Meigs Township

Meigs Township, in the southeast corner of Muskingum County, is the least populated of the county's twenty-five townships. Only 228 people lived there as of 2020, a considerable drop from its heyday in 1860 when the township boasted 1,547 residents.

Originally part of Rich Hill Township, Meigs was officially formed on July 13, 1819. The first township officers were Zoath and John Hammond, Llewelyn Pierce, and Jacob Wortman. The distinction of being the first white settlers, however, goes to Finley Collins and the Gillogly family. Other early settlers included Dunlap, Gilbaut, Johnson, Starritt, and McIntire. The township was named for Meigs Creek which runs through the township, but that was named for Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr. who served as Ohio first Chief Justice, a U.S. Senator, and Ohio's fourth Governor.

Meigs has no population centers now, although in the second half of the 19th Century and into the early

Return J. Meigs, Jr.

 part of the 20th, there were three thriving communities: High Hill, Zeno, and Young Hickory also called Meigsville. All three villages had post offices, often seen as a sign that an area was thriving. High Hill and Young Hickory had post offices established as early as 1846; Zeno's post office was established in 1862. 

Meigs Township is characterized by high hills and deep ravines. Four creeks traverse through it. The first white settlers seem to have made an effort to farm the land and set out orchards, but the presence of large deposits of coal changed the nature and the history of the township, bringing prosperity at first, and then literal destruction of the above communities. 

In the 1960's, American Electric Power and Central Ohio Coal Company began large scale strip mining to supply coal for electric power plants. Huge equipment, most famously the Big Muskie, literally tore Meigs Township apart. The villages of High Hill, Zeno, and Young Hickory disappeared, and the land was left hideously scarred. When the mining was complete, AEP began an extensive reclamation project that created rolling hills, several small lakes, and a wildlife habitat. In 1980, AEP donated 9,000 acres of the reclaimed land to establish The Wilds, one of the world's largest conservation centers.

The Big Muskie

Monroe Township

 

The first pioneer settler in the area that would become Monroe Township was Charles Marquand. Marquand was born on the Isle of Guernsey in 1763, and emigrated to Maryland, with his wife and five children around 1805. The family relocated to the northeast section of Muskingum County, along Wills Creek, around 1808-1810. An enterprising man, Marquand built a gristmill, sawmill, and a carding and fullingmill along the creek. A village named Marquand's Mills grew up alongside the mills. By the late 1880's the community merited a post office, but in 1902, the post office was closed. Marquand Mills no longer exists.

Monroe Township was formed on July 2, 1819, and was named for President James Monroe. There is no information in The Biographical and Historical Memoirs as to who were the first officers of the new township, although it notes that the elections were held in the home of James Sprague. Sprague settled in the area that would become Otsego in 1812. Sprague and his sons built the first road in the township, connecting Otsego to Symms Creek. 

Otsego originally had been the site of a Native American town well-known as a trading center. White settlers platted a town there in 1838, and supposedly named it for Otsego, New York, although it appears to have been known by that name for several decades before it was laid out. The Memoirs doesn't mention any early settlers coming from New York, so the origin of the name might not be accurate. The Otsego Post Office was established in 1840 and functioned until 1963. Today, Otsego, which was never incorporated, is Monroe Township's only population center.

The Otsego Methodist Church was the first church
established in Monroe Township. The first
congregation formed in 1816. 

Madison Township

 

The Muskingum County commissioners ordered the formation of Madison Township from a section of Jefferson Township on July 2, 1819. 

Jacob Swigert (b. 1772, Pennsylvania-d. Dec. 9, 1863, Madison Twp.) settled in the area in 1800. Swigert's parents, Sebastian and Magdalena Weigl Sweigart, were German immigrants. Apparently, quite a few German immigrants and/or their children moved into this part of Muskingum County between 1800-1810 because lessons in the first school established there were taught in German. It wasn't until 1811 that classes were taught in English. In addition to "Swigert," other early settlers included Bainter, Stoner, Shirer, and Copeland.

There are no municipalities in Madison Township. According to the U.S. census bureau, the township had a population of only 495 in 2020. Because Madison is bounded in part by the Muskingum River, it once boasted a fairly large number of grist mills and sawmills. At least two potteries, the William Minner Pottery and the King & Swope Pottery were established between 1869-1879 along Symmes Creek which feeds into the Muskingum. 

