Bowling Green Township, Marion County

How Bowling Green Township, Marion County began

Bowling Green Township, in the southwestern corner of Marion County, is a 27.6-square-mile farming township made up wholly of Virginia Military Land, with no incorporated village of its own. Squatters from Big Island, led by Moses Dudley in 1829, raised corn on ground cleared by the great windfall of 1824, and Jesse Bell became the first permanent settler in 1831. The township was set off from Montgomery Township on March 5, 1838 and named by Thomas Parr for the Bowling Green Township of Licking County, from which he had come. Two crossroads settlements, Holmesville and Winnemac, faded once La Rue was laid out on the railroad, and the township had 603 residents in 2020.

Settled 1829, incorporated 1838-03-05 (township erected), by Moses Dudley, squatter, 1829; Jesse Bell, first permanent settler, 1831.

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history says Thomas Parr, who led the petition to organize the township, gave it the name Bowling Green in reference to a township of that name in Licking County, Ohio, from which he had emigrated.

Before the town

The 1883 county history records that the Indians burned the woods over each autumn to ease hunting, and that four successive annual burnings cleared the fallen timber along the 1824 windfall, which is why squatters found open ground here in 1829. No named village, mound or trail of Native people inside the township is recorded. Marion County lay north of the Treaty of Greenville line (1795).

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville fixed a line north of which the future Bowling Green Township lay closed to settlement for about a generation; it remained hunting ground for another 24 years.
2. 1819 — The government offers for sale the lands north of the Greenville Treaty line, ending a long delay in the settlement of the territory that became Marion County and Bowling Green Township.
3. 1824 — The great windfall, a tornado from Logan County near West Liberty, crossed Washington Township in Union County and entered the future Bowling Green Township about four miles south of La Rue, flattening a three-quarter-mile path of timber down Dudley Run and Rush Creek to the Scioto.
4. 1829 — Moses Dudley, Hiram Shutes and Gardner Hatch came from Big Island, drawn by the cleared windfall, and raised corn on 90 acres without fencing or plowing; Dudley sold more than 900 bushels to Bennett and Hardy of Marion at 6 1/4 cents a bushel.
5. 1831-02 — Jesse Bell located on the east bank of Rush Creek, perhaps the first permanent white settler of the future township.
6. 1831-12-05 — The county commissioners erect Montgomery Township, the first division of Marion County's territory; for seven years it includes the land that became Bowling Green Township.
7. 1838-03-05 — Marion County commissioners, on the petition of Thomas Parr and others, erected Bowling Green Township from the part of Montgomery Township lying south of the Scioto River; the first election that spring was held at Parr's house, with Parr elected treasurer.
8. c. 1838 — Thomas Parr laid out Holmesville (also called Parrtown) at the center of the township, which had a tavern, stores, a post office and shops, and built a horse mill for the pioneers who had previously ground grain twenty to thirty miles away.
9. 1839-05-14 — Joseph Guthery was commissioned the township's first justice of the peace after its organization.
10. 1840-06-22 — Marion County commissioners attached Survey 9983 to Bowling Green Township, the only change ever made to its boundaries.
11. 1843-05 — The Bowling Green Presbyterian Church was organized at Parrtown Schoolhouse, adjoining Winnemac, with Peter Marsh and John Gilmer as elders; its first minister, Rev. Cephas Cook, died that October.
12. 1853 — The crossroads settlement of Winnemac, on the Winnemac Pike at the La Rue-Mount Victory Road, built a wood-frame church seating 200.
13. 1855 — The United Brethren congregation built a 24-by-32-foot church on land donated by J. D. and I. F. Guthery, at a cost of about $800 raised from citizens of all denominations; the congregation broke up in 1862 over Civil War politics.
14. 1862 — Winnemac's church building was moved into the growing village of La Rue, a sign of the older crossroads settlement losing ground to the railroad town.
15. 1882 — The township reported 14,555 acres owned, of which 7,309 were cultivated, with 149,530 bushels of corn and 32,824 pounds of wool for the year.
16. 2020 — The census counted 603 residents in the unincorporated township of 27.6 square miles.

Stories

Two crossroads that lost out to the railroad

Before La Rue existed, two small settlements anchored this corner of Marion County. Thomas Parr and Sarah Ann Pitzer Parr founded Holmesville, also called Parrtown, on what is now State Route 37 at Guthery Road, with a tavern, a wagon shop, a blacksmith shop, a few stores and a horse-powered grist mill. A few miles off, Winnemac grew up on the Winnemac Pike, platted in the mid-1800s with a schoolhouse and, from 1853, a wood-frame church that could seat 200 worshippers. Neither place ever got a railroad depot. When the tracks reached La Rue in the early 1850s, business drained toward the new town; Winnemac's own church was dismantled and moved into La Rue in 1862. Both Holmesville and Winnemac live on today only as road names and, at Winnemac, the surviving Bonner Cemetery.

The windfall that cleared the farms

In 1824 a tornado that began near West Liberty in Logan County tore through Bellefontaine, carried shingles and clothing as far as the plains of Big Island, and then entered the future Bowling Green Township about four miles south of La Rue. Its track, three-quarters of a mile wide, followed Dudley Run and Rush Creek to the Scioto and left what the 1883 history calls one vast deadening of upturned trees. The Indians burned the woods over each autumn for hunting, and four yearly burnings consumed the fallen timber and brush. In the spring of 1829 Moses Dudley, Hiram Shutes and Gardner Hatch came over from Big Island and planted corn on 90 acres without fence or plow. A measured half-acre gave 44 bushels, and word of it brought a rush of squatters the next winter. Dudley sold over 900 bushels to Bennett and Hardy of Marion, who resold it to Major La Rue at 14 cents; Hatch's share was destroyed and he saved only enough to fill a chest.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · ohioghosttowns.wordpress.com · co.marion.oh.us · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Aqua Ohio - La Rue Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Elections for office

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

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