{ "type": "place", "slug": "pleasant-township-franklin-county", "key": "T63254-FRA", "name": "Pleasant Township, Franklin County", "short_name": "Pleasant Township", "place_type": "township", "county": { "name": "Franklin", "slug": "franklin", "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/county/franklin/" }, "population": 6427, "center": { "lat": 39.85245883211701, "lon": -83.14800461045517 }, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/place/pleasant-township-franklin-county/", "api": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/api/place/pleasant-township-franklin-county.json", "zips": [ { "zip": "43146", "name": "Scioto Township and Orient", "share": 0.1056, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/zip/43146/" }, { "zip": "43123", "name": "Grove City", "share": 0.0664, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/zip/43123/" }, { "zip": "43140", "name": "London", "share": 0.0162, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/zip/43140/" }, { "zip": "43119", "name": "Columbus and Galloway", "share": 0.0103, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/zip/43119/" } ], "water": [ { "pwsid": "OH2504412", "name": "Columbus Public Water System", "share": 0.9162947732361225, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH2504412/" }, { "pwsid": "OH4900712", "name": "Mid-ohio WSD - Chrisman Avenue WTP", "share": 0.04159014090828454, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH4900712/" }, { "pwsid": "OH2502612", "name": "Aqua Ohio - Lake Darby", "share": 0.008415629932422331, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH2502612/" }, { "pwsid": "OH2502112", "name": "Oak Hills Mobile Home Park", "share": 0.008190123405660365, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH2502112/" }, { "pwsid": "OH4900212", "name": "Choctaw Utilities, Inc.", "share": 0.007023746294124566, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH4900212/" }, { "pwsid": "OH6503512", "name": "Commercial Point Village", "share": 0.006522836825569196, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH6503512/" }, { "pwsid": "OH6503703", "name": "Village of Orient", "share": 0.004743881327686688, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH6503703/" }, { "pwsid": "OH2570736", "name": "Monterey Care Center", "share": 0.0027920875246569424, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH2570736/" }, { "pwsid": "OH6503412", "name": "Darbyville Village", "share": 0.0016660059424613966, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH6503412/" }, { "pwsid": "OH6502312", "name": "Johnson Mobile Home Park", "share": 0.001185970331921672, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH6502312/" }, { "pwsid": "OH2501812", "name": "Timberlake Water System", "share": 0.0007059347213819477, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH2501812/" }, { "pwsid": "OH4901812", "name": "Green Meadows Mobile Home Park", "share": 0.0005605806901413972, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH4901812/" }, { "pwsid": "OH4900512", "name": "Greentree Mobile Home Park", "share": 0.00030828885956652347, "url": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/water/OH4900512/" } ], "history": { "key": "T63254-FRA", "name": "Pleasant Township, Franklin County", "kind": "township", "county": "Franklin", "summary": "Pleasant Township, in the southwest corner of Franklin County along Big and Little Darby Creek, was first settled in the fall of 1799 by brothers Thomas and Elijah Chenoweth and organized as a township in 1807, before losing territory to the new Jackson (1815) and Prairie (1819) townships. It has stayed agricultural ever since, its two historic centers being Harrisburg, a Darby Creek crossroads platted in 1836 and known as Harrisburgh until 1893, and Georgesville, laid out in 1816 and largely vanished by 1880. The name follows a pattern common across Ohio, which has fifteen other Pleasant Townships, and no source found explains why this one chose it. Today the township is still mostly farmland, and includes part of Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park along the creek the Chenoweths settled beside.", "founded": { "settled": "1799", "platted": null, "incorporated": "1807", "by": "Thomas and Elijah Chenoweth, brothers from Maryland who came by way of Pike County, Ohio, were the township's first settlers, arriving in the fall of 1799; the township itself was organized in 1807", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "source_host": "archive.org" }, "name_origin": { "text": "No source found explains why this particular township took the name Pleasant. It is one of fifteen townships named Pleasant in Ohio, a generic, favorable name common across the state's early townships; the 1880 county history describes the land itself only in practical terms, as fertile bottomland along the Darby creeks and clay upland good for corn and grain.", "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Township,_Franklin_County,_Ohio", "source_host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, "native": { "text": "The 1880 county history's account of Pleasant Township's settlement contains one telling but unelaborated line: as the Chenoweth brothers and their neighbors built cabins and cleared land after 1799, 'in time, the Indian neighbors were supplanted by the hardy backwood settlers.' No source found names which nation those neighbors belonged to, or any village, trail, or camp site specific to this township; broader county-level context, including the historic nations who lived in, hunted, or traveled this part of the Scioto valley, will be in the Franklin County file. This land lay south and east of the Greenville Treaty Line and so was ceded to the United States by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, four years before the Chenoweths arrived. Earlier evidence does survive: the John Galbreath Mound, built by people of the Adena culture sometime between roughly 500 BC and AD 500, stands in Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park along Big Darby Creek, within or immediately adjoining the township. No excavation history or further detail on the mound was found in the sources checked.", "peoples": [ "Adena culture" ], "sites": [ { "name": "John Galbreath Mound", "type": "mound", "where": "Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park, Galloway, along Big Darby Creek, within or immediately adjoining Pleasant Township", "period": "Adena culture, roughly 500 BC – AD 500", "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galbreath_Mound", "source_host": "en.wikipedia.org" } ], "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galbreath_Mound", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Greenville" ] }, "timeline": [ { "year": "1795", "event": "The Treaty of Greenville cedes this part of the Scioto valley, lying south and east of the treaty line, to the United States.", "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Greenville", "datetime": "1795", "source_host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "year": "1799", "event": "In the fall, brothers Thomas and Elijah Chenoweth, natives of Maryland who had lived in Pike County, Ohio, become the township's first settlers, each buying 200 acres in and north of the future village of Harrisburg and building log cabins.