Butler

How Butler began

Butler is a village in Worthington Township, Richland County, laid out January 12, 1848 by Daniel Spohn as 'Independence' and known locally as 'Spohntown.' The Mansfield and Sandusky City Railroad's push toward Newark that year gave the crossroads a reason to grow. A naming clash with another Independence, Ohio in Cuyahoga County led the post office, and eventually the village itself, to take the name Butler in honor of Gen. William O. Butler of Kentucky, a Mexican War officer and 1848 vice-presidential candidate; the village later changed its own name to match, in 1891 according to Wikipedia, which marks the year uncertain. A mile east, the water-powered Rummell Mill on the Clear Fork, built about 1850, still stands as the community's principal landmark and is the only mill in Richland County to survive with its machinery intact.

Settled 1818-1823 (Joseph Craig), platted 1848-01-12, incorporated 1877, by Daniel Spohn (plat); renamed Butler 1891.

Where the name comes from

Daniel Spohn laid the town out in 1848 as Independence; the 1880 county history says it was nicknamed Spohntown and Squeelgut and that Thomas B. Andrews named it Independence in a spirit of defiance at the unfriendly attitude of nearby Bellville. The name Butler came from the post office, renamed for Gen. William O. Butler to avoid a clash with another Independence post office, and the village adopted it later (Wikipedia gives 1891, marked uncertain).

Before the town

No Native site is recorded in the village itself. In Worthington Township, on the Clear Fork a mile and a half below Newville, stood Helltown, a village of Delaware (Lenape) Indians who came from eastern Pennsylvania about 1745 and settled on the Muskingum and its tributaries on lands granted by the Wyandot; Dr. J. P. Henderson, quoted in the 1880 county history, read the name as German hell, clear, plus English town, the town on the Clear Fork. About sixteen graves, three ruined cabins and old cornhill mounds remained, and arrowheads, pipes, pottery, copper lancets, lead bullets and a scalping-knife were found. After the Gnadenhutten massacre of 1781 the people fled to Upper Sandusky, returned, and later moved to Greentown in Ashland County. Trails ran from Helltown to Mansfield and across to Greentown and Upper Sandusky. The same history names Old Lyons, the last Native man to keep a home in the township, whose double bark-roofed cabin stood on the Rummel farm. A.J. Baughman's 1903 history notes a local writer compiling the history of a tribe that had hunted in the Butler hills.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Helltown (village) — right bank of the Clear Fork, 1.5 miles below Newville, Worthington Township, c. 1745 to the 1780s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1809 — Samuel Lewis, probably the first permanent white settler of Worthington Township, settled on Section 1 and in 1812 built Lewis' block-house for the protection of settlers.
2. 1811 — Peter Zimmerman built a powder mill on the Clear Fork in the township, the first in the county.
3. 1813 — William and Thomas Simmons settled on Section 20; William Simmons entered the land on which Independence stands on May 18, 1820.
4. 1815-06-06 — Worthington Township was erected out of the east half of Greene Township and named for Gov. Thomas Worthington; Monroe Township was cut from its north half on February 11, 1817.
5. c. 1820 — Jacob Myers built the grist mill about a mile above Independence on the Clear Fork, later owned by J. and E. Plank.
6. 1823 — President James Monroe granted Joseph Craig, first white settler in the Butler area, a land patent.
7. 1848-01-12 — Daniel Spohn platted the town of Independence on the northwest quarter of section 20, Worthington Township, as the Mansfield and Sandusky City Railroad extended toward Newark.
8. c. 1850 — Daniel J. Rummell built the present Rummell Mill on the Clear Fork about a mile east of the village, on a site Jacob Armentrout had first used for a sawmill in the 1840s.
9. 1852 — The Independent Baptist church, founded by Rev. George Wilson, was built in Independence; the Methodist Protestant society, organized in 1853, built its $800 church there in 1857.
10. 1856 — I. W. Pearce bought Gen. G. A. Jones's warehouse in Independence and became the railroad agent and a storekeeper who also did the place's banking.
11. 1868 — The present two-story frame schoolhouse of Independence, with two teachers and about 100 pupils, was built.
12. 1875-12 — The Mount Sinai Evangelical Church, with its parsonage costing about $3,500, was dedicated in Independence by Bishop Stubbs.
13. 1877 — The village of Independence/Butler incorporated.
14. 1880 — The census counted 394 residents; the county history put the town at about 400, with four dry-goods and grocery stores, a hardware store, a tin shop, two churches and a hotel.
15. 1891 — Wikipedia says the village changed its name from Independence to Butler to match its post office, naming 1891 with a question mark; the post office was named for Gen. William O. Butler.
16. 1900 — The census counted 567 residents after a drop to 266 in 1890.
17. 1970 — The census counted 1,052 residents, the highest of any census; the 2020 count was 941.
18. 1982-04-07 — The Rummell Mill was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

The mill that outlasted the rest

Richland County once had more water-powered mills than any other county in Ohio, and almost all of them are gone. The Rummell Mill, a large wood-frame structure on the Clear Fork a mile east of Butler, is the exception. Jacob Armentrout built a sawmill on the site in the 1840s; Daniel J. Rummell bought the property and raised the present grist mill about 1850. It kept grinding grain into the late 1940s, and it survives today with its original machinery intact — the only Richland County mill that can say so.

From Independence to Butler

Daniel Spohn platted his crossroads town as 'Independence' in 1848, but everyone called it Spohntown after its founder. Thomas B. Andrews, the first postmaster, kept the office in his house near the site before the town was laid out, and moved it into a warehouse after the town was laid out and the warehouse was built. When the post office needed a distinct name because Cuyahoga County already had an Independence, the postmaster suggested Butler, for Mexican War general and 1848 vice-presidential candidate William O. Butler. The post office took the new name at once; the village kept the name Independence for some time; Wikipedia says it changed to Butler to match the post office, with the year given as 1891 and marked uncertain.

Helltown on the Clear Fork

A mile and a half below Newville, on a high bank of the Clear Fork where the stream is shallow, stood a village that settlers called Helltown. Dr. J. P. Henderson, quoted in the 1880 county history, said it was occupied by Delaware Indians who came from eastern Pennsylvania about 1745 and had picked up some German and English there, so that hell, German for clear, joined to town meant simply the town on the Clear Fork. When Henderson first saw it only three roofless, dilapidated cabins stood among wild plum and cherry trees, with small conical rises where corn had been hilled and a graveyard of about sixteen graves behind. When the news of the Gnadenhutten massacre of the Moravian Delawares in 1781 arrived, the villagers fled in a panic to the Wyandot at Upper Sandusky; they came back for a while and then moved on to found Greentown in Ashland County. Arrowheads, pipes, copper lancets and a stone drinking cup turned up there, and by 1880 the site was a wheat field.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · richland.ohgenweb.org · historic-structures.com · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Butler Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (2)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Elections for office

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

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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