Decatur Township, Lawrence County

How Decatur Township, Lawrence County began

Decatur Township lies in northwestern Lawrence County, bordering Scioto County, with no incorporated town. It was a charcoal-iron township of the Hanging Rock Iron Region: Buckhorn Furnace stood in it, and the Pedro post-office area took in Etna Furnace, whose workers, ironmasters' families and store managers fill the township's recorded history. Washington Township was cut out of its northern part between 1840 and 1850, and the population fell from 1,527 in 1890 to 625 in 2020 as the furnaces closed. Its founding date and the origin of its name are not recorded in the sources found.

Incorporated by 1840 (first appears in the county's 1840 census; organization date not found).

Where the name comes from

No source found records the reason for the name. Other Ohio Decatur townships exist (Washington County), and early-nineteenth-century townships were commonly named for naval heroes such as Stephen Decatur, but no source read ties this township's name to any person.

Before the town

No source found records a Native village, mound, trail, or treaty event specific to Decatur Township. The township lies within the Ohio River lands ceded at the 1795 Treaty of Greenville; the county's broader Native history is covered at the county level. Willard's 1916 history lists the Waterloo coal seam as running under Decatur, Aid, Lawrence and Symmes townships but gives no earlier Native use of the land.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1816-12-20 — Lawrence County is created by the legislative act of December 20, 1816; Decatur is later laid out as one of its townships.
2. 1840 — The census counts 594 people in Decatur, a figure that still included the area that became Washington Township.
3. 1849 — Henry S. Willard, a member of the Ohio Iron and Coal Company, dies at Buckhorn Furnace in the township four months after the birth of his son Henry S. Willard Jr., who is born August 31, 1849 while the family lives there.
4. 1850 — Decatur has grown to 1,052 people and a post office named Campbell is listed for Decatur Township; by this census Washington Township has been set off from it.
5. 1856 — The assessor rates Decatur's 21,311 acres at $122,424 in land value, among the higher figures in the county.
6. 1860 — The census count is 920, lower than in 1850 because Washington Township now counts separately.
7. c. 1870 — The Charcoal Iron Company, organized with S. C. Johnson as president and John Campbell as vice president, controls the old Buckhorn Furnace in Lawrence County and Howard Furnace in Scioto County and holds over seven thousand acres around Howard and nearly as much around Buckhorn.
8. 1890 — The census count is 1,527, the highest count in the sources read; it falls to 1,063 in 1900.
9. 1895 — Richard J. Marshall, who came to Ohio about 1845 and settled at Franklin Furnace, dies; he had served as a justice of the peace of Decatur Township for nine years and as assessor six terms.
10. 1910 — The census count is 950.
11. 1914 — The assessor values Decatur Township at $957,598.
12. 1949 — An Ironton centennial history names Pedro, in this township, among the outlying sub-communities of 'Greater Ironton' that had kept a distinct identity.
13. 2020 — The township's population is recorded at 625 across 33.4 square miles in the decennial census.

Stories

A furnace manager's son, born at Buckhorn

Henry S. Willard was one of the twenty-four men who organized the Ohio Iron and Coal Company, the firm that founded Ironton in 1849, and he was living at Buckhorn Furnace in Decatur Township with his family. On August 31, 1849 his son Henry S. Willard Jr. was born, though the birth took place in Cincinnati. Four months later the father died at Buckhorn, and when the boy was ten his mother married O. B. Gould of Franklin Furnace. The younger Willard studied at the School of Technology in Boston, went to Kansas, and in March 1873 reached Jackson County, where he became superintendent of the Milton Furnace and Coal Company, sank the Milton shaft that opened the Wellston coalfield, and saw the Milton furnace blown in during June 1874. He later headed the First National Bank of Wellston from its organization in 1886. A boy born in a Lawrence County charcoal-furnace village thus ended up building the coal-and-iron town of Wellston.

A furnace man's life: Jonas Marshall

Jonas Marshall was born at Etna Furnace on August 15, 1849, the son of Richard J. Marshall, a Maryland wagonmaker and blacksmith who settled at Franklin Furnace about 1845 and served Decatur Township as justice of the peace for nine years. Jonas went to the Decatur Township district schools, and at eighteen became stable foreman at Buckhorn Furnace, where he stayed five years. After two years of further schooling he returned as the furnace's store manager and woodland-business manager and held that post eighteen years. He then worked for the Gallia Furnace, the Lawrence Furnace (thirteen years as blacksmith and wagonmaker) and the Hecla Furnace (three years), and by 1913 had moved from Ironton to the Ralston Steel Company in Columbus. His career, as Willard recorded it in 1916, runs through almost every furnace of the Hanging Rock district and ends with the region's iron age.

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

Ohio River surface water, treated at the Ironton Water Treatment Plant (built 1993, approved capacity 4 million gallons per day, about 1.3 MGD produced). The foot-of-Vernon-Street siting describes the original 1872 waterworks, not the current intake location. The water here

• Hecla Water Association99% of residentsOhio River
• Jackson Co. Water Company-wtp1% of residentsTeays River Buried Valley Aquifer (own wells)

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, 2020 to 2023, released 2024-10-22

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