Clay Township, Montgomery County

How Clay Township, Montgomery County began

Clay Township was set off from Randolph Township on June 8, 1825, in the northwestern corner of Montgomery County, and was named for the statesman Henry Clay. Early settlement lagged the rest of the county because much of the upland was swampy and unattractive to farmers; most buyers took eighty-acre lots, and by local tradition the township was the last in the county to be settled even though it was not the last formed. Its economy grew around sawmills on the Wolf Creek forks and the springs of its level upland, which feeds the headwaters of Ludlow Creek, Twin Creek, Bear Creek and Wolf Creek. The township today contains the platted town of Brookville (only partly within the township, the rest an independent city), the village of Phillipsburg, part of the village of Verona, and the unincorporated communities of Arlington, Bachman and Dodson; it remains largely rural farmland close to the Dayton metropolitan area.

Settled unclear; sources describe it as settled later than most Montgomery County townships despite being organized relatively early, incorporated 1825-06-08 (organized as a township, set off from Randolph Township).

Where the name comes from

Clay Township is named for the statesman Henry Clay, one of nine townships in Ohio bearing his name.

Before the town

No site-specific Native American village, trail, mound or encounter within Clay Township itself is recorded; the 1909 county history's Clay Township chapter names none. The township lies within the roughly two-thirds of Ohio ceded by the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Chippewa and other nations of the Western Confederacy to the United States under the Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, 1795, at Fort Greenville (present-day Greenville, Ohio, in neighboring Darke County, which Clay Township borders). The treaty line ran near Fort Loramie on a branch of the Great Miami River, not far northwest of the township, and opened this part of western Ohio to survey and settlement in the years that followed. This is general regional context, not a claim of a specific site in Clay Township.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami, Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot, Ottawa, Potawatomi.

Timeline

1. 1825-06-08 — Clay Township is organized, set off from Randolph Township, Montgomery County.
2. 1825-07-04 — First township officers are elected at the residence of John Rohrer.
3. 1815 — The township's first schoolhouse is built in the northwest quarter of Section 13.
4. 1842 — The community of Bachman is platted within the township.
5. 1850-04-13 — Jacob Flory plats the town of Brookville, the township's principal town (only part of present Brookville lies within the township, the remainder is an independent city).
6. 1874 — A Catholic church is erected in the township; by the time of the 1909 county history it was reported no longer standing.
7. 1978-03-29 — The Joseph Flory House, northwest of Clayton on Diamond Mill Road within Clay Township, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

The last-settled township

Clay Township was organized in 1825, comparatively early among Montgomery County's townships, yet local historians recorded it as the last township in the county to actually be settled. The reason was the land itself: much of the elevated upland in the northwest corner of the county was swampy and unappealing to the first wave of farmers moving through the Great Miami valley, who passed it by for better-drained ground closer to the rivers. When the land was bought, eighty-acre lots were the prevailing size. Early buyers recorded in the county history include Daniel Chribe in 1805, John Thomas in 1816, Joseph Christian in 1822, Edward Thomas in 1827 and John Corcoran in 1830 -- a slow trickle rather than a rush, spread across a quarter century. Once settled, the same springs and headwater streams that had made the ground swampy became an asset, feeding sawmills along the branches of Wolf Creek and giving the township its rural, farm-mill economy through the nineteenth century.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Montgomery County on the full map

Mad River Well Field wells along the Mad River east of Dayton, refilled by river water let into recharge lagoons The water here

• Brookville Municipality78% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (recharged by Great Miami & Mad Rivers)
• Montgomery County Water Services 26% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (recharged by Great Miami & Mad Rivers)
• Phillipsburg Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Englewood City5% of residentsStillwater Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Union City3% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Verona, Village Of1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Dayton Public Water System1% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (recharged by Great Miami & Mad Rivers)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2026: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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