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1799", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1800", "event": "On December 9, the first white child born in the township, a daughter of Elijah and Rachel Chenoweth, is born; she is named Cassandra.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1800", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1805", "event": "Samuel Dyer builds the township's first grist-mill, later rebuilt and owned by the widow of William Dyer.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1805", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1807", "event": "Pleasant Township is formally organized, at the time covering a much larger area than today; Samuel Kerr, John Smith, and others serve as its first justices of the peace.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1807", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1811", "event": "In summer, Thomas Miller teaches the township's first known school, in a log cabin on Samuel Kerr's farm, to children of the Chenoweth, Kerr, and Foster families.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1811", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1815-1816", "event": "A post office named for the township opens in 1815; Georgesville is laid out the following year at the forks of Big and Little Darby Creek, and the post office is renamed for it.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1815", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1819", "event": "Prairie Township is formed partly from Pleasant Township's territory (Jackson Township had already been cut off in 1815), reducing Pleasant to approximately its present limits.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1819", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1833", "event": "A gristmill and sawmill are operating on Little Darby Creek in the northern part of the township, according to Wikipedia's sourced history.", "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Township,_Franklin_County,_Ohio", "datetime": "1833", "source_host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "year": "1836", "event": "In June, Joseph Chenoweth has surveyor Frederick Cole lay out the village later called Harrisburg, on the site of the existing Darby Cross Roads post office.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1836", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1837", "event": "On March 24, George Geiger and William Foresman open the township's first store, in a small building in what is now Harrisburg.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1837", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1851", "event": "Harrisburgh incorporates as a village; Dr. J. Helmick is elected its first mayor.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1851", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1875", "event": "Dyer Chapel, a Methodist church attached to the California circuit, is built near Georgesville at a cost of $1,800.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "datetime": "1875", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "year": "1893", "event": "On March 30, the village's post office spelling is officially shortened from Harrisburgh to Harrisburg.", "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrisburg,_Ohio", "datetime": "1893", "source_host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "year": "1974", "event": "The John Galbreath Mound is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 15.", "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galbreath_Mound", "datetime": "1974", "source_host": "en.wikipedia.org" } ], "stories": [ { "title": "The Chenoweth brothers break ground", "text": "In the fall of 1799, Thomas and Elijah Chenoweth, brothers who had come from Maryland by way of Pike County, Ohio, bought 200 acres apiece in and north of what would become Harrisburg and raised log cabins before winter closed in. Elijah's cabin stood at the foot of a hill near a spring, a short walk from where a son's house would later stand. The 1880 county historian, working from the memory of Elijah's son and namesake, the only Chenoweth still living in the township, recorded the pace of change in a single line: 'the Indian neighbors were supplanted by the hardy backwood settlers,' and log cabins gave way, in time, to substantial houses and broad fields of grain. The first white child born in the township, a daughter of Elijah and his wife Rachel, arrived on December 9, 1800, and the family's first marriages and first burials followed soon after, all on Chenoweth land.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "title": "Darby Cross Roads becomes Harrisburg, twice", "text": "Before it had its present name, the crossroads settlement in southern Pleasant Township was a post office called Darby Cross Roads. In June 1836, Joseph Chenoweth had surveyor Frederick Cole lay the site out as a proper village, and it took the name Harrisburgh, after Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Its first tavern, built by John Morgan, was grandly named White Hall; by 1880 it had passed through several hosts and was known as the United States Hotel. The village incorporated in 1851 with Dr. J. Helmick as its first mayor, and by then had stores, a doctor, shoe and wagon shops, and a cornet band of ten musicians. The spelling only became 'Harrisburg,' as it is today, when the post office department officially dropped the final 'h' on March 30, 1893.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "title": "Georgesville, a village that mostly disappeared", "text": "Georgesville was laid out in 1816 near where Big and Little Darby Creek meet, a site earlier settlers had simply called the forks of the Darby. It was substantial enough in its early years to take over the township post office from Harrisburgh's predecessor and to support a store and a school. By the time the 1880 county history was written, though, its author could report that 'there is no vestige of a village on the opposite side of Darby creek' any longer; what remained was a separate little hamlet at the nearby railroad station, called J. L. Moore's Addition or New Georgesville, with a general store and a grocery. Dyer Chapel, a Methodist church built in 1875, stood in this later settlement. It is a small, concrete example of the kind of platted village that Ohio's nineteenth century produced by the dozen and then, just as often, let go.