Canaan Township, Athens County

How Canaan Township, Athens County began

Canaan Township, organized in 1819 immediately west of the city of Athens, holds the distinction of the county's earliest known white settlement: Peter Boyles, a Bedford County, Pennsylvania native, settled here in 1795, the year of the Treaty of Greenville, and his son George Boyles, born that June, was almost certainly the first white child born in Athens County. The township's rich Hocking River bottomland drew settlers even before it was split off from Athens Township, and its name was suggested by Judge Walker of Ames Township, a county commissioner, at its 1819 organization. Its principal settlement, the unincorporated community of Canaanville, sits along the river, and the township also takes in most of Strouds Run State Park — built in the 1950s-60s partly on land the pioneer Gillett family farmed for generations — and part of the city of Athens itself. Athens' own municipal water system, drawing on groundwater since 1894, serves much of the township. It remains a mix of small-town and wooded, rural land close to Ohio University, with a 2020 population of 1,586.

Settled 1795 (Peter Boyles, probably the first white settler in present Athens County), incorporated 1819, by Athens County commissioners; name suggested by Judge Walker of Ames Township.

Where the name comes from

The name Canaan was suggested by Judge Walker, of Ames township, one of the county commissioners at the time of the township's organization in 1819; no source consulted explains why he chose the biblical name.

Before the town

No source consulted records a Native village, trail, mound or treaty line specific to Canaan Township, but the settlement history here is entangled with the year of the Treaty of Greenville: Peter Boyles settled the site in 1795, the same year the treaty ended the Northwest Indian War and, in the county historian's words, took his life in his hand doing so, since 'this section was by no means safe in that year from Indian outrages.' The township sits in the Ohio Company Purchase (1787) on the Hocking River, whose name comes from a Native word ('Hokhokken'/'Hokhochen', 'bottle-shaped'), and the Shawnee are recorded as having their own name for the river, which places the valley within Shawnee-traveled country.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1795 — Peter Boyles, a native of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, settles what is now Canaan Township — probably the first white settler within the present county of Athens, in the same year the Treaty of Greenville closed the Indian war.
2. 1795-06-05 — George Boyles, son of Peter, is born in Canaan Township 'on the school section between the graveyard and the river' — beyond doubt the first white child born in Athens County and, by the county historian's argument, on the waters of the Hocking River anywhere.
3. 1797 — The Barrows brothers (William, George and Henry) and Martin Mansfield settle in what becomes Canaan Township; Joseph Simmons settles the same year and later recalls packing salt forty miles on horseback at four dollars a bushel.
4. 1800 — William Jackson, an Irish-born settler near the future village of New England, surveys the first road through the woods from Marietta to Chillicothe.
5. 1803 — Jackson is elected to the Ohio legislature from what was then Washington County, defeating Ephraim Cutler; re-elected that fall, he later defeats a bill by Philemon Beecher requiring a property qualification for officeholders.
6. 1819-04-05 — Canaan Township is organized; the first election for township officers is held at the house of Edward Pilcher.
7. 1894 — Athens began relying on groundwater for its public water supply, with its first well about 4,400 feet west of the Court House and 2,000 feet north of the Hocking River, near today's West State Street — supply that extends into western Canaan Township.
8. 1960 — Construction of the Dow Lake Dam is completed, turning land the state had bought since the 1940s-50s (including much of the old Gillett family farm on Stroud's Run) into Strouds Run State Park.

Stories

The first child of Athens County

Peter Boyles came into what is now Canaan Township in 1795, the same year the Treaty of Greenville ended the Northwest Indian War, and settled on land later remembered as the Boyles homestead, on the school section between a graveyard and the river. The county historian calls him probably the first white settler within present Athens County, and notes he took his life in his hands doing it, since the region was still unsafe from Indian raids that year. His son George, born there June 5, 1795, was almost certainly the first white child born in the county — a distinction sometimes wrongly given to Hocking H. Hunter of Lancaster, who was not born until 1801. Peter Boyles lived in Canaan until 1827, then moved west and died in Missouri in the early 1840s; George Boyles lived out his life in Andrew County, Missouri, and was the source, late in life, for the story of his own birth.

A surveyor's road and a defeated bill

William Jackson came to what became Canaan Township in 1799 as a young Irish immigrant of, in the county historian's words, fine natural ability and considerable culture. In 1800 he surveyed the first road cut through the woods between Marietta and Chillicothe. Elected to the territorial-era Ohio legislature from Washington County in 1803 against Ephraim Cutler, he was re-elected that fall and, in the 1803-4 session, defeated a bill offered by Philemon Beecher that would have required a property qualification to hold office. In 1804 he took a federal appointment to survey land on the Wabash River in Indiana, traveled to Vincennes to do the work, and died there soon after arriving.

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

Every historic place in Athens County on the full map

Wells in the Hocking River valley aquifer at the city's West State Street well field, about 2,000 feet north of the Hocking River The water here

• Athens98% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (wells)
• Sunday Creek Valley Water1% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Le-ax Regional Water District1% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (horizontal collector wells)
• Athens Co., the Plains S.d. 10% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 4 of 4 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-31

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