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.

Jackson Township

General Andrew Jackson

On January 8, 1815, Americans won a decisive (but unnecessary*) battle against the British at New Orleans. The Muskingum County township organized on June 6, 1815 was named to honor of the "Hero of New Orleans," General Andrew Jackson. According to the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, the hilly land through which flows Wakatomika Creek, was still only sparsely settled as late as 1813. Grist mill and saw mill operators were drawn to the area because of the Wakatomika. The undulating land, clay or sandy soil seems to not been a big draw for farmers. However deposits of iron and coal drew miners to the area.

The village of Knoxville was platted on June 6, 1827 by the land's
owner, Clark Hollenback. A year later, Hollenback sold the land to Samuel Frazey who changed the town's name to Frazeysburg. The village was incorporated 40 years later, although a post office had been established there by 1829. Knoxville/Frazeysburg was served by the Ohio Canal, and by the Pan Handle Railway that connected Jackson Township to major cities such as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

Ohio Governor, Mordecai Bartley

The earliest Jackson Township families included Blizzard, Fairall, Evans, Hollenback, McClintock, Mendenhall, and Bonham. Methodist ministers established Jackson Township's first church in 1815. The first mill was built on the "Tomaka" Creek in 1819. The first road connecting what would become Frazeysburg to Zanesville was laid out in 1822. Mordecai Bartley (1783-1870), the township's first lawyer, was elected the 18th Governor of Ohio in 1844.

 

*The War of 1812 was formally ended by the signing of the Treat of Ghent on December 24, 1814. Unfortunately, news traveled slowly in those days, so the adversaries assembled on the western edge of the United States didn't get the message.

Highland Township

 According to the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, Mathias Trace was Highland Township's first settler. Trace migrated from Washington County, Pennsylvania, possibly traveling along the first road in the area, constructed in 1806, that connected Cambridge and Dresden. Although he settled in the NE quarter of section 11 in 1808, there is no record of any land purchase by Trace before September 21, 1819. Little can be found on the internet regarding Mathias. The Dean Family Tree on Ancestry* includes a Mathias Trace who was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1762 and who died in Highland Township after 1820. A Mathias R. Trace who died in 1839 is buried in Crooked Creek Cemetery in New Concord, Ohio, which is about 5 miles from Highland's only population center, Bloomfield.

The main building of McCorkle College

Between 1808 and 1814, settlers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia came to Highland Township in sufficient numbers that by April 1814, an election of the first township officers was held. Grist mills, saw mills, and planing mills grew up along the White Eyes and Wills Creeks. Substantial frame homes and stores were built in the township, giving a prosperous feel to the place. A distillery, a carding (textile) facility, and a tannery were built. 

The village of Bloomfield (Highland's only population center to this day) was platted in the early 1850's. The land on which the village developed was originally owned by David Rankin. Supposedly it was named for the orchards that were abundant in the area. The Sago Post Office was established in Bloomfield in 1857, and operated until 1902.

In 1862, the Rev. William Ballantine, a Presbyterian minister, established an educational institution for young men interested in the Presbyterian ministry. The institution was origially named Bloomfield High School, then renamed the Bloomfield Academy in 1868. By February 1873, the academy was renamed McCorkle and chartered as a degree-confering college. The Biographical and Historical Memoirs says that McCorkle "came to be popular and prosperous," enjoying a modest endowment, and able to erect a proper "college building." It doesn't mention what became of the institution. An internet search failed to turn up any more information that what's found in the Memoirs.

Bloomfield Presbyterian Church

*Family trees posted in the internet, for the most part, should never be considered "proof" of family data or connections. However, they may provide a family historian with some direction for serious research.

Perry Township

 

Perry Township, according to The Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, Ohio, was organized in 1812 from United States Military Lands. The Military Lands tract contained 2,539,111 acres in the central part of Ohio, set aside by Congress to compensate men who served in the regular army (not the militia) during the Revolutionary War. The north half of Muskingum County lies within this tract of land. 

It's said that the township is named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who led American forces to a resounding victory over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 13, 1813. However, Commodore Perry, a Navy veteran with an honorable but undistinguished career until the Battle of Lake Erie, would have been unknown to the township's residents in 1812. Since there is almost information regarding the township's organization (no exact date of formation, no mention of the township's first officers), it's possible that the 1812 date is incorrect, or that the area was originally known by a different name, or that Perry was named for an early but forgotten resident. 

Romanticized painting of Commodore Perry
at the Battle of Lake Erie

James (aka Luke) Brown, Sr., considered to be Perry's first settler, opened the township's first tavern along Zane's Trace, which ran through the township, in 1802. Not long after, Isaac Prior established a second tavern on the Trace west of Brown's. In 1812, Brown's land on which his tavern was located, was platted as the town of Sonora.

A number of settlers came to the area between 1801-1812, many from western Pennsylvania. Within 10 years of Brown building his tavern, the area that would become Perry Township boasted a cemetery; a schoolhouse and teacher, Simon Merwin; a blacksmith, Jacob Wisecarver; and at least two sawmills and two gristmills along the Salt Creek built by Jacob Livingood and John Wartenbee. The Wesley Methodist Episcopal church was founded in 1808 and met in parishoners' home, but no church structure was built until 1823. A second Methodist church (Ebenezer) was formed in 1827. 

The village of Sonora grew large enough (about 200 residents) to gain its own post office in 1855. The post office remained in operation until 1988. Sonora was a stop along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Blue Rock Township

Blue Rock Township was formed from Salt Creek Township on December 3, 1810, although no election of township officers was recorded until January 6, 1814. This is similar to the situation in Salt Creek Township, which formed in 1808, but didn't officially become a township until 1815. Blue Rock is named for the creek, rich in salt deposits, that runs through it.

Blue Rock and Salt Creek Townships have a shared history, and so Capt. John Chandler (1757-1829), for whom the Salt Creek town of Chandlersville is named, is regarded as Blue Rock's first settler. In fact, all the "firsts" of Salt Creek, such as early industries, post offices, and churches, are the "firsts" of Blue Rock. The histories of the two townships are so identical that the chapter on Blue Rock Township in the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, Ohio contains little more than a long list of early settlers and their occupations, and a rehashing of the founding of early churches from the Salt Creek chapter. (See Salt Creek Township)

Around 1819, the discovery of oil in the northeastern part of the township held the promise of prosperity for the township. A second field was developed in 1866. In 1878, the Carr Oil Company of Muskingum County was created to take over production. However, the oil, intended for use in oil lamps, was of a poor quality, and enterprise was soon abandoned.

The steel Gaysport Bridgewas replaced in 2021

Although there are no municipalities* in Blue Rock today, there were three population centers in the 1800's that each merited a U.S. Post Office. The township's earliest population center was located on the Muskingum River, and dates from at least the 1790's. The original name is not known, but it was eventually named Gaysport for Asa Gay (1774-1854) who migrated to the area from Massachusetts around 1830. Another settlement, Rockville, was established around 1816. J. B. Milhous platted Rockville in 1854, and renamed it Ruraldale, although its post office was known as Rural Dale. The small settlement of Ridgeway became the village of Kiefer. Like the village of Opera in Newton Township, Kiefer no longer exists.

The 4, 578 acre Blue Rock State Forest lies within the township

*A municipality is an urban area locally administered and separate from township government.