Chesterville

How Chesterville began

Chesterville was laid out in 1829 and named for Chester Township, in which it sits, in the southeastern part of Morrow County along the Kokosing River. A post office opened there in 1832. The 1911 county history records three ancient mounds near the village, one of which furnished brick material and yielded a human skeleton when disturbed for an 1829 hotel's construction. The village's downtown core, including its town hall, church, post office, school and several houses, forms a cluster of eight buildings listed together on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Chesterville's population swelled dramatically between 1850 and 1860 before falling back sharply by 1870.

Platted 1829.

Where the name comes from

Named for Chester Township, in which it sits; Baskin (1880) adds that the local name Miles Cross Roads, the name given a hotel at such a crossing, long threatened to supersede the real name.

Before the town

The 1911 History of Morrow County records three mounds near Chesterville. One earthwork, located near an old schoolhouse, had already been plowed down by the time of writing. When a hotel was built at the village in 1829, builders took brick-making material from a nearby mound and in the process uncovered a large human skeleton along with grave goods, including an object of blue clay resembling a mortar. No cultural attribution (Adena, Hopewell, or later) is given in the source. The village lies within land ceded at the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Baskin (1880) also records that when John Walker came in March 1808 he found Native people encamped on the site of the future village, who left him alone.

• Chesterville mounds (mound) — near Chesterville village, Chester Township, Morrow County; one near an old schoolhouse, pre-contact, undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1817 — Enos Miles Sr., a teacher and surveyor, buys the property at the future village site from James Holt and builds his cabin.
2. 1826 — A post office called Miles Cross Roads is established; it becomes Chesterville in 1832.
3. 1829 — Chesterville is laid out and named for Chester Township. The same year, brick material for a new hotel is taken from a nearby mound, uncovering a human skeleton and grave goods.
4. 1832 — A post office opens at Chesterville.
5. 1833 — Dr. Richard E. Lord becomes the first practicing physician in Chesterville; Enos Miles rents his hotel that spring to Phineas Squire.
6. 1839 — Dr. Lord puts up a four-and-a-half story grist-mill on the Mount Gilead road.
7. 1840 — Fire destroys John Graff's store and several neighboring buildings, the worst loss the village has suffered.
8. 1848 — Morrow County is organized from parts of Delaware, Marion, Knox and Richland counties; Chester Township and Chesterville become part of the new county.
9. 1850-1860 — Wikipedia's census table lists 407 people in 1850, 1,563 in 1860 and 282 in 1870; the 1860 figure is far out of line with the village the 1880 county history describes and was not corroborated.
10. 1850 — Three railroad surveys along the Owl Creek valley from Lima to Zanesville fail, leaving the village off the main lines.
11. 1852-12-30 — Odd Fellows Lodge No. 204 is instituted, with a charter dated January 24, 1852.
12. 1853-03-22 — Free and Accepted Masons Lodge No. 238 receives its dispensation at Chillicothe.
13. 1860-01 — Chesterville is incorporated after a petition signed by fifty-one men on August 22, 1859; Davis Miles is the first mayor.
14. 1867 — The village and the Odd Fellows build the Town Hall, the lodge paying $1,200 for the upper story.
15. 1880 — Chesterville has two dry-goods stores, a drug store, a hardware store, a hotel, four churches, the town house and a schoolhouse.
16. 1920 — Chesterville's census count falls to 155, its lowest.
17. 1979 — Eight buildings in the village -- the Chester Town Hall, Chesterville Methodist Church, Jarvis House, Enos Miles House, Old Bartlett and Goble Store, Old Union School, A.B. Sears House and U.S. Post Office -- are listed together on the National Register of Historic Places on August 21.
18. 1990 — Chesterville reaches 286 people in the census, its high since 1870.
19. 2020 — The census counts 191 people in Chesterville.

Stories

A hotel built over a burial mound

When Chesterville's builders needed brick material for a new hotel in 1829, the same year the village itself was laid out, they turned to one of three ancient mounds standing near the settlement. Digging into it, they found more than clay: a large human skeleton lay inside, along with a scatter of grave goods, among them a blue clay object shaped something like a mortar. The 1911 county historian who recorded the find treated it almost in passing, one incident among many in a chapter about the village's founding -- a reminder of how routinely 19th-century Ohio settlers disturbed much older burial sites in the course of ordinary construction, with no excavation record, no attribution to a specific culture, and, in this case, apparently no further study.

A cluster of buildings, a single historic district

Chesterville's small downtown -- its 1829-era town hall, its Methodist church, a store, a school, the post office and several private houses -- survived intact enough into the late 20th century that all eight buildings were nominated to the National Register of Historic Places together in 1979, a rare instance of a village this size retaining nearly its entire historic commercial and civic core in one piece.

The county seat that nearly was

Before the railroads, the 1880 county history says, Chesterville was the metropolis of the area that became Morrow County, with a lively struggle between Mount Gilead and Cardington for second place. Its location on the Mount Vernon and Marion road, with a hotel at Enos Miles's cross roads, wagon teams hauling goods from the lake ports and twelve loads of wheat sent out at a time, made it a hub. During the agitation for a new county it took an important part and, through the justness of its cause and the ability of its representatives, came near success. The county was organized in 1848 with Mount Gilead as the seat. Railroad surveys in 1850 along Owl Creek fell through, the roads through Mansfield and Mount Vernon and the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis line left it at a disadvantage, and its business declined.

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

Every historic place in Morrow County on the full map

Del-Co's East Knox wellfield at Bryant and Lucerne Rds, Wayne Twp, about 5 miles WSW of Fredericktown The water here

• Del-co Water Company, Inc.100% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-01-01: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2017: 5 of 6 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 4 of 5.

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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-16

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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