Regan Baumeister

It wasn’t until after she became a student at Miami University that Regan Baumeister discovered she is a descendant of Oxford settlers, including the surveyor who laid out the Mile Square.

Baumeister is a sophomore Biology major with a Premedical and Pre-Health Studies co-major and a minor in Music Performance. The Auburn, California, resident said she chose Miami because of its well-rounded pre-med program “and how many opportunities there are, including the ability to study both pre-medicine and music, which is not possible at many schools.”

She added, “When I toured the campus, I was immediately drawn in and knew it was where I wanted to be.”

Little did Baumeister know that she already had deep family roots to the Oxford area, namely her 7th great-grandfather, Col. Walter Dickerson, and 7th great-uncle, James Heaton, the surveyor who laid out the Mile Square as well as Oxford Township.

The Mile Square is the historic town center of Oxford. Adjacent to the university, the Mile Square today is a prime location for student off-campus housing. It is bounded by Sycamore Street to the north, Patterson Avenue to the east, Chestnut Street to the south, and Locust Street to the west.

Erick Baumeister, Regan’s father, has enjoyed researching the family’s history at the Lane Library’s Smith Library of Regional History when he’s in Oxford.

“Dickerson (often misrecorded as Dickinson) was one of 11 people who bought land from Miami University on the first day of sales, May 23, 1810,” he said. “This is the lot that now comprises the three houses at 117 and 125 E. Walnut St. and 100 S. Campus Ave.”

Dickerson also owned the lot that now houses Holy Trinity Episcopal Church at 25 E. Walnut St. He amassed more than 400 acres of farmland in Oxford Township, which included a sawmill on Indian Creek just south of Brookville Road, Erick Baumeister said. Family marriages included 1819 marriages by the Rev. Russel Bigelow at the location that is now the Oxford United Methodist Church, 14 N. Poplar St.

The family’s historical ties were discovered last spring while Erick Baumeister was reviewing family genealogy records, some of which he had compiled decades ago. That eventually led them to learn more about the family’s connection to the area around Miami.

Regan Baumeister called it “a cool ‘small world’ discovery.”

“At first, I was shocked and so was my family, mainly because the school was not on my radar until late in the application process, and I didn't seriously look into it until after I had received my acceptance,” she said. 

“I've since had many other small world coincidences while meeting people at Miami and finding random mutual connections, so my family and I keep saying how this truly was the perfect school for me, even though I was nervous coming from California.”

As she prepared to return to Miami last fall, Regan and her father came a week early so he could see what interesting information could be uncovered at the Smith Library of Regional History. 

“He found a lot of information that filled in some blanks,” she said.

Regan’s 6th great-grandmother, Penelope Eleanor “Nellie” Dickerson, was the first of the family born in Butler County. She was a daughter of Col. Walter Dickerson and Penelope Heaton, born on Nov. 17, 1796, in what they believe became Middletown. On April 28, 1819, she married Joseph Walter Knight at what is now the Oxford United Methodist Church, according to research by Erick Baumeister.

Brad Spurlock, Smith Library of Regional History & Cummins Local History Room manager, said he has fielded many questions related to genealogy and property histories.

“The fact that Regan returned to Oxford not knowing that it was an ancestral home of her family is really cool,” Spurlock said. “The connection to James Heaton is especially interesting. Heaton was one of the many pioneers who helped set up the county that are not often remembered.”

Erick Baumeister has enjoyed learning more about the family’s history in the community that has become home to his daughter while she’s at Miami.

“We’re awfully proud of Regan,” he said. “It’s quite astonishing that as a scholar leader, her dorm room is in the oldest building on campus (Elliott Hall) and that some of the original lumber for that building may have originated from a family mill.”