Danville

How Danville began

The original Danville, one of the oldest towns in eastern Knox County, was laid out in Union Township by Jonathan Sapp (son of pioneer George Sapp Sr.) together with Robert Waddell; Jonathan Sapp himself, interviewed for the 1881 county history, put the date as late as 1818, though it was 'generally claimed' locally to be as early as 1813 or 1814. The village was named for Daniel Sapp, a War of 1812 soldier. John McDaniel built the first house, and W. R. Sapp served as the first postmaster of the first post office in eastern Knox County. The modern village took shape in 1923 when Danville merged with two neighboring communities, Buckeye City (platted in 1880) and Rosstown, also called Rossville. Catholic missionary work began early here: St. Luke's parish, whose first log church was built about 1809 or 1810 on land George Sapp Sr. donated, had as its missionary priest from 1839 to 1847 Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who later became the first Archbishop of Santa Fe. The village markets itself today as the 'Gateway to Amish Country,' reflecting its position at the edge of Ohio's Amish settlement region; its population peaked at 1,127 in 1980 and stood at 1,019 in 2020.

Platted 1813-1814 (traditionally claimed) or as late as 1818 (per founder Jonathan Sapp's own account); 1880 (Buckeye City), incorporated 1923 (modern Danville, by merger of Buckeye City and Rosstown/Rossville), by Jonathan Sapp (son of George Sapp Sr.) and Robert Waddell.

Where the name comes from

Danville was named for Daniel Sapp, a soldier in the War of 1812, apparently a relative of founder George Sapp Sr. and his son Jonathan Sapp, the town's actual platter.

Before the town

No source found documents a Native village, mound, or specific encounter within Danville itself. The 1881 county history records that Union Township settlers, including the Sapp family, lived in fear of Native attack during the War of 1812: while George Sapp Sr. served as an ensign in Captain John Greer's company, his wife took her children each night to a block-house near the present site of Rossville (just south of Danville) and stayed there until morning. The village sits in Union Township along the Kokosing/Mohican valley in eastern Knox County, territory that was Wyandot, Shawnee, and Delaware (Lenape) hunting and travel ground before treaty cessions; no site-specific record of a Native village or encounter directly at Danville was found.

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

• Rossville block-house (other) — near the present site of Rossville, half a mile south of Danville, Union Township; a wartime refuge for settler families during the War of 1812, 1812-1815 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1813 — Jonathan Sapp and Robert Waddell lay out the original Danville, named for Daniel Sapp, a War of 1812 soldier -- the traditionally claimed date, though founder Jonathan Sapp himself later dated it as late as 1818.
2. 1809 — St. Luke's Catholic congregation, made up chiefly of Maryland emigrants descended from Lord Baltimore's English Catholic colony, is organized by Rev. Edward Fenwick and builds its first log church about this year or 1810, on land George Sapp Sr. donated a mile west of the future village; this predates the village's own founding.
3. 1830 — Census records 234 residents in Danville.
4. 1834 — The Christian church of Danville is organized April 20 by Elder James Hays, with Daniel Sapp among its first members.
5. 1839 — Jean-Baptiste Lamy begins serving as a missionary priest at St. Luke's, a post he holds until 1847; he later becomes the first Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
6. 1856 — Antioch Lodge No. 286 of the Free and Accepted Masons is chartered in Danville on October 23.
7. 1877 — St. Luke's present brick church is built at a cost of about $12,000, replacing the frame church erected during Archbishop Lamy's pastorate; by 1881 it is considered probably the strongest country Catholic congregation in Ohio, with over 100 member families.
8. 1880 — Buckeye City, later absorbed into Danville, is platted.
9. 1923 — Buckeye City and Rosstown (Rossville) merge with Danville to form the modern village.
10. 1980 — Danville's population peaks at 1,127.
11. 2020 — Census records 1,019 residents.

Stories

A missionary priest who became an archbishop

St. Luke's parish in Danville was organized about 1809 by Maryland Catholic settlers, and for eight years in the 1840s its missionary priest was a young Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Lamy. Lamy served the scattered Catholic families of Knox County from 1839 to 1847, riding the circuit of a rural frontier parish decades before his career took him much further west. He went on to become the first bishop, and later the first Archbishop, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a figure well known enough in American church history that novelist Willa Cather based her 1927 novel 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' on his life. Danville's brick parish, rebuilt in 1877 at a cost of about $12,000, was where that career began.

The store clerk who became a federal judge

Martin Welker, born on a Union Township farm in 1819, left home in 1831 to clerk in his brother's store at nearby Millwood, expecting to become a merchant. That plan changed the day a customer passed him a counterfeit bank bill; when the case went to the grand jury at Mount Vernon, young Welker was called as a witness and, for the first time in his life, watched a judge and lawyers at work. Awed by what he saw, he told a boy sitting next to him that he intended to become a lawyer and someday a judge himself -- and within twenty years he had, defeating the very judge who had inspired him, Judge Dean, in an 1851 election for the same district bench. Welker went on to serve as Ohio's lieutenant governor under Salmon P. Chase, six years in the U.S. Congress for Ohio's fourteenth district, and, from 1873, as a federal district judge for the Northern District of Ohio, an appointment from President Grant that he still held when the county's history was written. Welker's father and family were early residents of Danville itself, and Welker's mentor in reading law was Danville-connected attorney William R. Sapp.

Three villages become one

For much of the nineteenth century, the community now called Danville was really three separate places crowded close together: the original Danville platted in the 1810s, Buckeye City laid out in 1880, and Rosstown, also known as Rossville. Each kept its own identity for decades even as they grew into each other along the same roads. In 1923 the three finally merged into a single incorporated village under the Danville name, consolidating what had been a patchwork of small settlements into the town that exists today.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Danville Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Community health centers (3)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (2)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

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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