George Ewing lived from 1754 to 1824. He fought in the American Revolutionary War. When the war ended, he and his young family left New Jersey for the West looking for a new home and the promise of better times. In 1786, he moved to West Liberty, Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia) and lived a few years near Wheeling, Virginia. In 1793, his family and others from West Liberty moved to Waterford, the frontier settlement on the Muskingum River, near Marietta, Ohio. The families were given land donated by Congress to men who had defended their country in the Revolutionary War. They chose a section about four miles above Fort Frye, at the mouth of Olive Green Creek, on the bank of the Muskingum River. They built a stockade or blockhouse, and began to improve their lands. The Indians watched them closely and killed one of the settlers. In 1795 the Greenville Treaty was signed making it safer for the settlers.

In 1797, Ephraim Cutler, and George Ewing made a way through the wilderness, cutting out a packhorse path, twenty miles in length, from Waterford to Federal Creek. About the 1st of March 1798, Ewing moved his family to a place seventeen miles northwest of the frontier settlements, in what is now Ames Township, and became the first pioneer there. George Ewing looked for ways to make his settlement better. George looked for ways to promote schools, the library, and of developing and improving the community. He was fond of reading, was intelligent, had a good sense of humor, was witty and was generally a good person. He was chosen township trustee at the first election, in 1802, and in years after, he filled that position and he held the office of township clerk.

In 1818 he moved to Perry County, Indiana, where he died around the year 1830. Ewing was, it is believed, the first white settler within the bounds of what is now Ames Township.