Bethlehem Township, Stark County

How Bethlehem Township, Stark County began

Bethlehem Township, on the Tuscarawas River at the southwestern edge of Stark County, takes its name from the Moravian town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, whose missionaries worked among the Lenape (Delaware) on the Tuscarawas; Christian Frederick Post built a mission cabin in the township in 1761, near the Lenape town called Tuscarora Town. Philadelphia lawyers Jonathan W. Condy and Martin Brinton bought land there, and Condy laid out the village of Bethlehem in 1806; Quaker, Pennsylvania German and Methodist families followed, and the township was created on December 12, 1816. George Brantingham laid out Calcutta on the river in 1819 as a flatboat landing, and after the Ohio and Erie Canal opened, the rival villages of Bethlehem, Rochester and Navarre became busy wheat markets until they were joined as Navarre in 1871. The township had 2,303 people in 1880 and 5,520 in 2020.

Settled by 1807 (Richard Carter at the mouth of Sandy Creek; Ebenezer Allman 1807), platted 1806 (village of Bethlehem, by Jonathan W. Condy), incorporated December 12, 1816 (township created), by Jonathan W. Condy and Martin Brinton, Philadelphia landowners.

Where the name comes from

The 1881 History of Stark County says the township was named for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the town founded by Moravians, because Moravian missionaries from there had established a mission among the Indians within what became the township. It also records that Jonathan W. Condy, who laid out the village of Bethlehem, intended a religious community molded on the Moravian society at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, after which he named the town.

Before the town

The Tuscarawas River valley at the mouth of Sandy Creek was a center of Lenape (Delaware) life in the mid-1700s. The 1881 county history places Tuscarora Town, a Delaware village of about forty wigwams that could send 180 warriors to war, about two-thirds of a mile south of the cabin Christian Frederick Post built in 1761 on the north bank of the Tuscarawas in Section 25 of the township; a trader named Thomas Calhoun kept a cabin across the river. Post and John Heckewelder lived there in 1762, Captain Pipe paced off a garden plot for them, and the history names Beaver as chief of the Delawares and Shingas as war chief. Later traders, including Richard Carter, dealt with Native customers at a trading house on the old mission site in the first years of white settlement. The township's southern boundary partly follows the Greenville Treaty line, and the Tuscarawas divides it: land east of the Tuscarawas River had its Native title extinguished by the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785, a boundary confirmed at Greenville in 1795, according to the 1881 county history. Land west of the river was part of the New Purchase acquired at the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

