Bern Township, Athens County

How Bern Township, Athens County began

Bern Township, in the northeastern corner of Athens County, was set off from Ames Township in 1828 and is named for Bern, Switzerland. It is a small, thinly populated farm township whose land, watered by the headwaters of Federal Creek, was known even in 1869 to hold abundant coal and workable salt water beneath its thirty surveyed sections (the township's eastern tier having been ceded to Washington County in 1807). Its only village-sized place, Sharpsburg, holds the township office.

Settled 1817 (John Henry, an Irish immigrant, is among the earliest recorded settlers), incorporated 1828-03-03, by Athens County commissioners, setting off surveyed township No. 7, range 12, from Ames Township; electors met at the house of John Henry to choose officers.

Where the name comes from

Bern Township is named for the city of Bern, Switzerland; the reason for the choice is not recorded.

Before the town

No Native site specific to Bern Township is recorded. At the county level, the Shawnee are recorded as occupying the Hocking Valley including Athens County before white settlement, and Lord Dunmore's 1774 expedition camped at Federal Creek and Sunday Creek, both south and west of Bern Township. No mounds, trails or treaty lines specific to this township are recorded.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1807 — Six sections forming the easternmost tier of the township's survey township were transferred to Washington County.
2. 1815 — James Dickey, later a Bern Township farmer, marries Betsy Brown near Marietta, having spent his young manhood as a post rider carrying mail on horseback between Marietta and Chillicothe, sometimes swimming flooded, bridgeless creeks in the night to keep the mail moving.
3. 1817 — John Henry, a native of Ireland then fifty-three years old, settles in Bern Township and buys a section of land where his son Charles Henry later lives; he raises eighteen children to adulthood by two wives before his death in 1854.
4. 1820 — David and Daniel James and Philip W. Lampson settle in Bern Township; the James family remains in Bern for generations.
5. 1821 — James Dickey removes to Bern Township and settles on Sharp's Fork, where he farms for about thirty-four years and later serves as county commissioner and township trustee.
6. 1822 — William Rardin, born near Pittsburgh, settles at the head of the valley of Marietta Run on the state road between Marietta and Athens, one of the wolves' last retreats; he farms there all his life.
7. 1828-03-03 — Bern Township was organized, having previously been part of Ames Township; electors are directed to meet at the house of John Henry to elect officers.
8. 1830 — Bern Township has 223 inhabitants; 381 in 1840; 819 in 1850; 1,022 in 1860.
9. 1833 — Dyar Selby, born in New York in 1784, settles in Bern about this year and later serves as township trustee and justice of the peace.
10. 1838 — Thornton Swart, a Virginia-born veteran of the War of 1812, settles on Possum Run next to Owen Gifford.
11. 1863 — John Wickham, a Vermont-born War of 1812 volunteer who had come to Athens County in 1805 and later moved from Rome Township to Bern, dies on March 19.

Stories

The mail rider of the Marietta road

James Dickey, born of Irish parents in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1788, came west with his father in 1798 and as a young man carried the mail on horseback between Marietta and Chillicothe, roughly a hundred miles each way. During the War of 1812, when the route also carried government dispatches, he and two other riders each made a weekly round trip regardless of weather, fording streams that had no bridges; once, swimming a flooded creek near Amesville at night, he soaked the mailbag through and had to dry it by a fire at a regular stop before riding on in the dark. His rest stops doubled as hunting breaks — he'd bring back a deer or wild turkey and get board credit for the meat. He married in 1815, farmed near Marietta, then in 1821 moved to Bern Township and settled on Sharp's Fork, where his house became a favored stop for travelers and he farmed for over three decades before retiring to his son's home in McConnelsville, where he died in 1862.

Eighteen children and fifty-six grandchildren

John Henry left Ireland and settled in Bern Township in 1817 at age fifty-three, buying a section of land that his son Charles Henry would later work. Twice married, he raised four sons and five daughters by his first wife and four sons and six daughters by his second, living to see eight sons and ten daughters married and settled before his death in February 1854; he left behind eighteen children, fifty-six grandchildren, and, by then, a number of great-grandchildren. A Presbyterian and, in the county historian's words, 'a leading and influential citizen,' his descendants later intermarried with the Glazier family and remain well known in the county.

The last wolves of Marietta Run

When William Rardin came from near Pittsburgh in 1822 and settled at the head of the valley of Marietta Run, on the state road between Marietta and Athens, wolves were still a scourge in Bern Township, and his secluded valley was among their last retreats. Rardin farmed there all his life and his descendants were well known in Bern in 1869. The township he settled had only thirty sections, because the eastern tier had been set off to Washington County in 1807, and in 1830 it counted just 223 people, rising to 1,022 by 1860 as its farmland, coal and salt water drew settlers.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Amesville Public Water System86% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Sunday Creek Valley Water7% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Chesterhill Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.3% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 5 of 5 passed.

Ballot issues

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-05-07
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-13

Cite this page