Adams Township, Clinton County

How Adams Township, Clinton County began

Adams Township, in the western part of Clinton County, was organized by the county commissioners in 1849 out of pieces of Chester, Vernon and Union townships and named for President John Quincy Adams. It never grew an incorporated town of its own; the unincorporated crossroads of Ogden and Sligo, and the Eli Harvey House north of Clarksville, are its best-documented landmarks. Early settlement reached the township by 1812-1815, with families arriving from Virginia's Todd's Fork country, and today most residents draw water from Wilmington's municipal system or, since 1976, the rural Western Water Company cooperative.

Settled 1804 (Samuel Lee, first resident, near Springfield Meeting-House), incorporated 1849, by Clinton County Commissioners, from parts of Chester, Vernon and Union townships.

Where the name comes from

Named for President John Quincy Adams, one of ten Adams Townships in Ohio.

Before the town

The Hillside Haven Mound, an archaeological site at 1786 State Route 380 in Adams Township, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 21, 1978. No Native village, trail or treaty line specific to Adams Township was found, but the 1881 county history records several local traces. Indian Branch, about half a mile east of Ogden, is said to have been named because a tribe made its home on its banks at times, probably during hunting trips, and cleared a patch of rich bottom land; settlers could still see the stumps cut with hatchets. The same history lists one of Clinton County's three prehistoric inclosures near Springfield Meeting-House, partly on David Curl's land: about an acre, surrounded by a ditch and an outer circular wall, with the meeting-house sheds and graveyard inside. Nearby on Curl's land is a mound about seventy-five feet across and eight feet high that its excavators called sacrificial: under the surface lay earth thrown over hot embers, then an altar of burnt clay baked to coarse glass, with decomposed human bones and a copper awl. A long mound near Sligo is the only non-circular mound the author knew in the county. The township lies in the Virginia Military District, opened to survey after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• Springfield Meeting-House inclosure and altar mound (earthwork) — near Springfield Meeting-House, partly on David Curl's land, Adams Township, prehistoric, undated; the 'sacrificial mound' reading is the 1881 author's interpretation (archive.org)
• Long mound near Sligo (mound) — near Sligo, Adams Township, prehistoric, undated (archive.org)
• Indian Branch encampment (camp) — about half a mile east of Ogden, Adams Township, before settlement, per the 1881 account (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1802 — Gen. William Lytle of Cincinnati is deeded 700 acres off Dudley's Survey No. 2,789 on Todd's Fork in payment for locating the 2,660-acre tract; Lytle's Creek is named for him.
2. 1805 — Mordecai Mendenhall builds a grist mill on Todd's Fork, probably the first on that stream; it passes through Wright, Fallis, Hadley and others until it is taken down about 1867.
3. 1808 — Eli Harvey and John Hadley build Hadley's Mill on Todd's Fork below Springfield Meeting-House; the first schoolhouse in the township is built the same year on Isaac Harvey's land.
4. 1812 — Thomas Kersey settled on Todd's Fork adjoining his brother-in-law John Carter, among the area's early settlers.
5. 1811 — Caleb Harvey builds a carding and fulling mill on Little Creek that is so busy it sometimes runs at night.
6. 1815 — William Osborn came from Virginia, lived a year on the Samuel Harvey place on Lytle's Creek, then bought and settled 100 acres in the extreme southeastern part of the township.
7. 1818 — John Holladay builds a saw mill on Lytle's Creek near the site of Ogden, adding a grist mill three years later.
8. 1819-04-03 — Viewers report a road from Centre Meeting-House down Todd's Fork past Fallis's Mill; a second road from Shields's Mill on Cowan's Creek to Fallis's Mill follows in October.
9. 1822-1823 — A state road from Columbus to Cincinnati is surveyed; a commission in 1823 chooses a better route through Wilmington, Clarksville and the mouth of Todd's Fork, mainly along the divide between Todd's Fork and Lytle's Creek.
10. 1834 — A frame schoolhouse with clay-chinked walls and slab benches is built on the Holaday (later Quinby) farm; the Friends of Springfield Monthly Meeting build their first schoolhouse in 1835.
11. 1835-1840 — The Goshen, Columbus & Wilmington turnpike is chartered in 1835 and built through the township mainly in 1839-40; a toll-gate house goes up at Sligo in 1840.
12. 1839-1841 — John Kimbrough opens a smithy at Sligo in 1839 and buys lots in 1841; the town is said to take its name from the Sligo Mills brand of iron used at the shop, itself named for Sligo in Ireland.
13. 1844-03-13 — A post office is established at Sligo with George Slack as postmaster; it moves to Ogden on September 8, 1865.
14. 1849 — Clinton County Commissioners organized Adams Township from parts of Chester, Vernon and Union townships, naming it for John Quincy Adams.
15. 1849-05-12 — The first township election is held at John H. Moore's shop in Sligo, with Jeremiah Kimbrough, David Jenks and Peter Osborn chosen trustees and Jonathan D. Hadley clerk; Hiram Maden's survey gives the township 22 1/4 square miles.
16. 1855 — Ogden, first called Linden, becomes a passenger and freight station on the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad after neighbors raise $700; the name is changed because of confusion with Lyndon station.
17. 1860-1866 — Asa Green and John B. Carter lay out lots at Ogden; a store opens in 1864 under Quinby & Huffman and Ogden becomes the township's post office in 1865.
18. 1881 — The 1881 county history cites three prehistoric inclosures in Clinton County, one at Springfield Meeting-House in Adams Township, and counts a long mound near Sligo as the only non-circular mound in the county.
19. 1899-1906 — Wilmington, just east of the township, built its first municipal water system after a mixed 1899 vote and a successful 1901 vote; township residents near the city line have drawn on it since.
20. 1976 — Western Water Company was founded as a non-profit, customer-owned rural water system serving parts of Brown, Clermont, Clinton and Warren counties, working with USDA financing from its beginning.