As with most of Muskingum County's townships, the earliest church congregation was Methodist, and the first church building, the Whelan Methodist Episcopal Church, was erected in 1823. A Presbyterian church was built around 1835 on land belonging to Judge Daniel Stillwell. Neither of these churches exist today, but there is a Whelan Cemetery.

Supposedly the township has several "ancient mounds," dating from the times of the Adena and Hopewell cultures. According to Google AI, the mounds were noted as nearby features in historic descriptions of several of the mills, but there is no modern-day information about the type (effigy or burial) of mounds or their exact location. We cannot be certain such structures actually existed.

The historic Dresden Suspension Bridge, built over 

the Muskingum River in 1853, connected Madison

Township with the town of Dresden in Jefferson 

Township. The bridge is permanently closed.

Hopewell Township

 

Around 1803, Samuel Bonnifield of Virginia became the first white settler in the area that would eventually become Hopewell Township. On February 3, 1812, the Muskingum County Commissioners received a petition asking that they create a new township from parts of Falls and Madison Townships, to be called Hopewell. Despite some opposition, the commissioners granted the petition and directed that elections for township officials be held. Surnames of early township officials include Colvin, Rolles, Simons, and Higginbotham. 

Hopewell Township has several population centers, but all are unincorporated except for the village of Gratiot. Gratiot straddles the county line of Licking and Muskingum Counties, and was platted in 1829. It is one of several places nationwide named for Charles Gratiot (1786-1855), a graduate of West Point, and a high-ranking officer in the Army Corps of Engineers. Although not a native of Ohio, Charles Gratiot would have been known to Ohioans: He served as Gen. William Henry Harrison's chief engineer during the War of 1812, and built Ft. Meigs near Perrysburgh, Ohio. 

Gratiot's IOOF Hall

Unincorporated communities in the township include Mount Sterling (not to be confused with the village of the same name in Madison County), Hopewell, Cottage Hill, and Darlington. The history of these places is limited. Not even Biographical and Historical Memoirs has much to say about the area. 

• Potteries grew up in and around the communityof Mount Sterling in the early 1820's. A local pottery business, Allen & Son, "invented and for a time manufactured earthenware coffins." Apparently the idea never caught on. 

• The community of Hopewell developed when the National Road was extended to that part of Muskingum County.  A post office was established there in 1830. It was moved to Mount Sterling, but retained the name, Hopewell P.O. until it was closed in 2015.

• Other population centers in Hopewell include Cottage Hill and Darlington. Post offices were established in both communities: Cottage Hill (Cottagehill P.O.),1855-1902: Darlington (Newton P.O.), 1834-1897.

  

  Charles Gratiot

Brush Creek Township

The history of the formation of Brush Creek Township is pretty sketchy. The first white inhabitants were, according to The Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, a nomadic family of hunters headed by Henry Dozer. Johan Georg Schwingel (1755-1843) of the Saarland, Germany, credited with being the first settler, supposedly arrived in the Brush Creek area around 1810. Like many German immigrants, he anglicized his name, and is known as George Swingle. 

Between 1813-1819, Brush Creek's first saw-mill, first grist-mill, and first schoolhouse were built. The mills were built by Samuel Stover, for whom the township's only population center is named. (More about that later.)

Brush Creek Township was established on February 10, 1817. It appears to have broken off from Blue Creek, the township to the east. The Memoirs inaccurately says that the township broke off from Harrison Township, although Harrison wasn't formally established until 1839. There is no record of the original officers of the new township. 

Everhart claimed to have unearthed
a carved stone with ancient writing 
on a farm in Brush Creek Township

Brush Creek's claim to fame is the Brush Creek Mound excavated by J. F. Everhart, the author of History of Muskingum County, Ohio. Everhart's rambling account of his "excavation" and of the mound's supposed history was the opening salvo of his overly large and often inaccurate tome. It was also one of several elaborate hoaxes involving a "race of giants" perpetrated on a gullible American public in the late 1800's. Nevertheless, for a time, Brush Creek Township enjoyed a bit of notoriety. (See previous blog post "Giants in the Earth?")

There are no municipalities in Brush Creek. A post office on the branch line of the Columbus, Shawnee & Hocking Railroad eventually became Stoverton, the township's only population center. The Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County tells the story of the village's naming: This place was...named in honor of Samuel Stover, who was found murdered near the upper bridge in Zanesville. After his death a stock of goods came from New York addressed to him and were brought to this point [the post office], and the store thus established formed the nucleus of the present little village. 

