Adams Townhip

Residents of the area that would become Adams Township were disadvantaged by the absence of viable roads, and the distance they had to travel to conduct business or participate in elections. They petitioned the Muskingum County commissioners to create a new township from parts of neighboring Madison and Monroe Townships that could be responsible for building and maintaining its own roads and infrastructure. They proposed the new township be named in honor of then President John Quincy Adams. 

James Wilcox is credited with being the first white settler in the area. He and his family migrated from Maine to Ohio via the Ohio River, and spent a bit of time in Marietta, Ohio before moving north into Muskingum County. They built a log cabin along Wills Creek around 1808. Over the next ten years, settlers came from Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Loudoun County, Virginia. The earliest settlers surnames include: Hashmar, Ballentine, Wisecarver, Bidwell, Monroe, Osborn, Barton, Shirer, and Sprague. David Brelsford, who arrived in the area in 1810, was the township's first blacksmith. William Barton built the first frame house, and Anthony Slater brought the first threshing machine and mower to Adams.

The first school was established in 1820, taught by New Englander William Jennison. In 1828, the first log schoolhouse was built. It measured 18' X 20' and had a fireplace large enough to accomodate six foot logs. A slightly larger schoolhouse was built of hewed logs in 1841, and "McGuffey Readers" were introduced into the curriculum in this structure. Adams' growing population eventually outgrew the one-room schoolhouse. By the 1890's, Adams Township had four separate school districts within its boundaries.

The oldest religious congregation in Adams was the Bethesda Methodist church, established by the Rev. Jesse Roe in 1827. A log church was erected in 1835, replaced by a frame structure in 1856. Roe went on to found Fairview, the second Methodist church in the township, and for many decades one of the most vital Methodist organizations in Adams, which drew hundreds of congregants for miles around. The influx of German settlers into Adams led to the establishment of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church where services were conducted in German for the first several years of the church's existence.

Fairview Methodist (above) and Zion Lutheran (below)

 

Wayne Township

Wayne Township, named for the Revolutionary War general, [Mad] Anthony Wayne, was organized from part of Zanesville and a portion of Salt Creek Township on March 7, 1826. The area had attracted settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia as early as1802. James Finley, who came from Pennsylvania, is thought to be the first white settler. Finley was a weaver, and it's said that he supplied homespun cloth to other early settlers such as the Mercer, Dunn, Kepler, Sedwick, Corbin, and Pringle families. 

There are no municipalites in Wayne Township, but there is one census-designated place--the village of Duncan Falls. The village is named for a set of treacherous rapids and waterfalls at that point on the Muskingum River. The falls themselves are named for a hunter-trapper known as "Major" Duncan who came to the area in the 1790's. The story is that he clashed with some Shawnee over his traps, and was killed will trying to cross the river at the falls.

Bowen and Dugan's gristmill is across the river in this
 postcard illustration

Settlers in the area that would become Wayne Township were primarily wheat and corn farmers. They had to travel two days upriver to get their crops ground for sale, until someone recognized the potential power that existed because of the falls. In 1832, an enterprising settler named James Taylor (he built the first store in what would become the village of Duncan Falls, and also ran a ferry across the river) built a dam across the falls to harness water power in an attempt to entice millers to the area. In 1836 a four-storey gristmill was built by Lewis Dugan and William Bowen. The mill served township farmers until the early 1920's when it was purchased by Ohio Power and torn down.

The busy Mr. Taylor next platted the townsite of Duncan Falls in 1841. He had previous experience in laying out villages, having platted Taylorsville (across the river) in 1833. Taylorsville became the village of Philo. A bridge connecting the two population areas was built in 1875. A post office was established in Duncan Falls in 1890, and it still in service today. Duncan Falls population has grown steadily from 1880 when it had just 200 residents. In 2020 Duncan Fall's population was just under 900 people.