Stories

The Harvey house that outlasted its neighbors

North of Clarksville on the Lebanon Road stands the Eli Harvey House, a brick farmhouse old enough and intact enough to have been added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It is one of the very few individually landmarked buildings anywhere in Adams Township, which — unlike Wilmington or Blanchester nearby — never incorporated a village of its own; its history is the history of scattered farms rather than a downtown. The house's survival into the Register is really a record of a township that stayed agricultural and low-density long enough for its older buildings to remain standing rather than be replaced.

Sligo and the iron brand

Sligo was a crossroads on the Lebanon road before it was a town, and the 1881 county historian says it took its name from the brand on the iron used at the local smithy, which was made at the Sligo Mills in Pittsburgh, probably named for the town in northern Ireland. John Swindler was its first blacksmith and John Kimbrough kept the log shop from 1839, building a brick one in 1841; John Shields built the first toll-gate house on the new pike in 1840, and George Slack became first postmaster in 1844. The citizens of Sligo, which straddled the line between Chester and Vernon townships, petitioned in March 1849 for a township of their own with Sligo as its voting place, were told the survey enclosed too little land, and tried again; the township was established on May 1 and voted at John H. Moore's shop on May 12. When the railroad came in 1855 the new station at Ogden drew business away, and in 1865 the post office moved there to save the cost of carrying the mail between the two.

The altar mound at Springfield Meeting-House

Dr. B. Welch of Wilmington and J. M. Richardson began about 1867 to excavate the prehistoric works of Clinton County systematically, and their collection soon held more finely finished slate relics than the Smithsonian's, by the county history's account. One of the mounds they opened stood on David Curl's land near Springfield Meeting-House, beside an inclosure of about an acre surrounded by a ditch and wall that enclosed the Quaker meeting-house sheds and graveyard. About seventy-five feet across at the base and eight feet high, its height much reduced by plowing, it had a surface like the surrounding soil, then earth thrown over embers, then an altar of burnt clay slightly depressed in the center, fired so hot that wood and sand had fused to coarse glass. They found badly decomposed human bones and a copper awl, and other copper tools close by. The nineteenth-century investigators called it a sacrificial mound; the source offers no date or culture.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · genealogytrails.com · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · web.archive.org

Every historic place in Clinton County on the full map

Ohio River intake at the plant's riverfront on Kellogg Ave in the California neighborhood, east Cincinnati The water here

• Wilmington City54% of residentsCaesar Creek Lake (with Burtonville reservoirs/Cowan Creek as backup)
• Western Water Company41% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)
• Clarksville Village5% of residentsOhio River (Miller Plant, ~88%) plus Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (~12%)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2026-05-05; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-06-03

Statewide question: State Issue 3: Voter ID

Local questions for Adams Township, Clinton County, Clinton County and its school district:

• Clinton County: Miscellaneous, for Gas aggregation.
• Clinton County: Renews a 0.5-mill property tax levy to maintain & operate health department of Clinton County for 5 years, beginning in 2027.
• Clinton County: Renews a 2.35-mill property tax levy for the provide & maintain senior citizens services or facilities of Clinton County for 5 years, beginning in 2027.

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