, the first home of its kind in the area. It was 1800 when he acquired the 600 acres of land for his homestead which he named Harmony Hill.
A public square of 12 lots, and 5-1/4 acres “on a beautiful elevation” was set aside for county buildings this was the future site of the first courthouse and jail built in 1805. Work was finally continued in 1796, and lots in the village began to be sold. In the Fall of 1795 he and his company began surveying the 1500 acres an extremely cold winter of ’95-’96 halted progress as surveying stakes could not be forced into the frozen ground. As he surveyed he realized the potential of the area for an ideal town because of the rolling land and the nearby water source. He established a surveying camp along the East Fork of the Little Miami River. In 1795 Lytle came with his older brother John and a group of men, several of whom were Revolutionary War veterans, to survey acreage that was then known as the DeBenneville Survey.
Did you know that the oldest structure in Clermont County Ohio is located at 299 South Third Street in Williamsburg? It is the Dairy House at Harmony Hill, the homestead site of Major General William Lytle, founder of our town.
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