Clay Township, Scioto County

How Clay Township, Scioto County began

Clay Township lies north and east of Portsmouth in Scioto County. It was organized on June 7, 1826 from the north and east parts of Wayne Township, and Wikipedia says it was named for Henry Clay; the 1903 county history does not give a reason. Its first township election was held at Clough's Mill on June 23, 1826. For its first century it was a farming township of Scioto and Ohio River bottoms where the Munn's Run valley was settled mostly by Germans; then industry arrived at its New Boston end: the village of New Boston was platted in 1891, the Burgess steel works was rebuilt there after a fire in 1898, and the Peebles Paving Brick Company began in 1902. Portsmouth has since annexed the township's southern edge. Rosemount sits at its center, with Rubyville, Eden Park and Twin Valley as hamlets, and the vanished post-office community of Abashai (1886-1898). The 2020 population was 3,516.

Incorporated 1826-06-07, by organized June 7, 1826 from the north and east parts of Wayne Township; first election at Clough's Mill June 23, 1826 chose trustees Gabriel Feurt, Asa A. Andrews and Enoch Lawson.

Where the name comes from

Named to honor Henry Clay, the Kentucky statesman, according to Wikipedia; the 1903 county history records the organization but does not say why the name was chosen. It is one of nine Clay Townships in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native site or event specific to Clay Township was found. The township lies where the Scioto River joins the Ohio River and is part of the land ceded to the United States by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville; the 1903 county history's Clay Township chapter does not mention Native people.

Timeline

1. 1809 — Wayne Township is organized in April; it takes in what later becomes Clay Township and, until 1815, the unincorporated site of Portsmouth.
2. 1826-06-07 — Clay Township is established and named for Henry Clay.
3. 1826-06-23 — Voters meet at Clough's Mill and elect the first officers: trustees Gabriel Feurt, Asa A. Andrews and Enoch Lawson, clerk Turner M. Mastin, treasurer Dennis Smith, justice Jacob Noel and constable Jonathan Cutler.
4. 1832 — On June 7 the boundary is changed to include all of section 13, township 2, range 21, which had been part of Harrison Township.
5. 1855 — New schoolhouses go up in four of the five sub-districts, three costing $500 each; the township appropriates $100 for bookcases, so each school has a library of 20 to 30 volumes.
6. 1859 — Valley Methodist Episcopal Chapel, the 'Five Mile' church, is organized with a brick building about five miles from Portsmouth.
7. 1872 — The German United Brethren Church on Long Run is built at a cost of about $800.
8. 1886 — A post office opens at Abashai under proprietor and postmaster Nathan McCowan.
9. 1891-02-17 — New Boston is platted by James Skelton, A. T. Holcomb and M. Stanton, 191 lots on 37 acres of the John Rhodes farm; it is connected to Portsmouth by an electric line and by the Norfolk & Western and Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern railroads.
10. 1898 — The Abashai post office closes after the death of its proprietor and postmaster Nathan McCowan (1813-1897), ending the hamlet's recorded life.
11. 1898-06-07 — The Burgess Steel and Iron Works burns down; its backers plat Yorktown (September 24, 1898; 384 lots) and sell the lots by lottery to raise about $30,000 for a new steel plant, which is built in 1898-99.
12. 1900 — Clay Township has 1,764 inhabitants, the fourth-largest in the county, and ranks first in the valuation of its property; the Burgess plant is sold to the Crucible Steel Company of America and closed.
13. 1901-04-19 — The Lawson Heights and Earlytown schools are transferred to the Portsmouth school system.
14. 1902 — The Peebles Paving Brick Company, incorporated this year with $50,000 capital, opens a plant near New Boston in June with a capacity of 60,000 paving bricks a day; the steel plant reopens as the Portsmouth Steel Company.
15. 2020 — The census counts 3,516 residents in the township's 22.1 square miles.

Stories

A steel mill won by lottery

The Burgess Steel and Iron Company, incorporated in 1872, had grown its mill at Third and Madison Streets from 3,500 tons in its first year to 50,000 tons a year by 1898. On June 7, 1898 fire destroyed the plant. Levi D. York, the company's president and general manager, bought the site that became Yorktown, platted 384 lots on September 24, 1898, and lots were subscribed and drawn by lot by private parties, who in effect donated about $30,000 to build a new Burgess plant, which went up in 1898-99 as an all-steel and iron mill of four open-hearth furnaces of 30 tons each. In 1900 the mill was sold to the Crucible Steel Company of America and shut down; in 1902 the Portsmouth Steel Company reopened it, overhauled for 300 tons of steel a day, and shipped its first carload to the Cleveland Rolling Mills on June 18, 1902.

Abashai and the postmaster who owned it

Abashai was a post-office hamlet in Clay Township, on what is now State Route 139 at the Woods Ridge Road intersection. A post office opened there in 1886 under its proprietor, Nathan McCowan (1813-1897), who was also the postmaster. McCowan died in 1897 and the post office closed in 1898, ending the hamlet's recorded life. It is the only lost place the Ohio ghost-town survey lists for Clay Township.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · ohioghosttowns.wordpress.com

Ohio River, drawn at the municipal river water intake on the right descending bank near Mile 350.7 The water here

• Portsmouth City94% of residentsOhio River
• Northwest Regional Water District5% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)
• Scioto Co. Regional Water District #11% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)
• Scioto Water Inc.-rose Hill0% of residentsPurchased: Scioto Co. Regional Water Dist. #1 (Teays Valley Aquifer)
• Scioto Water, Inc.-davis Camp0% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Public schools (3)

Public EV charging (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

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