Bratton Township, Adams County

• Serpent MoundA snake effigy in Adams County dated to about 300 B.C. or A.D. 1070. Frederic Ward Putnam bought it for Harvard in 1887 and rebuilt its plowed-down banks.

How Bratton Township, Adams County began

Bratton Township, in north-central Adams County on the Highland County line, was organized on September 4, 1877, from the west side of Franklin Township and named for John Bratton, a local resident. White settlement began on the East Fork of Ohio Brush Creek about 1801 to 1803, when John Shepherd, William Armstrong and the West brothers took up land in Abraham Shepherd's 2,000-acre survey. Marble Furnace, built in 1811-12 by Governor McArthur and Thomas James, gave the township an iron-making village until the furnace went cold around 1833, and the hamlets of Loudon (Lovett's post office) and Louisville grew around stores in the 1830s. The township is best known for Serpent Mound, the effigy earthwork on the East Fork that Frederic Ward Putnam bought for Harvard's Peabody Museum in 1887 and that became a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

Settled 1801, incorporated 1877, by John Shepherd is named as among the first settlers (1801); the township was organized by the county commissioners on September 4, 1877.

Where the name comes from

Named in honor of John Bratton, described as an old and respected citizen of the township, when it was organized in 1877.

Before the town

Serpent Mound, a 1,348-foot effigy earthwork on a plateau overlooking the East Fork of Ohio Brush Creek near Locust Grove, sits within Bratton Township. Its builders and date are disputed: a 1991 excavation's radiocarbon dating pointed to the Fort Ancient culture (roughly AD 1025-1215), while a 2014 study, corroborated in 2019, redated construction to about 300 BC under the Adena culture with a repair episode around AD 1100; Ohio archaeologist Brad Lepper has publicly challenged the Adena redating. E.G. Squier and Edwin Davis first surveyed it in the 1840s; Frederic Ward Putnam excavated it in 1886-1890, and Henry Howe's 1888 account records that Putnam, with money raised from Boston women in the spring of 1887 (about $6,000), bought about seventy acres with the mound and vested the title in Harvard's Peabody Museum as a free public park; the site passed to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society in 1900. The 1900 county history also records that an Indian village once stood just above old Marble Furnace, and that after white settlement Indian families still came there to camp, hunt and fish.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture, Fort Ancient culture.

• Serpent Mound (earthwork) — near Locust Grove, Bratton Township, Adams County, disputed: Fort Ancient (c. AD 1025-1215) or Adena (c. 300 BC, repaired c. AD 1100) (en.wikipedia.org)
• Indian village and camp site above Marble Furnace (village) — on the East Fork of Ohio Brush Creek just above old Marble Furnace, Bratton Township, historic; used as a hunting and fishing camp after white settlement (c. 1800s) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1801 — John Shepherd settled on the East Fork of Ohio Brush Creek, cutting a trace from Orr's Ferry below Aberdeen to his land; the stream crossing on it became known as Shepherd's Crossing.
2. 1801 — Jacob Wise and Peter Platter killed a she-bear in a rock den on the Sommers farm near the later Marble Furnace and took her two cubs as pets.
3. 1803 — Brothers Benjamin, Joseph and John West arrived from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and bought land in the north part of Abraham Shepherd's survey on the upper East Fork.
4. 1811 — Governor McArthur and Thomas James built Marble Furnace (1811-12), named for a marble-like limestone quarried for its stack; a village of furnace men and tradesmen grew up around it.
5. 1815 — A teacher named Vinsonhaler is said to have taught the township's first school in a house belonging to James Trimble, later Governor of Ohio.
6. 1822 — Marble Furnace post office was established; it was later discontinued.
7. 1834 — Marble Furnace was abandoned (the 1880 atlas says it last ran in 1832 or 1833), and the village around it declined to a few houses and a mill.
8. 1838 — Dr. John Gustin laid out Louisville on eleven acres in forty lots; its post office was named Gustin, and the site later returned to farmland.
9. 1839 — E.G. Lovett opened a store around which the hamlet of Loudon grew, named for the Loudoun County, Virginia, families who settled that part of the township.
10. 1842 — The Methodist Episcopal church built the township's first meeting house at Loudon.
11. 1844 — A post office was opened at Loudon with E.G. Lovett as postmaster; because mail was missent to another Ohio office, it was named Lovett's.
12. 1848 — E.G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis published the first scientific survey of Serpent Mound.
13. 1877 — The county commissioners organized Bratton Township on September 4 from the west side of Franklin Township; its first election was held September 22.
14. 1886 — Frederic Ward Putnam began excavating Serpent Mound, securing the land around it with funding from Boston donors.
15. 1887 — Putnam's subscription of about $6,000 bought roughly seventy acres with the mound, titled to Harvard's Peabody Museum and laid out as the free Serpent Mound Park.
16. 1900 — The Serpent Mound property was transferred to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.
17. 1966 — Serpent Mound was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Stories

The Davis children and the camp on the East Fork

Just above old Marble Furnace, the 1900 county history records, there had once been an Indian village, and even after white families settled along Ohio Brush Creek, Indian families returned there to camp, hunt and fish. Thomas Davis lived on Brush Creek just above the Fristoe bridge. While he was away from home, a Native woman from the camp took two of his small children, John and Katy, and carried them to the camp on the East Fork. Their mother raised the alarm, the woman was followed to the camp, and the children were rescued. The story survives only as a local reminiscence gathered by the county historians, with no year attached.

Marble Furnace

In 1811-12 the late Governor McArthur and Thomas James built an iron furnace on the East Fork of Ohio Brush Creek. In getting out stone for the stack they quarried a limestone that looked something like marble, and the works took the name Marble Furnace. A village of furnace hands and tradesmen grew up around it. The furnace had not run since 1832 or 1833; it was generally supposed that the ore had given out, though the 1880 atlas notes that this had since been doubted. By 1880 the furnace buildings were in ruins, and the place held a few houses, a mill, a small foundry, a shoe shop, a post office and a German Baptist (Dunkard) church.

Putnam buys the Serpent

Squier and Davis made Serpent Mound known with their survey in the 1840s, but by the 1880s, Henry Howe wrote, the effigy was fast going to destruction. Frederic Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum at Cambridge took up its cause, and in the spring of 1887, with the aid of some Boston women, raised about $6,000 by subscription to buy it. The purchase took in about seventy acres with the mound, the title vesting in the museum attached to Harvard University. Putnam laid the ground out as a park, free to the public, under the name Serpent Mound Park, and described the serpent's head resting on a rock platform about 100 feet above the creek, its jaws open around an oval about 121 feet long. Howe's account placed the mound 'in Franklin township,' though Bratton had been cut off from Franklin in 1877.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · geocoding.geo.census.gov

Mostly private wells The water here

• Peebles Public Water System68% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Adams County Regional Wd30% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Seaman Village2% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)

Bridges rated poor (3)

Mounds and earthworks (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 2 of 3 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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-20
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-05

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