Concord Township, Highland County

How Concord Township, Highland County began

Concord Township lies at the southern tip of Highland County, inside the old Virginia Military District. Its first settlers, Edward Earls and Jeremiah Grant from Virginia, arrived in the spring of 1809 on the road from Hillsboro to Maysville, and families settling that year and after on Sugartree Ridge, named for its sugar maples, formed the core of the neighborhood. On March 4, 1811, the county commissioners struck the township off the south side of New Market Township, probably naming it for the first battleground of the Revolution; it later gave up land to Jackson (1816), White Oak (1821) and Washington (1850). It has no incorporated village; its best-documented landmark is the Samuel Lyle Log House on Pondlick Road, and it had 1,361 residents in 2020.

Settled 1809, by Edward Earls and Jeremiah Grant, from Virginia (John Emery had settled near Samuel Hindman about 1801); township set off March 4, 1811.

Where the name comes from

Set off on March 4, 1811, by a commissioners' order that it 'be known by the name of Concord'; the 1902 county history says it was probably named in honor of the first battleground of the Revolution, Concord, Massachusetts.

Before the town

The 1902 county history reports eight prehistoric sites in Concord Township on the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society's list, the second-highest count in the county after Paint Township's nine; the sites are not named or located. No Native village, camp, trail or burial site is named inside the township in the sources checked. The township lies within the Virginia Military District, opened to surveying and settlement after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Fort Hill, the Hopewell-culture hilltop earthwork in Highland County, is in Brushcreek Township, not here.

• Eight prehistoric sites reported to the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (other) — Concord Township (not located in the source), prehistoric (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes to the United States the land south and east of the Greenville treaty line, including the Virginia Military District, the Revolutionary War land-bounty tract that includes what became Highland County.
2. 1801 — John Emery settles near Samuel Hindman, within the present limits of Concord Township, about 1801.
3. 1805 — Highland County is organized on May 1, formed from parts of Ross, Adams and Clermont counties.
4. 1809 — In the spring Edward Earls settles about a mile and a quarter south of Sugartree Ridge on the Hillsboro-Maysville road, and Jeremiah Grant half a mile south of him; in July Samuel Whitley arrives from Rockbridge County, Virginia, and settles on the Whisky Road.
5. 1809 — In the summer and fall James Rotroff, Henry Nace and St. Clair Ross settle on Sugartree Ridge, then part of New Market Township.
6. 1811 — On March 4 the commissioners order a township struck off the south side of New Market Township, to be known as Concord.
7. 1811 — At the first township election, held in April at the house of Robert Huston, about thirty votes elect Jonas Rotroff, William Rea and Thomas Petijohn trustees.
8. 1811 — At the October 8 state election, fifty-seven men vote in the new township of Concord.
9. 1811 — Soon after 1811 the Sugartree Ridge Methodist church is organized at the home of Rachel Wilkin; its first church is built before 1840.
10. 1816 — Jackson Township is set off from Brush Creek and Concord.
11. 1821 — White Oak Township is set off mainly from Concord.
12. 1830 — A Presbyterian church is organized in Concord Township about 1830, with the Lyle family as its main membership.
13. 1837 — A post office called Sugar Tree Ridge is established at the community on the ridge of sugar maples near Concord Township, according to Wikipedia's history of the settlement.
14. 1844 — John Bunn plats Sugar Tree Ridge.
15. 1900 — The census counts 1,097 people in Concord Township.
16. 1995 — The Samuel Lyle Log House at 7190 Pondlick Road, northwest of Seaman, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (listed July 28, 1995, reference #95000939).
17. 2020 — The U.S. Census records Concord Township's population as 1,361.

Stories

A log house on Pondlick Road

Northwest of the crossroads village of Seaman, on Pondlick Road in the southern corner of Concord Township, stands the log house built by Samuel Lyle. It is one of the few structures from the township's early settlement period substantial enough, and intact enough, to have survived to be documented and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 28, 1995. Like most of Concord Township, the area around it has stayed agricultural and unincorporated - no village ever grew up around the Lyle place the way one did at Sugartree Ridge a few miles off. The house is one of only two features in the township specific enough to be individually documented in the sources we checked.

The Whisky Road

By 1809 the small log distilleries around New Market could not keep up with demand, and word spread that a Virginian named Hemphill was making much better whisky in Adams County, a few miles east of Winchester. Rather than wait for official approval, the men of New Market set out to cut their own road some fifteen miles through the forest to his still house. The party left Barrere's tavern with Barrere, the New Market justice of the peace, carrying compass and staff, about thirty men with axes, and a horse-drawn slide carrying a tapped barrel of Jacob Medsker's whisky, tin cups and a side of bacon, with a fiddler, Mike Moore, among them. They camped the first night on Buck Run, where Moore played and the men danced by the fire, and found the barrel nearly empty in the morning. The road they opened ran from New Market toward West Union and the old Marble Furnace, past the farms of the first Concord Township settlers, and kept the name Whisky Road long afterward. Scott's 1890 history says the name came from whisky being both the inducement for cutting it and the first cargo carried over it.

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 · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Hillsboro City50% of residentsClear Creek (via Selph Road & Liberty Park Reservoirs)
• Highland County Water Company, Inc.17% of residentsSand-and-gravel aquifer wells (Ross/Highland Co. well fields; local wells)
• Winchester Public Water System14% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Seaman Village10% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Adams County Regional Wd9% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)

Power plants (1)

Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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 2024-12-05

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