• Tuscarora Town (Delaware village) (village) — Tuscarawas River near the mouth of Sandy Creek, about two-thirds of a mile south of the Post cabin; described by Rev. David Yant as within the original bounds of the township, 1750s-1760s (archive.org)
• Christian Frederick Post's mission cabin (other) — north bank of the Tuscarawas River, Section 25, Bethlehem Township, near the confluence with Sandy Creek, 1761-1762 (archive.org)
• Greenville Treaty line (treaty) — forms part of the southern boundary of the township, dipping southwest from Section 34, 1795 (archive.org)
• New Purchase (Treaty of Fort Industry cession) (treaty) — the part of Stark County west of the Tuscarawas River, 1805 (archive.org)
• Fort McIntosh and Greenville treaty cession (land east of the Tuscarawas) (treaty) — Stark County east of the Tuscarawas River, including the part of Bethlehem Township east of the river, 1785 and 1795 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1761 — Christian Frederick Post builds a log cabin on the north bank of the Tuscarawas in what became Section 25, near the Delaware village of Tuscarora Town.
2. 1762 — Post and John Heckewelder arrive in the spring to start a mission; Post leaves in August and Heckewelder in October, and the mission is not resumed.
3. 1806 — Jonathan W. Condy lays out the village of Bethlehem while the area is still part of Columbiana County.
4. 1807 — Ebenezer Allman arrives from Bentleysville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, and settles on Section 4.
5. 1814 — Abraham Yant brings his family from near Pittsburgh on September 10 after two weeks on the road in constant rain.
6. 1815 — A June flood on the Tuscarawas traps Richard Carter's household on its second floor; Abraham and Philip Yant free a canoe and carry them out.
7. 1815 — The first Methodist society is organized at the house of Ebenezer Allman; services are held there until a church is built in Bethlehem in 1835.
8. 1816 — Bethlehem Township is created on December 12, and its first election is held in April 1817.
9. 1818 — Salem Church, known as the Sherman Church, is built for Lutheran and German Reformed congregations on ground given by John Sherman.
10. 1819 — George Brantingham lays out Calcutta on the Tuscarawas and builds a warehouse; flatboats load flour, whiskey, bacon and Canton pottery for New Orleans until about 1822.
11. 1820 — The township's population is recorded at 489 residents.
12. 1827 — Jonathan W. Condy dies in August after his horse, stung by yellow jackets on a corduroy bridge, throws him.
13. 1828 — A post office opens at Bethlehem on February 8 with Thomas Hurford as postmaster; it is renamed Navarre on August 14, 1843.
14. 1833 — The township's economy includes two stores and two sawmills.
15. 1833 — In October Nathan McGrew lays out 36 lots as Rochester, west of Bethlehem along the river.
16. 1834 — In March James Duncan lays out Navarre on the Ohio and Erie Canal between Rochester and Bethlehem.
17. 1850 — Population reaches 2,398, a 135.3 percent increase over 1840, the township's largest single-decade growth period.
18. 1871 — The county commissioners grant a petition to incorporate Bethlehem, Navarre and Rochester as the single village of Navarre; its first election is held in April 1872.
19. 1880 — The township counts 2,303 residents and eight school districts.
20. 1970 — Population reaches 4,528 residents.
21. 2008 — St. Paul's Reformed Church on Erie Avenue south of Navarre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
22. 2020 — The U.S. Census records 5,520 residents in Bethlehem Township.

Stories

Calcutta, head of navigation

George Brantingham, a Quaker from England who had traded Philadelphia property for 500 acres at the mouth of Sandy Creek, laid out a town called Calcutta on the Tuscarawas in 1819. He held a sale of lots and built a warehouse on the riverbank, and several flatboats were loaded there for the southern trade with flour, whiskey, bacon and pottery made at Canton. Frederick C. Ubersich kept a store with about $500 in goods, six or eight families lived in the town, and a printer named White came looking for a place to start a paper but stayed only a few months. Calcutta was considered the head of navigation on the Tuscarawas, but except in high water the river proved unsafe, and wrecks with lost cargoes ended the New Orleans trade; the last flatboat went down about 1822. The town plat was vacated, and by 1881 the site was part of John Kaler's farm.

John Swank's bear cubs

Rev. David Yant, whose family settled in the township in 1814, recalled that John Swank once treed four bear cubs on a dogwood sapling, tied them in pairs with tow from his pocket and carried them off, scaring away their mother with a dead limb. He kept two of them, and they slept with a pet pig in a hollow sycamore log set up as a shelter. One rainy night after washday the bears took the clothes off the line, carried them up a red oak in the woods and made a nest of them. When the family came to cut the tree, the bears ran out on a limb, rolled into balls, dropped to the ground and ran home. Yant wrote that on evening visits the tame bears would ambush the children in the dark and catch the last one by the foot, but never hurt anyone.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · railsandtrails.com · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org

Every historic place in Stark County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Navarre Village44% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Canton Public Water System17% of residentsGlacial sand-and-gravel aquifer (3 well fields)
• Lake Sherman Village10% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Massillon8% of residentsWells in Tuscarawas Valley sand & gravel aquifer
• Brewster Village8% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Tcmsd-wilkshire Hills6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Bolivar Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Beach City Village2% of residentsGlacial sand-and-gravel aquifer (3 well fields)
• East Sparta Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Mount Eaton Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Wilmot Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-08-12: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 4 of 4 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-08

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