Carthage Township, Athens County

How Carthage Township, Athens County began

Carthage Township, in the far southeastern corner of Athens County along the Ohio River watershed, was originally part of Troy Township and was organized separately on November 10, 1819. Asahel Cooley Sr. was its first white settler, arriving in 1799 after crossing the wilderness between the Muskingum and Hocking rivers; his son Simion Cooley built mills and a distillery on the creek in 1815 and platted the nearby village of Coolville around them in 1818, naming it for himself. Coolville sits, according to Wikipedia, in adjoining Troy Township, not Carthage, though the county history credits a Carthage family with founding it; Carthage Township itself has never had an incorporated village, and its population center today is the unincorporated community of Lottridge. Township residents draw ZIP addresses centered on Coolville (45723) and a second ZIP (45735) that reaches into neighboring Meigs County.

Settled 1799, by Asahel Cooley Sr., incorporated organized as a separate township November 10, 1819, out of Troy Township.

Where the name comes from

No source found records why the township was named Carthage (after the ancient North African city, as with many Ohio townships of that era); the sources consulted give the organization date and boundaries but not the naming rationale.

Before the town

No Native American sites, villages, or trails specific to Carthage Township have been found in the sources searched. The 1881-83 Athens County history records the Shawnee as occupying the Scioto and Miami country 'for a long distance eastward, including the present county of Athens and adjacent region,' a county-wide statement, and documents Adena/Hopewell mounds and an earthwork on 'the Plains' in Athens and Dover townships, well north of Carthage Township. Carthage Township lies along the Hocking River near its mouth on the Ohio River, a corridor plausibly used by Native travelers moving along both rivers, but no source found names a specific village, camp, or trail in the township itself.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1799 — Asahel Cooley Sr. becomes the first white settler within what is now Carthage Township, arriving from near Springfield, Massachusetts, with his grown sons after crossing the wilderness between the Muskingum and Hocking rivers.
2. 1805 — Bernardus B. Lottridge, namesake of the later community of Lottridge, arrives; his widow recalled only ten or twelve people then living within the present bounds of Carthage.
3. 1815 — Simion Cooley, Asahel's son, builds mills and what was then considered a large distillery on the creek near the future site of Coolville.
4. 1818 — Simeon W. Cooley plats the village of Coolville beside his mills, naming it for himself; according to Wikipedia it lies in Troy Township, adjoining Carthage.
5. 1819 — Carthage Township is organized as a separate township on November 10, out of Troy Township.
6. 1820 — Joseph Guthrie builds the township's first grist mill, on Guthrie Creek. Township population stands at 320 in the census this year.
7. 1835 — Coolville is incorporated as a village.
8. 1860 — Township population reaches 1,127, up from 320 in 1820.
9. 2002 — High PFOA (C8) concentrations are discovered in groundwater near the Little Hocking Water Association's wellfield during an investigation of DuPont's Washington Works plant across the Ohio River in Wood County, West Virginia; DuPont's own records later showed it had tested for and found C8 in the area's water repeatedly since 1984 without disclosing it.
10. 2007 — DuPont installs a granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration system to treat PFOA in the affected water supply.
11. 2009 — The Little Hocking Water Association sues DuPont over the contamination.
12. 2015 — The Little Hocking Water Association reaches a settlement with DuPont; terms are kept confidential.
13. 2018 — GenX, a PFOA replacement compound, is detected in wells near the Washington Works plant, up to 52 ppt in private wells and 81 ppt in public wells in later Chemours testing.

Stories

Asahel Cooley's clearing

Asahel Cooley Sr. was the first white settler in what became Carthage Township, arriving in 1799 after crossing dense wilderness between the Muskingum and Hocking valleys with sons old enough to help him clear land. The homestead he built became known, in the words of the 1883 county history, for 'its good cheer and genuine hospitality' for years afterward. Cooley went on to serve as justice of the peace and county commissioner, one of the office-holding pioneers who set up the county's earliest civic institutions. His son Simion carried the family's imprint further: in 1815 he built mills and a distillery on the creek, and three years later platted the village of Coolville beside them, naming it for himself. Coolville, incorporated in 1835, grew into the trading center for the surrounding countryside, while Carthage Township itself never incorporated a village of its own and remains centered on the crossroads community of Lottridge.

A river-valley contamination that outlasted a generation

Across the Ohio River from Carthage Township's corner of Athens County, DuPont's Washington Works plant in Wood County, West Virginia, had been discharging perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, known as C8) into air, water, and unlined landfills since the 1950s. The Little Hocking Water Association, whose wellfield sits close to the river and serves customers across parts of Washington County and neighboring Athens County townships including Troy, drew its water from an aquifer hydraulically connected to the plant's discharge. DuPont's own internal testing found C8 in the association's water as early as 1984 but the company did not disclose it. The contamination became public only in 2002, when a broader investigation of the plant's surroundings turned up high PFOA readings; a carbon filtration system followed in 2007, a lawsuit in 2009, and a confidential settlement in 2015 — by which time a replacement compound, GenX, was already showing up in wells near the plant.

Local history sources: genealogytrails.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · pfasproject.com · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.46% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)
• Coolville Village35% of residentsLocal groundwater wells near Long Bottom (Ohio River valley area)
• Tuppers Plains/chester Water District19% of residentsLocal groundwater wells near Long Bottom (Ohio River valley area)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 3 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, 2022 to 2023, released 2026-01-20

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