Barnhill

How Barnhill began

Barnhill, in the southeastern part of Goshen Township in central Tuscarawas County, grew up as a coal-mining town called Pike Run, named for the creek in whose valley it sits. Long before the mines, Pennsylvania-born farmers named Valentine Fleck and Jacob and David Foreman had settled quietly on the same land in the 1810s. Coal mining began about 1872, and the Tuscarawas Valley Coal Company (incorporated 1873) and the Brock Hill Coal Company (incorporated 1881) turned Pike Run into a company town of 500 to 600 people with its own church, lodge and stores; the only recorded town plat, thirty-six lots surveyed in 1881, was never given a name of its own, since the place was already known by its post office name, Barnhill. The coal economy that built it declined in the 20th century, and the 2020 census counted 383 residents, well under the mining-era peak.

Settled 1810s (Fleck and Foreman families, farming, before the coal boom), platted 1881 (Kent's building lots, surveyed by Oliver Young), by Tuscarawas Valley Coal Company (incorporated 1873) and Brock Hill Coal Company (incorporated 1881) built the mining town; the lots were surveyed by Oliver Young in 1881.

Where the name comes from

The village was known locally as Pike Run, named for the creek running through the settlement, on whose banks Valentine Fleck and Jacob and David Foreman, Pennsylvania-born farmers, had settled decades before the coal boom. The post office serving the mining town was named Barnhill, and this name -- not Pike Run -- became the village's lasting identity; the 1884 county history states this plainly ('The name of the post office here is Barnhill') but does not explain who Barnhill was or why the name was chosen. A local-history photo caption says the post office was named in honor of Judge J. H. Barnhill of New Philadelphia, who was instrumental in obtaining it.

Before the town

No Native site on the Pike Run tract itself is recorded. The 1884 county history does place the Moravian Indians of Goshen Mission in the same township: Rev. David Zeisberger established Goshen in 1798 west of the Tuscarawas about four miles below New Philadelphia, on what is now Lot 39, and its Christian Delaware residents farmed a little, hunted, and sold baskets of pounded black-ash splints to settlers. Pike Run is in the township's southeast corner, so the mission was some miles away, and the book does not say whether its people used the Pike Run valley.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

• Goshen Mission (Moravian) (village) — west of the Tuscarawas River, about four miles below New Philadelphia, on Lot 39, Goshen Township, 1798-1823 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1798 — Moravian missionary David Zeisberger establishes the Goshen Mission for Christian Lenape (Delaware) converts west of the Tuscarawas about four miles below New Philadelphia, in what is now Goshen Township; it is occupied until 1823-24.
2. 1810s — Valentine Fleck and brothers Jacob and David Foreman, all Pennsylvania natives, settle as farmers on Pike Run in the fourth quarter of Township 8, Range 1, decades before coal mining begins; all three remain life-long residents of the township.
3. 1853 — Robert Hanna lays out sixteen lots called Ontario Mills about a half mile north of the future Pike Run site; the village never prospers and nothing remains of it.
4. 1853 — A Methodist class is organized in the southeast of Goshen Township after revival services led by Rev. Alexander Scott; in 1854, under Rev. Simon P. Wolf, a 28 by 38 foot frame church called Sansom's Chapel is built near Pike Run for $600.
5. 1872 — Coal mining begins on Pike Run in the southeast part of Goshen Township, worked for about a year before the Tuscarawas Valley Coal Company incorporates.
6. 1873 — The Tuscarawas Valley Coal Company, backed by Cleveland stockholders, is incorporated; by the early 1880s it employs about 150 miners and yields roughly 300 tons of coal a day under General Superintendent J. E. Waters.
7. 1881 — The Brock Hill Coal Company is incorporated, with J. M. Shanks of New Philadelphia as General Superintendent, matching the older company's output and workforce; the same year Oliver Young surveys the only recorded town plat, Kent's building lots, thirty-six lots in five tiers on Main and Center streets.
8. 1881 — A post office named Barnhill is recorded from 1881 to 1929 in the postal-history list, the name by which the mining town of Pike Run came to be known; the same year Alex Bartholomew builds the Union Hotel at Pike Run.
9. 1882 — The Pike Run United Brethren Church is organized in the spring by Rev. George F. Deal with sixty-three members; a frame church, 36x48 feet, is built the same year on a lot donated by the coal company, dedicated by Dr. Z. Warner of Parkersburg.
10. 1883 — La Belle Lodge No. 160, Knights of Pythias, is instituted at Pike Run on May 16 with thirty-five members, named for Andrew Baggs of Bridgeport, Ohio, who donated two building lots; by this time the town has a population of 500 to 600, three stores, a church and this lodge.
11. 1883 — The new Plains Church, a frame building with arched ceiling and stained glass that cost $3,500, is dedicated in February on the site of the old Sansom's Chapel near Pike Run, with about eighty members.
12. 1890 — Census figures for the Barnhill area show 969 residents, reflecting the community's size before or during its early mining-era growth.
13. 1900 — The census counts 811 residents, down from 969 in 1890.
14. 1910 — The census counts 506 residents, as the mining-era population falls away.
15. 2020 — The census counts 383 residents in Barnhill.

Stories

Farmers on Pike Run, before the mines

Decades before anyone dug coal here, Pike Run was just a small stream in the southeast corner of Goshen Township with a handful of quiet farms along it. Valentine Fleck and brothers Jacob and David Foreman, all born in Pennsylvania, took up land on the creek in the 1810s -- Fleck on Lot 36, Jacob Foreman on Lot 29, David on Lot 26 -- and stayed for life. For half a century the place had no name beyond the creek itself. Then, beginning about 1872, coal companies moved in, and within a decade the same stretch of valley held two incorporated coal companies, some 300 miners, a church, a lodge and a population of five or six hundred -- a company town built on ground the Flecks and Foremans had farmed in obscurity a lifetime earlier.

A company town on Pike Run

By 1884 the most extensive coal mines in Tuscarawas County lay in the southeast corner of Goshen Township on Pike Run. The Tuscarawas Valley Coal Company, owned by Cleveland men and run by J. E. Waters of Bridgeport, had worked the seam for a year before it was incorporated in 1873, and it employed about 150 men and brought out some 300 tons a day. The Brock Hill Coal Company, incorporated in 1881 with J. M. Shanks of New Philadelphia as superintendent, matched it. The two mines made a town of 500 or 600 people with three stores, a Knights of Pythias lodge and a church, whose only recorded plat was Kent's thirty-six building lots, surveyed by Oliver Young in 1881 along two streets, Main and Center. The post office was named Barnhill, and the coal company gave the United Brethren a lot in 1882 for a $2,000 church, dedicated by Dr. Z. Warner of Parkersburg.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · postalhistory.com

Wells in the sand-and-gravel aquifer within the Tuscarawas River valley near New Philadelphia The water here

• New Philadelphia City97% of residentsTuscarawas River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Midvale2% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Tcmsd-wainwright0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tuscarawas Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Dover City0% of residentsSugar Creek Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (Dover wellfield)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 0 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 1.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-07

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