Like all communities along the Muskingum River, Duncan Falls was severely damaged by the Great Flood of March 23-26,1913. The bridge connecting Duncan Falls and Philo was ripped away. It took over a year to replace the old structure with a truss bridge. During construction, a wooden foot bridge connected the two villages.

Washington Township

 

There is little information about Washington Township to be found, so this blog will be short. 

Isaac Prior is credited with being the first white settler in the area, arriving in 1799, and erecting the first log home. Surnames of some of the early settlers include Boggs, Hart, Slack, Lehue, Sturtz, and McConnell. It was Gen. Robert McConnell who eventually relocated south of Muskingum County and founded the town of McConnelsville, which would become the county seat of Morgan County.

Washington Township was created by the Muskingum County Commissioners on June 5, 1822 from land north of the Military Lands line that had been part of Zanesville "township." Although bounded the length of its west side by the Muskingum River (which  should have encouraged the growth of commerce and villages), Washington Township is devoid of any population center. Early on there was a hamlet named Jackson, located along present-day U.S. 40. It was platted in 1830 by Charles Roberts, and had a blacksmith's shop and a school, but no post office, tavern or other places of businesses. It was almost strictly residential, and an 1882 county history noted it was a good place to avoid "the bustle of life." The Ohio Ghost Town Exploration Co. (https://ohioghosttowns.org/muskingum-county/ ) lists the Jackson area as a ghost town, although there are no remnants left of the village.

Today there is an unincorporated "population center" in Washington Township called Pleasant Grove. It's notable only because it's the geographic center of Muskingum County.

Salem Township

Salem Township was set off from Highland Township by the county commissioners in July 1819. Salem (along with eleven other Muskingum townships) was located in the part of the county originally designated as "The United States Military District." This large area of land was laid out by Congress to provide land grants to veterans of the American Revolution, in partial payment for their military service. Salem Township was named for Salem, Massachusetts, from where a number of the area's first white settlers came around 1810. Originally, the area was home to the Mingo and Shawnee peoples.

Surnames of those arriving around 1810 include: Gaumer, Williams, Swigert, Shroyer, Wertz, Stoner, Stiers, Wisecarver, Starkey. William S. Denison, who helped build the first permanent frame residence in the township (1814), is credited with being its "first" settler, although, clearly, given the above list, he was not alone. 

Actually, William Slack Denison (1794-1880) was only 16 when he arrived in the area with his parents and older siblings. While the siblings quickly married, William remained a bachelor for many years, and became his father's primary business partner. The thriving family bought up more land, and William went on to became a well-known (and quite wealthy) "business farmer & stock raiser." The Denison family built the first brick home in Salem Township in 1820. They also erected the township's first school building. 

But William Denison's real fame came because of his endowment to a Baptist college located a two days ride west of his Salem Township home. In 1853, Granville College was in serious need of money and offered to rename the school after anyone who would give it $10,000 (almost $400,000 in today's money). William Denison, who never set foot on the college's campus, pledged the money and three years later, Granville College became Denison College. An interesting article in Denison Magazine suggests two possible reasons for William's pledge, the difficulty the college had in getting the money, and the rest of William's story. You can access the full story here: Being William Denison

Adamsville Post Office, 1915

Adamsville, the only village still in existence in the township was laid out in 1832 by Mordecai Adams. The 19th century villages of Mechanicsville and Spencer no longer exist, and Adamsville today has only 140 residents. But for a time, Adamsville thrived, enjoying a reputation, according to the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, as "unsurpassed by any [village] in the county" for "the beauty of its site and the healthfulness of its location." The Memoirs also claims that "no community or village of its size in the county [pop. 300] is accuated by higher motives or a more clear conception of progressive ideas and public welfare." A post office was established in 1835, and a local newspaper, The Adamsville Register, was established in 1889. While Adamsville sounds like a good place to live, its businesses suffered from the lack of rail service, the nearest depot being seven miles away. The community hoped a rail connection would be built, but sadly for Adamsville, it never happened.

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.