Brown Township, Vinton County

How Brown Township, Vinton County began

Brown Township, in the northeast corner of Vinton County, began as part of Athens County's original Brown Township, was split off to Hocking County in 1818 as "North Brown," and joined Vinton County under that name in 1850, resuming the simple name Brown in 1852. Its first settler, John Wright, built his cabin near what became New Plymouth, a village founded by settlers from Plymouth, Massachusetts and centered on a Presbyterian church organized in 1829. The township was also home to two of the county's best-documented 19th-century industrial sites: Hope Furnace, an 1854 charcoal iron furnace that supported a community of about 300 people before closing in 1874, and Moonville, a coal-mining and railroad settlement founded by two families along the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad. Both sites now sit inside Zaleski State Forest and Lake Hope State Park.

Incorporated 1818, by split from the original Brown Township of Athens County when Hocking County organized; joined Vinton County in 1850 as North Brown, renamed Brown in 1852.

Where the name comes from

Not verified in sources checked; Ohio township names of this era were commonly chosen for national or state political figures, but no source confirming a specific namesake for Brown Township, Vinton County was found. The name briefly lapsed: from 1850 to 1852 this area was designated "North Brown" Township to distinguish it from "South Brown" (later renamed Madison), before the county commissioners restored the simple name Brown in 1852.

Before the town

No Native American site or village specific to Brown Township was found in the sources checked.

Timeline

1. before 1818 — The original Brown Township of Athens County comprises the land that later becomes Brown, Madison and Knox townships of Vinton County; John Wright, the first settler in this part of it, builds his cabin near where New Plymouth later stands, followed soon by Francis Bartlett and family and Isaac Lash.
2. 1818 — On Hocking County's organization, this portion of the old Brown Township is attached to Hocking County, while the remainder becomes Brown Township of Athens County (later Madison and Knox).
3. c. 1824 — The first schoolhouse, built of logs, goes up about half a mile northeast of the future New Plymouth; the first teacher is Mrs. Everetts.
4. 1829-01-01 — The Presbyterian Church at New Plymouth is organized by Rev. George Warner, assisted by a committee of the Athens Presbytery; first elders are Solomon and Sylvanus Finney.
5. 1850 — Brown Township is incorporated into the newly formed Vinton County as "North Brown" Township.
6. 1850 — New Plymouth's post office is established, with H. S. Brinkley as first postmaster.
7. 1852 — North Brown Township resumes the simple name Brown.
8. 1854 — Hope Furnace is built in Brown Township, about five miles northeast of Zaleski, to smelt iron using local ore and charcoal.
9. 1854-1874 — Hope Furnace operates and supports a company community of roughly 300 residents at its peak.
10. 1855 — The Methodist Episcopal church at New Plymouth is organized in a building later used as a store; the congregation builds its own church about 1859.
11. 1973-05-25 — Hope Furnace is added to the National Register of Historic Places, the second site in Vinton County to be listed, after the Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge.
12. mid-1800s — Moonville is settled in Brown Township by the Coe and Ferguson families along the route of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, which builds a tunnel and two trestles over Raccoon Creek there.
13. 1947 — The last residents leave Moonville after its coal mines had played out around the turn of the century.
14. 1978 — The last of more than 21 recorded deaths on or near the Moonville railroad tracks occurs.
15. 1988 — Rail service through the former Moonville site ends and the tracks are removed; the corridor later becomes the Moonville Rail-Trail.

Stories

Moonville: a coal town that vanished into a rail-trail

In the mid-1800s the Coe and Ferguson families settled a narrow hollow in Brown Township along the line the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad was building toward Cincinnati. The railroad drove a tunnel through the hillside and threw two trestles across Raccoon Creek, and the coal seams nearby turned the spot into a working mining settlement. The same trains that gave Moonville its reason to exist also killed more than 21 people on or near the tracks over the decades, the last in 1978. The coal ran out around the turn of the century, the mines closed, and the last residents left in 1947; by the 1960s nothing remained but foundations, a small cemetery, and the tunnel itself. Passenger and freight service through the gap continued until 1988, when the rails were finally pulled up and the route became a public rail-trail. The tunnel, empty of the town that built it, is now one of the most visited "ghost town" landmarks in southeastern Ohio.

A town named for the one its settlers left behind

New Plymouth took its name the same simple way many transplanted New England colonies did: its first settlers had come from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and named their new hollow after the old one. A log schoolhouse went up nearby about 1824, and by 1829 the community had its own Presbyterian church, organized formally by a missionary sent out from the Athens Presbytery. By 1883 the village had grown to about 150 residents, two general stores, two blacksmith shops, a harness shop and two churches, a modest but complete little town carved out of the same Brown Township hollow its first settler had claimed decades before.

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

Every historic place in Vinton County on the full map

No water-system data is linked to Brown Township, Vinton County's ZIP codes yet.

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-11-13

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