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.