Caesarcreek Township, Greene County

How Caesarcreek Township, Greene County began

Caesarcreek Township, in the south of Greene County, was organized in 1803 with the county and was at first much larger, taking in what became New Jasper Township. It lies wholly within the Virginia Military District and is named for Caesar's Creek, whose name has four competing legends, all about a man named Caesar. Quaker families from Waynesville led by David Painter settled the Painter's Creek country in the early 1800s; Jesse Painter laid out Paintersville about 1840. It is farm country with no incorporated town and 1,185 residents in 2020.

Settled about 1801-1810 (Faulkner, Painter, Lucas and Murphy families; David Painter came by an old Indian trace from Waynesville), platted about 1840 (Paintersville, by Jesse Painter), incorporated 1803 (organized with Greene County), by David Painter, a Quaker from Waynesville, and his sons; Jesse Painter, founder of Paintersville.

Where the name comes from

The 1881 county history says the township derives its name from Caesar's Creek, which forms its northwestern boundary. The creek's own name is explained by four legends (an escaped slave who lived on its banks; an officer's slave named Caesar who warned the Shawnee of an attack on Old Chillicothe, in 1786 under Benjamin Logan or in 1794; and a Caesar who told Simon Kenton the creek's course), none of them proved.

Before the town

The township's name preserves its best-known link to the Shawnee. Four legends about Caesar's Creek are recorded on a Warren County genealogy site: a runaway enslaved man named Caesar who lived on the creek; an officer's slave named Caesar who learned of an army march on the Shawnee town of Old Chillicothe and warned them, in Benjamin Logan's 1786 raid according to George Robinson's 1902 history, or in an expedition of 1794 according to Broadstone's history; and a Caesar who told the captive Simon Kenton how the creek led to the Little Miami. Allan Eckert's account names a white Frenchman, Willis Chadley, as the deserter, and Maj. James Galloway's 1846 letters say the deserter was a Black man. The Quaker David Painter settled the township by following 'an old Indian trace' from Waynesville to Chillicothe. The land is in the Treaty of Greenville (1795) cession and in the Virginia Military District; no mound, village or treaty line specific to the township is recorded.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Old Indian trace from Waynesville to Chillicothe (trail) — followed by David Painter into the Painter's Creek country, southern Greene County, before about 1810 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1801 — The parents of Allen Faulkner, natives of Virginia and Kentucky, come to Greene County about 1801, according to a biography in the county history; their son Allen is born in 1824 and later farms 260 acres in the township.
2. 1803 — Caesarcreek Township is organized as Greene County itself is formed.
3. 1820 — By 1820, the county history says, the main settlements were made: David Painter, a Quaker from Waynesville, followed an old Indian trace to the creek later called Painter's Creek with sons Jesse, Jacob and Thomas and a daughter (he helped organize the Friends society and died about 1840); Caleb Lucas of Virginia, David Murphy, Robert Folkner, Frederick Price and Jonathan Bales also settled.
4. 1825 — John Maguire teaches the first school remembered in the township in the old New Hope meetinghouse, for about three months a year; the common school system arrives about 1835.
5. 1830 — The New Hope Quaker meetinghouse is built a mile west of Paintersville, and Murser's Run Baptist Church is organized about this year.
6. 1837 — The German Reformed Church is organized (1837 or 1838) and builds a brick church soon after; David and Thomas Winters are the first ministers.
7. 1840 — Jesse Painter lays out his 150 acres into town lots and sells them at $20 to $25 an acre; the village of Paintersville is the result.
8. 1858 — Jefferson Township is organized on Caesarcreek Township's eastern border, set off from Silvercreek Township on June 7, 1858.
9. 1878 — The congregation of the German Reformed Church builds its present brick edifice.
10. 1880 — Paintersville has about 150 inhabitants, a sawmill, a carriage maker, a blacksmith, a harness shop, a post office and a physician; the proposed Columbus and Cincinnati narrow gauge railroad is expected to bring it prosperity.
11. 2020 — The census counts 1,185 residents over 27.6 square miles; no municipality lies in the township.

Stories

The soldier's land and the settler who came after

Caesarcreek Township lies wholly inside the Virginia Military District, the block of land Virginia kept for itself when it ceded its Revolutionary War claims west of the Ohio River to the new federal government, so it could pay off warrants it owed its own veterans. Many soldiers had no interest in moving to what was still frontier wilderness, so they sold their warrants to speculators, who in turn sold parcels to the settlers who actually cleared and farmed the township's land. That chain of paper, from soldier to speculator to farmer, explains both the irregular, metes-and-bounds surveys typical of the Virginia Military District and the heavy presence of Virginia- and Kentucky-born families among the township's early settlers.

Who was Caesar? Four stories about one creek

Nobody knows for certain who Caesar was, though everyone in southern Greene County will tell you. One story says he was a runaway slave who lived on the creek's banks and was buried there, or fled to Canada. A second, the most repeated, says an officer's slave named Caesar learned that an army was marching to destroy the Shawnee town of Old Chillicothe, slipped away, and warned the Shawnee; the soldiers found the town empty, and the creek was named for where Caesar ran away. George Robinson's 1902 county history says the army was Benjamin Logan's in 1786, while Broadstone's history assigns it to an 1794 expedition, and the historian Allan Eckert says the deserter was a white Frenchman named Willis Chadley. A fourth tradition has Caesar telling the captive Simon Kenton, held at Old Chillicothe, that the creek led to the Little Miami and the Ohio. The township that took the creek's name is a Virginia Military District farming country; the story is the one thing in its history that every account repeats.

The Quaker who followed an Indian trace to Painter's Creek

Early in the nineteenth century a Quaker named David Painter left the Friends at Waynesville, in Warren County, and set out for the hills of southern Greene County along an old Indian trace that led from Waynesville to Chillicothe. There were only three cabins between Waynesville and the creek where he stopped, with his three sons Jesse, Jacob and Thomas and a daughter. The stream was named for him, and he helped organize the Society of Friends here; the New Hope meetinghouse, a plain one-story building a mile west of Paintersville, was put up about 1830 and still held regular meetings in 1881, with Eber Haines as minister. Painter died about 1840. In that year his son Jesse laid out the family farm in town lots, and Paintersville began. The township's Quaker, Reformed, Baptist and Methodist churches held their members, and the dam of Levi Engle's mill washed out in the flood of 1881.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · warren.ohgenweb.org · en.wikipedia.org · jeffersontwpgreene.us · heritagepursuit.com

Mostly private wells The water here

• Xenia City72% of residentsGreat Miami/Mad River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells near US-68/SR-235)
• Jamestown Village14% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Greene County - northwest Reg Water13% of residentsLittle Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (2 wellfields, Beavercreek area)
• Greene County - southwest Reg Water0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Western Water Company0% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)
• Greene County Eastern Regional0% of residentsLittle Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (2 wellfields, Beavercreek area)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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