Clay Township, Highland County

How Clay Township, Highland County began

Clay Township was organized December 5, 1831 out of parts of Whiteoak and Salem townships, in the southwestern corner of Highland County along the Brown County line. Its only community is Buford, platted in August 1834 by Robert Lindsley and named for the maiden name of a first settler's wife; a second, smaller plat called Sicily was laid out there in June 1848 by John N. Huggins and later faded to a place name. The township's ground lies in the Virginia Military District, drained by the north fork of Whiteoak Creek, and was Shawnee, Wyandot and Miami hunting ground before Ohio settlement. It remains rural today, with a 2020 population of 1,499 centered on Buford.

Platted 1834 (Buford), incorporated December 5, 1831 (township organized), by Township organized from Whiteoak and Salem townships; Buford platted by Robert Lindsley, August 1834.

Where the name comes from

The township was named for the Kentucky statesman Henry Clay, 'Harry of the West,' then the idol of Ohio's Whigs, according to the 1902 county history. Buford, the township's community, was named after the maiden name of the wife of one of its first settlers.

Before the town

No mounds, villages, trails or treaty boundary lines specific to Clay Township are recorded in the sources searched. The 1878 county history describes the whole of Highland County, this township included, as having been common hunting ground for the Shawnee, Wyandot and Miami before white settlement, writing of 'the fierce Shawnee, Wyandot and Miami Indians roaming over the county as their common hunting ground' at the time of the county's 1805 organization. The township lies within the Virginia Military District, land set aside by Virginia for Revolutionary War veterans; Ohio south of the Greenville Treaty line, including this area, was ceded by the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Ottawa, and other nations under the Treaty of Greenville (1795). No specific mound, earthwork, camp, or named village within Clay Township itself is documented in the sources consulted; Fort Hill and other Hopewell-era sites lie elsewhere in the county.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of southern and central Ohio, including the future Highland County, from the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape and other nations to the United States.
2. 1805 — Highland County is organized, carved from Ross, Adams, and Clermont counties.
3. 1831 — Clay Township is organized on December 5, formed out of Whiteoak and Salem townships.
4. 1834 — Buford is platted in August by proprietor Robert Lindsley.
5. 1848 — Sicily is platted in June by proprietor John N. Huggins, and a post office is established there that month with John N. Huggins as postmaster.
6. 1876 — John Bell and Jacob Burns are recorded as the sitting justices of the peace for Clay Township, and James Brown and Henry Ruble are named as the township's representatives to gather local history for the county's centennial history.
7. 1976 — The Hirons-Brown House, southwest of Buford on Buford-Bardwell Road, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 12.
8. 2020 — The U.S. Census records Clay Township's population at 1,499, with Buford (population 306) its only community.

Stories

Two plats, a generation apart

Clay Township's map carries the marks of two separate town-building efforts. In August 1834, Robert Lindsley laid out Buford at the crossroads that would become the township's center, on ground where routes to Lynchburg, Sardinia, Hillsboro and Mowrystown converge. Fourteen years later, in June 1848, John N. Huggins platted a second small community, Sicily, elsewhere in the township, and the federal government approved a post office there that same month with Huggins as postmaster. Buford grew into the township's lasting hub - it still anchors the 2020 census count of 1,499 - while Sicily faded to little more than a name on old plat and postal records, the fate of many small 19th-century Ohio paper towns that lost the race for a rail line or a county road.

A house that survived the boundary line

The Hirons-Brown House sits southwest of Buford on Buford-Bardwell Road, close enough to the Brown County line that its 45154 mailing ZIP is centered on Mount Orab, a Brown County village. That postal overlap has caused confusion about which county the house belongs to, but the property itself, and the road it sits on, lie inside Clay Township, Highland County, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 12, 1976 on that basis. It is one of only a handful of National Register listings in the rural southwestern townships of Highland County, most of the county's register entries clustering instead around Hillsboro, Greenfield and the county's larger villages.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · npgallery.nps.gov · archive.org · archive.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Brown County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mount Orab Village36% of residentsSterling Run (reservoirs)
• Waynoka Regional Water and Sewer Dist29% of residentsLake Waynoka / Sycamore Run reservoirs
• Sardinia Village27% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Western Water Company4% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)
• Lynchburg Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Power plants (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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