      

Muskingum Township

Around 1816, West Zanesville was divided between the existing Falls Township and a new township called Muskingum. It's possible that the new township was named for a large Wyandot village known as "Machkigen," a word referring to a thorn bush that grew in the area.  Machkigen (called Muskingum by white settlers) was established in 1747 and briefly became an important trading center until a smallpox epidemic wiped it out in 1752. 

The first white settlers, David Devore, James Black, and James Beach, arrived in 1797. Devore was a Revolutionary War veteran. According to a pension application Devore filed in 1828, he had served as a private in Captain McClure's Company, Fourth Regiment of Proctor's Brigade of Artillery during the Revolutionary War. The brigade took part in many of the most significant battles of the war, including the Battle of Monmouth (New Jersey) in which Mary Ludwig Hays, the legendary Molly Pitcher, served on a gun crew after her husband was wounded. However, Devore failed to include his dates of service on his application, so we don't know which of any of the great battles he might have participated in. Not surprisingly, his pension application was denied.

Molly Pitcher helped fire a cannon of Proctor's
Regiment at the Battle of Monmouth

When David Devore arrived in Muskingum Township, he got right to work. He built the township's first hewed-log house near the banks of the Muskingum River the year after his arrival . He also planted the first orchards, and built the township's first gristmill in 1812 on the tributary that became known as Devore's Run. Devore, clearly an enterprising man, also established the first tavern around 1812, serving liquor from his residence. 

On September 3, 1817, twenty years after the arrivals of Devore, Bland, and Black, Muskingum Township was formally organized. By the time of its organization, the township boasted a school (founded in 1815), two tanneries, and at least one of three distilleries. The number of distilleries in the township undoubtedly caused the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian congregations (all established by 1814) much angst.

William Mattingly

There are no municipalities in Muskingum Township, but there is an unicorporated village and historic area called the Mattingly Settlement. The community is named for the Mattingly family whose progenitor, William Mattingly, a Roman Catholic, came to the area in 1812. The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (affectionately known as St. Mary's) was organized at William's residence in 1834, and ministered to by Dominican priests from Zanesville until 1855. In 1856, William's son John donated an acre of his farm land for the construction of a brick church and adjoining burial ground. Fittingly, William Mattingly's was the first burial in the church's cemetery, which is today called the Mattingly Settlement Cemetery.

Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin,
known as St. Mary's, in the Mattingly Settlement

Rich Hill Township

Rich Hill Township, on the eastern edge of Muskingum County was, like Blue Rock Township, formed from Salt Creek Township. Salt Creek's commissioners ordered the creation of the new township on March 8, 1815. The name of the new township is attributed to an early settler, John Reynolds, who observed the area was "so rich and hilly."

The first settlers in the area, according to the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, were ____ Lawrence and his stepson, Leonard Stichler. They arrived from Germany in 1805. Stichler is credited with erecting the first log home in the area. Several settlers from Pennsylvania--Lewis Pierce, John Moore, William Robinson, John and Neal McNaughton, and Abraham Warne --arrived with their families the following year. 

Rich Hill was and still is a sparsely settled (just 539 residents in 2020) agricultural area. Abraham
Warne established the first orchard, and introduced the moldboard (or mouldboard) plow, a device for lifting and turning the soil that's well suited to hilly areas.* Merino sheep were brought to the township in the early part of its history, and for a time Merino wool was Rich Hill's primary export.

Thomas Jefferson's mouldboard plow

Miles Conway Moore

The township's first school was established in 1815. The first gristmill was built along Salt Creek in 1818. Abraham Warne built the first sawmill in 1824. Between 1813-1826, Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches were built. Two roads came through Rich Hill between 1807-1810. The first was the road connecting Zanesville and Marietta. The second, smaller road, connected Chandlersville and Cambridge.

Rix Mills is the township's only population center. It was named for Edmond Rix, who owned a local mill. Originally called Rixville, the village was platted in 1854.  A post office called Rixs Mills was established there in 1846. Renamed Rix Mills Post Office in 1892, it was permanently closed in 1902. A native of Rix Mills, Miles Conway Moore (born 1845), was appointed the 14th and last Territorial Governor of the Washington Territory by President Benjamin Harrison on April 9,1889. He served until Washington became a State on November 11, 1889. A few stores and a church constitute Rix Mills today. 

Rix Mills Presbyterian Church

*Versions of the moldboard plow have existed since antiquity, but Thomas Jefferson revolutionized the design and created a light-weight iron plow that could be pulled by one horse or mule.