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.