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "source_host": "archive.org" }, { "title": "Mills on the Darby", "text": "Water power shaped where people settled and what they could grow here. Samuel Dyer built the township's first grist-mill in 1805, on a site that was rebuilt at least once and was still running, owned by his son William's widow, when the county history was written in 1880. Roughly fifteen years before that, around the mid-1860s, Thomas Chenoweth put up a second flouring mill on Darby Creek. Wikipedia's sourced history adds a third data point: a gristmill and sawmill operating on Little Darby Creek in the township's northern end as early as 1833. Between these and the 'numerous,' mostly small, sawmills the 1880 account mentions in passing, Pleasant Township's Darby creeks did the same work nearly every early Ohio farm township's streams did, turning timber into lumber and grain into flour close to where both were grown.", "source": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "source_host": "archive.org" } ], "photos": [ { "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH1.JPG", "file": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/HarrisburgOH1.JPG", "caption": "The Harrisburg, Ohio corporation limit sign, 2013.", "credit": "Aesopposea", "license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "year": "2013", "basis": "Commons license tag cc-by-sa-3.0, uploaded by the photographer as own work", "thumb_url": "/history/photos/T63254-FRA_0.jpg", "w": 4608, "h": 2592, "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "host": "commons.wikimedia.org" }, { "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH2.JPG", "file": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/HarrisburgOH2.JPG", "caption": "Looking north on High Street in Harrisburg, Ohio, 2013.", "credit": "Aesopposea", "license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "year": "2013", "basis": "Commons license tag cc-by-sa-3.0, uploaded by the photographer as own work", "thumb_url": "/history/photos/T63254-FRA_1.jpg", "w": 4608, "h": 2592, "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "host": "commons.wikimedia.org" } ], "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Township,_Franklin_County,_Ohio", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrisburg,_Ohio", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galbreath_Mound", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Greenville", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH1.JPG", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH2.JPG" ], "gaps": "The batch file's NRHP hints tagged to this unit's ZIPs turned out to be mismatches on inspection: 'Madison County Courthouse,' 'Red Brick Tavern,' 'Swetland House,' 'First United Methodist Church,' and 'Wilson, Valentine, House' (all ZIP 43140) are in London, the seat of Madison County, a different county entirely, which only brushes this township's ZIP area at a 1.6% population share; none are used here. 'Scioto Township District No. 2 Schoolhouse' (ZIP 43146) carries the name of a different township, and no source found confirms it lies within Pleasant Township's own boundaries, so it is omitted. 'Gantz Homestead,' 'Grant, A. G., Homestead,' and 'Landes, Samuel, House' (ZIP 43123) could not be independently verified as being in Pleasant Township rather than neighboring Franklin Township, which shares that ZIP, so they are also omitted. The London water-system entries in the batch's sys_hist (Mid-Ohio WSD, Chrisman Avenue WTP, E. coli violations) likewise concern London's system in Madison County; no source found ties Pleasant Township's own water service to that district, so they are not used. The GNIS hint 'Millers' (ZIP 43146) could not be identified in any source checked. No pre-1930 or historic photograph of Harrisburg, Georgesville, or the John Galbreath Mound was found on Wikimedia Commons or in a Library of Congress search despite searching; both photos used here are modern (2013). Ohio History Central's article pages no longer resolve (the site redirects to the general ohiohistory.org research page), so it could not be used as a direct source.", "confidence": "high", "researched": "2026-09-10", "model": "sonnet", "founded_line": "Settled 1799, incorporated 1807, by Thomas and Elijah Chenoweth, brothers from Maryland who came by way of Pike County, Ohio, were the township's first settlers, arriving in the fall of 1799; the township itself was organized in 1807.", "wikipedia": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Township,_Franklin_County,_Ohio", "sources_h": [ { "url": "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari", "host": "archive.org" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Township,_Franklin_County,_Ohio", "host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrisburg,_Ohio", "host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galbreath_Mound", "host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Greenville", "host": "en.wikipedia.org" }, { "url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH1.JPG", "host": "commons.wikimedia.org" }, { "url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH2.JPG", "host": "commons.wikimedia.org" } ] }, "links": [ [ "archive.org", "https://archive.org/details/historyoffrankli0000vari" ], [ "en.wikipedia.org", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Township,_Franklin_County,_Ohio" ], [ "en.wikipedia.org", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrisburg,_Ohio" ], [ "en.wikipedia.org", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galbreath_Mound" ], [ "en.wikipedia.org", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Greenville" ], [ "commons.wikimedia.org", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH1.JPG" ], [ "commons.wikimedia.org", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrisburgOH2.JPG" ] ], "generated": "2026-09-16", "license": "CC BY 4.0 for the compilation; each source keeps its own terms", "cite": "Cracked Buckeye (Open Shower Co), \"Pleasant Township, Franklin County\", https://crackedbuckeye.com/place/pleasant-township-franklin-county/, built 2026-09-16, accessed [date].", "schema": "https://crackedbuckeye.com/api/schema.json" }