Bloom Township, Morgan County

How Bloom Township, Morgan County began

Bloom Township lies in the northern part of Morgan County along the Muskingum River, bordering Muskingum County, and has never contained an incorporated village. The first cabins went up on the river side near the county line around 1800, but the township was not set off until the Morgan County commissioners created it in 1819 and settlers filled in the heavily timbered uplands after Congress cut the price of public land in 1820. Its small places were Airington (begun 1836 and nearly empty by 1886), Eagleport (laid out 1837 above the Muskingum dam) and Rokeby (platted beside the lock). Pioneers split rails, boiled salt, imported Durham cattle and fulled their wool by foot at 'kickings'; an Episcopal church at Eagleport is one of the few surviving landmarks. The township covers 25.6 square miles and had 962 residents at the 2020 census.

Settled c. 1800 on the river side near the Muskingum County line (James Larrison, Abraham Larrison); main settlement from 1818-1821, by township set off by the Morgan County commissioners and recognized by the court of common pleas on July 7, 1819; settlers of 1818-21 included the Briggs, McCune, Talley and Nicholas families.

Where the name comes from

Not established. The 1886 county history says only that the commissioners "set off a new township by the name of Bloom" in 1819 and gives no reason for the name.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound or trail specific to Bloom Township was found. The 1886 county history's Bloom chapter, which tells of pioneer hunters, bears and a squirrel migration, does not mention Native people. The township lies within the Ohio Company purchase and the land ceded by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville; Lenape (Delaware) people occupied the Muskingum valley before settlement according to the county history's general statement.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. c. 1800 — James Larrison lives just across the county line in Muskingum County, and his son Abraham soon moves to the Siler farm in Bloom: the first known settlement on the township's river side.
2. 1818 — Morgan County is created by the General Assembly; James Briggs, the township's first blacksmith, and the McCune and Lawrence families arrive in Bloom this year.
3. c. 1819 — Early settlers begin improving land in what becomes Bloom Township; the small communities of Eagleport, Airington, and Rokeby develop gradually over the following decades.
4. 1819-07-07 — The court of common pleas notes that the county commissioners have 'set off a new township by the name of Bloom' and orders an election of two justices for July 24 at the house of Edward Nicholas.
5. 1819-07-24 — Thirty-six electors vote at Edward Nicholas's house; Jonathan Frisby, John N. Gibson and Zurial Sherwood act as judges, and only James Smith of the justices elected qualifies.
6. 1820 — Thomas Thornburg teaches the first school, in a schoolhouse built near the State Road on land later owned by Eli Barr; Congress cuts the price of public land from two dollars to $1.25 an acre and Bloom's land is quickly taken.
7. 1821 — John F. Talley takes up his farm on January 1, Caleb Osborn sets out the township's first peach orchard, and in April the first elected trustees (Edward Nicholas, William Montgomery, David Smith) take office.
8. 1822 — A blight called 'sick wheat' ruins part of the crop in the east of the township, and James Whitaker builds Bloom's first brick house of brick made on the river near Island Run by James Camp.
9. 1823 — Black and gray squirrels migrating east swarm across the Muskingum and strip the cornfields; one farmer saves only enough corn for one horse and one cow.
10. 1832 — The first Methodist Protestant church, called Pisgah, is built near the State Road, with Rev. Galbraith on the circuit.
11. 1836 — John F. Talley builds houses for a blacksmith and a wagon-maker and begins the village of Airington in the east of the township.
12. 1837 — S. Ramey lays out Eagleport on the west bank above the Muskingum dam: seventy-two lots on two streets parallel to the river, with Baughman's twenty-four-lot addition the same year.
13. 1886 — Eagleport has fifteen or twenty families, two dry-goods stores, three warehouses, a Methodist Protestant church, a school, a physician and a post office; Rokeby has one store and a post office; Airington is 'in ruins' with two families.
14. 2020 — The census counts 962 residents in the township's 25.6 square miles; no village has ever been incorporated here.

Stories

Four hundred and sixty-seven rails in a day

John F. Talley, born in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1799, came to his Bloom Township farm on January 1, 1821 and lived on it for fifty-one years. The 1886 county history calls him 'one, if not the greatest rail-splitter of his time': he chopped the timber and split 467 rails in one day, where 400 was a good day's work in good timber. In a chopping contest at Dr. Martin's salt works against Thomas Carlin the two men took sixteen and a half cords from the stumps; Talley cut eight, and Carlin won by half a cord. Talley was also county surveyor for eight years, justice of the peace for fifteen, and the merchant at Airington. In 1846-47 he bought wool and shipped it to John Brown and Sons at Springfield, Massachusetts, and recalled that 'John Brown was the best judge of wool I ever dealt with'; he had been with Brown twenty-one days there. He was a lifelong Democrat who thought the Browns the most honorable dealers he ever met.

The road was a line of blazes

In 1820 the only way from the McCune farm in Bloom to McConnelsville, nine miles off, was a blazed bridle path through woods. Sallie McCune rode in to trade butter at five cents a pound for calico at twenty-five cents a yard, and Jacob Adams, the storekeeper on the public square, asked her to guide a visiting Presbyterian minister, Rev. Baker, back to her father's. As the sun went down Baker asked where the road was; she pointed to the ax-marks on the trees and told him, 'this is our road and we are on the right track.' He feared they were lost until they reached the McCune house, where he told her father that his daughter was a heroine. The Bloom settlers had no church building yet and heard preaching in cabins from Baptist 'Father' Russell, Rev. Henry Pringle and the first Methodist circuit riders, Levi Reeves and Alvin Fuller.

Sick wheat and the squirrel year

Two seasons tested Bloom's first farmers. In 1822 Ohio grew an excellent wheat crop, but several farmers in the east of the township raised wheat that looked perfect, made white flour that rose well in baking, and made every person or animal that ate it violently sick; the cause, the county historian wrote, 'has never been satisfactorily explained.' The next year countless black and gray squirrels traveling east crossed the Muskingum and attacked the corn. Neighbors who could not watch their fields lost the whole crop, and one man who guarded nine acres saved only enough for a horse and a cow. William and James White killed enough at one crossing to fill two three-bushel bags. Beef cattle of 1,000 to 1,200 pounds were selling for seven and eight dollars at the time.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mcconnelsville Village78% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville - Sr 37612% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Malta Village8% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville Rural1% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Muskingum County Water - Se1% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 1 of 1 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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-04

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