Bedford Township, Coshocton County

How Bedford Township, Coshocton County began

Bedford Township, in the western part of Coshocton County, was set off from Newcastle Township and organized by the county commissioners in 1825, with its first election at the house of Henry Haines. It is named for Bedford County, Pennsylvania, which sent at least fifteen or eighteen of its early families, among them the Haines, Wolford, Wright, McCoy and McCurdy households. Richard Shelton came about 1808 and Henry Haines settled in 1811. West Bedford was laid out in 1817 by Micajah Heaton, and the township's other community, Tunnel Hill, takes its name from the railroad tunnel on the Noland farm, begun in 1873 and later built through. In 1858 to 1860 coal-oil works distilled cannel coal on the township's hills. The township had 920 people in 1880 and 604 in 2020.

Settled c. 1816-1818, incorporated 1825, by settlers from Bedford County, Pennsylvania, including Daniel, William and James McCurdy and Edward McCoy.

Where the name comes from

Named for Bedford County, Pennsylvania, because many of the township's first settlers came from there.

Before the town

The 1881 county history says plainly that no Indian village existed within the bounds of the township, though Native people frequently camped along its small streams, and that few settlers had arrived when they left the region, so there was little contact. It records one Indian called J. Cook who camped for some time on the southwest quarter of section 22 on a branch of Wakatomica run, and, when Henry Haines was about to raise his cabin in 1811, an Indian village near Dresden whose ponies two workmen borrowed and whose owner and his half-grown son tracked the horses to Haines's door. The township was never a village site; the Delaware (Lenape) towns of the county lay along the Muskingum forks and the Walhonding.

Timeline

1. c. 1808 — Richard Shelton, a hunter by nature, settles on lot 25 of the military section, regarded as the first white settler of the township.
2. c. 1810 — Ezra Horton, from the Cumberland valley of Maryland, settles on the southwest quarter of section 6; his wife Jemima is noted as a pioneer physician.
3. 1811 — Henry Haines of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, moves in spring to the northwest quarter of section 18 and lives six months in a three-sided cabin; he builds up a herd and pays for his land by driving hogs to Zanesville.
4. 1813 — The road from Dresden to the mouth of Owl Creek, which passes through the site of West Bedford, is completed.
5. c. 1814 — John Wolford builds the first mill in the township.
6. c. 1816-1818 — Brothers Daniel, William, and James McCurdy settle in sections 19 and 20 of what becomes Bedford Township; Edward McCoy, also from Bedford County, Pennsylvania, settles in section 17.
7. 1817-09-13 — Micajah Heaton, a tavern-keeper and postmaster, lays out West Bedford on the northeast quarter of section 16; it is long called Heaton's Town.
8. c. 1818 — The first school in the township is taught in a deserted cabin on the northeast quarter of section 6; Thomas McBride and William McCoy teach in another.
9. 1823 — The Christian (New Light) church is organized.
10. 1825 — Bedford Township is organized and named for Bedford County, Pennsylvania.
11. c. 1828 — Edward McCoy starts a distillery on section 17; several small stills run in the township over the following years.
12. c. 1846 — The West Bedford academy is organized by a stock company, with land donated by William Renfrew; it burns after four or five years.
13. 1858-1860 — Coal-oil works distilling cannel coal from the hills of the northeast operate here and in Jefferson Township, with firms from Steubenville, Pittsburgh and New York; Ezra Cornell superintends works here in person.
14. 1873 — The Dresden branch of the Cleveland, Mount Vernon and Columbus railroad is partly built; work stops in the panic with a tunnel unfinished at Tunnel Hill on William Noland's farm.
15. 1880 — The census counts 920 people in Bedford Township.
16. 1887 — A railroad tunnel is built at what becomes the community of Tunnel Hill.
17. 1936 — The Noland Railroad Tunnel at Tunnel Hill, built in 1887, is closed.
18. 2020 — Bedford Township has 604 residents.

Stories

Heaton's Town becomes West Bedford

In September 1817, Micajah Heaton, who had arrived from Bedford County, Pennsylvania about a year earlier, laid out a village on his own quarter-section in the western part of what would become Bedford Township. For years locals simply called it Heaton's Town after its founder, before the more formal name West Bedford came into general use, echoing the Pennsylvania county the Heatons and their neighbors the McCurdys and McCoys had left behind.

A tunnel gives Tunnel Hill its name

Bedford Township's other small community, Tunnel Hill, takes its name from a railroad tunnel built through the hill in 1887. The line was abandoned in 1936, but the name stuck to the crossroads settlement that grew up beside it.

Cannel coal and the coal-oil boom

In 1858 Colonel Metham of Jefferson Township bought coal land in Bedford Township with William Stanton of Coshocton, then went to Newark to learn how coal oil was made. He found excitement there and the idea followed: instead of hauling the rich cannel coal to Newark, move the retorts to the coal. Several firms came, Captain Stuart of Steubenville with two sets of works, Forsythe & Brothers of Pittsburgh with thirty-two retorts, Dr. Semple, and Ezra Cornell of New York, who superintended his works here in person. The retorts were upright cast-iron cylinders about nine feet high, filled with coal, sealed and heated from outside, and the vapors piped off and condensed. The boom ran from 1858 to about 1860 and mostly on foreign capital; the retorts, the 1881 history says, were hauled away during the war and, it was said, cast into shells.

The horses that went to Dresden

When Henry Haines was ready to raise his cabin in 1811 he had no neighbors to help and walked toward Dresden to hire workmen. Two men agreed to come but complained of the distance, and Haines joked that they might ride the ponies of the Indian village nearby. The next morning the two arrived at his door on horseback. Soon afterward an Indian and his half-grown son turned up, having tracked their stolen horses to the clearing. A jug of whisky softened their anger, they stayed all day, and in the evening they rode their recovered horses home, leaving the two workmen to walk back. The story is from the 1881 county history.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Coshocton70% of residentsSand & gravel aquifer near Walhonding River/Mill Creek valley (wells)
• Warsaw30% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Bomac Mobile Home Park1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-07

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