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
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| 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.
