Bloomfield Township, Jackson County

How Bloomfield Township, Jackson County began

Bloomfield Township, in eastern Jackson County, was one of the five townships the county started with in 1816; its township 8, range 17 had been surveyed in October 1801, and Hugh Poor was settled there by 1811. Its first recorded business was a tavern licensed in 1816 on petition of the freeholders of 'the Bloomfield town house', and John Stephenson of Bloomfield was one of the county's first three commissioners. Its best-known landmark is the Keystone Furnace, a charcoal iron furnace that began operation in 1848 and ran until 1885, around which the unincorporated company town of Keystone grew. The township had 721 people in 1840, 1,557 in 1880 and 1,155 in 2020, and has no incorporated village.

Settled 1811 (Hugh Poor, the earliest settler named in the county history), incorporated 1816 (one of Jackson County's five original townships; township 8, range 17, surveyed October 1801), by Hugh Poor, John Stephenson and other early settlers.

Where the name comes from

No source explains the name Bloomfield. The 1900 county history says Milton was named for the poet and two other townships for American statesmen, and Lick for the salt springs, but gives no reason for Bloomfield; the Jackson County GenWeb name-origins page is also silent on it.

Before the town

No village, mound or treaty event is recorded inside Bloomfield Township, but it carries one of the county's better-known legends: a tradition that Indians worked a lead mine somewhere in the ravines of 'Jimmy Adams' hollow' near the John Ware bridge by Keystone Furnace. The 1900 county history prints a March 13, 1897 letter from Charles A. Lackey of Rocky Hill, whose people settled there in 1806, saying a white captive had been taken to the mine blindfolded and reported beech trees carved with turkeys, turtles and deer. The historian prints it as tradition only, and notes that geologist Caleb Briggs in 1837 found no lead veins in the county. No such mine has been found. Jackson County as a whole has a Shawnee, Adena, Hopewell and Fort Ancient record.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Legendary Indian lead mine (unlocated) (other) — Said to lie in Jimmy Adams' hollow, running through the old Lackey homestead to the John Ware bridge near Keystone Furnace; never found, undated tradition (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1801-10 — Benjamin F. Stone surveys Bloomfield (township 8, range 17) in October; it lies east of the 'true meridian' correction line that explains the jogs in the section lines along the Milton-Bloomfield-Madison line.
2. 1811 — Hugh Poor settles in what is now Bloomfield Township; John Stephenson, a South Carolina native by way of Cabell County, Virginia, enters land here in 1814.
3. 1816-04-01 — On election day John Hale and Joel Long agree to 'box and fight each other at fisticuffs' at the Bloomfield town house; both plead guilty at the first term of court that August and are fined $12 each.
4. 1816 — Bloomfield is one of the five townships Jackson County starts with, and John Stephenson of Bloomfield polls 114 votes and is elected one of the county's first three commissioners; the township cast 37 of the 220 votes in that first election.
5. 1816-07 — The commissioners order that township 8, range 17 'remain incorporated according to its original surveyed boundaries, by the name of Bloomfield'; Andrew Donnally's tavern license, petitioned by Bloomfield freeholders on July 10, is granted on August 13.
6. 1818-09-04 — Freeholders of Bloomfield petition for a tavern license for James Lackey, whose family settled at Rocky Hill in 1806.
7. 1840 — Bloomfield's population is 721 in the federal census.
8. 1848-02-04 — The Raccoon Navigation Company is incorporated with $100,000 capital to slack-water the Raccoon; Keystone and Buckeye furnaces on the Little Raccoon were built before any railroad reached the county.
9. 1848-11-07 — A post office opens as Hughes; it is renamed Keystone on October 1, 1849 and discontinued on July 16, 1853.
10. 1849 — Keystone Furnace is under construction (the Filson Historical Society says it began operating in 1848); its stack, carved from solid sandstone, produces about 12 tons of charcoal pig iron a day.
11. 1853 — Green, Benner, Campbell & Co. buy the furnace, enlarge the stack to 36 feet and raise capacity to 24 tons a day.
12. 1861-1863 — The furnace stops work while its owners raise the 27th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
13. 1871 — Hezekiah Sanford Bundy buys Keystone Furnace.
14. 1880 — Bloomfield's population reaches 1,557, more than double the 1840 count.
15. 1885 — Bundy's operation closes Keystone Furnace; the Filson page gives no reason.
16. 1982-03-18 — Keystone Furnace is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
17. 2020 — The census counts 1,155 people in the township.

Stories

A furnace carved from sandstone

The Keystone Furnace was built by John McConnell & Co. and began operation in 1848, financed by Jackson County businessmen who wanted a share of the iron trade then booming across the Hanging Rock Iron Region of southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. Its 33-foot stack was carved from solid sandstone; it turned out about 12 tons of charcoal iron a day at first, and when a new ownership group bought it in 1853 they raised the stack to 36 feet and doubled output to 24 tons. The Filson Historical Society, which holds the furnace's ledgers, says the furnace began operating in 1848; Wikipedia's article on Keystone dates the building to 1849-1853. The company-store ledgers of 1852-1870 record what the families of Keystone bought: tobacco, coffee, salt, meat, kitchenware, garden tools and cloth. The furnace was idle in 1861-1863 while its owners formed the 27th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and it closed in 1885. The stack still stands on private land, and Keystone survives as an unincorporated community.

The Indian lead mine nobody found

In 1897 Charles A. Lackey of Rocky Hill wrote to the Jackson Standard-Journal to set down a tradition he had from his people, who came to Bloomfield Township in 1806. The Indians, he said, had found and used a lead mine somewhere in 'Jimmy Adams' hollow', which runs through the old Lackey homestead and ends at the John Ware bridge near Keystone Furnace. A white man taken captive was supposedly led to the mine blindfolded so he could never find it again, and later told of beech trees there cut with figures of turkeys, turtles and deer. Lackey could not name the captive, whose informant was dead, and vouched only for the springs that made his grandfather choose the farm. County historian Williams printed the letter beside the geologist Caleb Briggs's 1837 report that no lead veins had been found, only loose lumps on the surface, and a lump found in Liberty Township about 1860. The mine, if it ever existed, was never located.

Fists and a tavern at the Bloomfield town house

The new county's first criminal case came out of Bloomfield. On April 1, 1816, election day, John Hale and Joel Long agreed to settle a quarrel with their fists at the Bloomfield town house, and at the first term of court in August they pleaded guilty and were fined $12 and costs each. The same court term licensed Bloomfield's first recorded tavern. On July 10, 1816, Bloomfield freeholders, among them Hugh Poor, Andrew Boggs, Moses Hale and two Stephensons, petitioned that a public house 'would conduse to the publick convenience' and recommended Andrew Donnally, who wrote the petition himself in his own variable spelling. The judges granted the license on August 13. Two years later the freeholders asked for another at the house of James Lackey, whose family had settled the hollow where the lead-mine legend later placed its mine.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · filsonhistorical.org · en.wikipedia.org · jackson.ohgenweb.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · genealogytrails.com · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Jackson, City Of94% of residentsJisco Lake + Hammertown Lake (Jackson City Reservoir)
• Wellston City6% of residentsLake Rupert + Lake Alma (Little Raccoon Creek reservoirs)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (9)

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-22

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