Decatur Township, Washington County

How Decatur Township, Washington County began

Decatur Township lies in southwestern Washington County, bordering Athens County, and shares its name with only one other Decatur Township in Ohio, in Lawrence County. Its two old settlements were known plainly as Lower Settlement (Fillmore) and Upper Settlement, the latter renamed Decaturville when a post office opened there in 1851. In the township's north, bridge builders Charles and Alta Merydith raised the Root Covered Bridge in 1878 over the West Branch of the Little Hocking River, naming it for the nearby settlement of Root Town, now a ghost town. The 2020 census recorded 1,342 residents.

Settled spring 1816 (Joseph Lobdell), incorporated 1820 (township established; first election November 30, 1820 at William Johnson's house), by Joseph Lobdell and William Johnson, on David Putnam's Ohio Company offer of forty acres.

Where the name comes from

The 1881 county history says the township was established in 1820 as an incorporated town 'to be thereafter known as Decatur' and gives no reason for the name; the upper village was called the Upper Settlement until its 1851 post office took the name Decaturville.

Before the town

No Native village, mound, trail or treaty site specific to Decatur Township was found in the sources checked.

Timeline

1. 1816 — Joseph Lobdell becomes the township's first settler in the spring, accepting David Putnam's offer for the Ohio Company of forty acres to anyone who would build a cabin and plant a hundred-tree orchard; William Johnson buys the neighbouring claim and builds his cabin about three weeks later.
2. 1820 — Decatur is established as an incorporated township on petition of settlers, with its first election called for November 30 at William Johnson's house; the election records are lost.
3. 1822 — Hiram Fairchild builds the first flour mill in the township, in the northwest part of Section 1 south of Fillmore, about this year.
4. 1826 — The old schoolhouse north of Lobdell's burns; the charred remains of a stranger, with an open razor beside them, are found in the ashes.
5. 1845 — On July 9 Peter M. Garner, Crayton Loraine and Mordecai Thomas of Decatur Township are seized at Hall's Landing on the Ohio while helping six enslaved people escape; they are tried at Parkersburg, Virginia, and released on their own recognizance on January 10, 1846.
6. 1847 — The Old School Presbyterian church east of Decaturville is organized in the old log Methodist church under Rev. Moses Hoag; its building goes up in 1849 and is rebuilt in 1856.
7. 1851 — A post office opens at the settlement then called Upper Settlement, and it takes the name Decaturville.
8. 1856 — The Baptist congregation of Black residents in the north of the township builds its first meeting house; the present house follows in 1860 and the congregation becomes an Anti-Slavery Baptist church.
9. 1860 — Root's Mill, a flour mill on the west branch of the Little Hocking, is first erected; by 1881 it has a 40-horsepower engine and grinds 175 bushels a day.
10. 1878 — Charles and Alta Merydith build the Root Covered Bridge over the West Branch of the Little Hocking River, naming it for the nearby settlement of Root Town.
11. 1880 — The population is 1,505, up from 1,437 in 1870.
12. 1904 — The Decaturville post office closes after 53 years.
13. 1975 — The Root Covered Bridge becomes the first Washington County covered bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
14. 2020 — The census counts 1,342 people in Decatur Township.

Stories

A bridge that remembers a vanished town

In 1878, the Merydith family -- Charles and Alta, who built covered bridges across Washington County -- raised a 65-foot Long-truss span over the West Branch of the Little Hocking River in northern Decatur Township, weatherboarding its sides and topping it with a metal roof over stone abutments. They named it for the settlement nearest it, Root Town, a place that has since disappeared from the map entirely, leaving the bridge itself as one of the few remaining markers of where it once stood. When the Root Covered Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, it became the first of what would eventually be six covered bridges from Washington County on the register -- an early recognition of a form of engineering the county still had more surviving examples of than almost anywhere else in Ohio.

Upper and Lower, before either had a proper name

Decatur Township's two old settlements were, for years, known by nothing more descriptive than their position relative to each other: Lower Settlement, which became Fillmore, and Upper Settlement, which only became Decaturville once it secured its own post office in 1851. The plainness of those early names is typical of how rural Washington County townships grew -- clusters of farms and a mill or a store, identified by geography long before anyone thought to give them a lasting name -- and Decaturville's post office ran for just over half a century, closing in 1904, before the settlement settled into the quiet, small unincorporated community it remains today.

Three Ohioans in the Parkersburg jail

The 1881 county history says the route of the Underground Railroad ran through Decatur Township, and many of its leading men helped. On the night of July 9, 1845, three of them, Peter M. Garner, Crayton Loraine and Mordecai Thomas, went unarmed to Hall's Landing on the Ohio to help six people enslaved by John W. Harwood, who lived just below Blennerhassett Island, get away. An armed posse that had been tipped off rushed from the bushes as the boat touched, seized five of the six and the three Ohioans, and carried the men to the Parkersburg, Virginia, jail. Virginia officials called them felons under Virginia law, refused bail, and kept friends and Marietta lawyers away. A protest meeting was held at the Marietta court house on August 16; the three were tried in November and found guilty, and the question of whether the state line ran at low or high water, where they had been taken, split the Virginia court of appeals evenly in December. At a special term they were released on their own recognizance on January 10, 1846. Garner, born June 14, 1808, lived at the crossroads in Decatur and died at Columbus at sixty-one.

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

Every historic place in Washington County on the full map

Ohio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield) The water here

• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.98% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)
• Coolville Village1% of residentsLocal groundwater wells near Long Bottom (Ohio River valley area)
• Tuppers Plains/chester Water District1% of residentsLocal groundwater wells near Long Bottom (Ohio River valley area)

Bridges rated poor (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-19

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