Falls Township and Zanesville

 According to the Biographical and Historic Memoirs of Muskingum County, Ohio, the area that would become Falls Township was first settled in 1790. Edward Tanner of Virginia is regarded as the earliest settler, building his family home along the bank of the Licking River. 

In May, 1796, Congress approved a contract with Col. Ebeneezer Zane, a Revolutionary War veteran, to begin construction of a road from Wheeling, Virginia* to Limestown [Maysville], Kentucky. Zane's Trace followed trails originally used by Native Peoples, and although the trails were widened to 20 feet, Zane's Trace was not "paved" in any way, and deep ruts made wagon travel along the route very challenging. It remained the only major road in Ohio until 1823 when construction on the Ohio section of the National Road began. The National Road, known today as US Route 40, followed much of Col. Zane's road.

Zane's Trace in southern Ohio

Col. Zane, for whom Zanesville is named, was aided in his road-building project by his brother, Jonathan, and his son-in-law, John McIntire, who arrived in what would become Falls Township in 1798. McIntire, who had been an itinerant cobbler in Virginia, re-made himself as a land developer in Ohio, thanks to his connection to the land-rich Col. Zane. (Zane was paid for his roadwork with tracts of land all along the route.) McIntire called the town he began platting, Westbourne. The Postmaster General changed the name to Zane's Town and that name morphed,eventually, into Zanesville.

While Westbourne-Zane's Town-Zanesville was growing, so was the surrounding rural area. Moses Dillon, a Virginia Quaker, arrived about 1804 (the year the federal government opened a land office in Zanesville) and purchased 3,000 acres of land, including the falls on the Licking River. The land he bought was rich with iron ore, and Dillon established the first blast furnace and foundry west of the Alleghanies by 1805. Not surprisingly, the village which grew up on Dillon's land was known as Dillon's Falls. Four years later, on March 9, 1808, Falls Township was organized.

Muskingum County Home c. 1900 

 Today, Zanesville covers the eastern half of the township. As of   2020, the population of that part of the township was 24,721 while the population in the western portion was 8,718. The western part   of Falls Township was the site of the Muskingum County   Infirmary (aka Muskingum County Home), which served as both   a "poor house" and "insane asylum" from 1839-2008. The   historic building was demolished in 2011. Two historic buildings   still standing in the township's western part are Headley Inn and   Smith House, stagecoach and conestoga stops along the National   Road. Falls is also the site of the only Jewish (Beth Abraham)   and Quaker (Dillon) cemeteries in the county.

Smith House

Headley Inn

*West Virginia did not become a state until 1863.