Deercreek Township, Madison County

How Deercreek Township, Madison County began

Deer Creek Township, in the center of Madison County, was erected by the county commissioners on April 30, 1810 and re-erected with new bounds on June 11, 1811. It takes its name from Deer Creek, which the 1883 county history says was believed named for the vast herds of deer that once resorted to it. John Adair was probably the first settler, about 1802, and Thomas Gwynne laid out the town of Lawrenceville, called Limerick, in 1816 on the old Columbus-Springfield mud road. When the National Road was completed through the township in 1836-37 it bypassed Lawrenceville, and William Minter laid out Lafayette beside it; the Red Brick Tavern there is on the National Register. The township had 967 residents in 2020.

Platted 1834 (Lafayette; the 1883 county history gives 1837), by William Minter, who platted Lafayette on the site of the earlier settlement of Lawrenceville.

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history says the name Deer Creek 'originated, it is believed, from the fact that in early days it was the resort of vast herds of deer'. It does not name Native people as the hunters.

Before the town

No village, camp or burial site specific to Deer Creek Township is recorded in the sources checked. The 1883 county history says the prairies and thinly timbered parts of the township were often set on fire by the Indians in dry seasons, endangering the first settlers' property, and that Benjamin Garrett built a block house on Coniac Run in 1808 to protect his family from the Indians. The same history lists burial mounds in nearby Oak Run, Union, Pleasant and Jefferson townships; none is placed in Deer Creek Township. The township was part of the Shawnee and Wyandot country ceded in 1795.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.

Timeline

1. c. 1802 — John Adair camps on the bank of Deer Creek and then selects his site, probably the first settler in the township; he settles there in 1806.
2. 1806 — William and John Blair, John Barr, John McCaul, Charles Ewing and others settle; they are the true pioneers of the township.
3. 1808 — John McDonald settles at the Upper Glade, and Benjamin Garrett builds a block house on Coniac Run to protect his family from the Indians.
4. 1810-04-30 — The Madison County commissioners erect Deer Creek Township; it is re-erected with new boundaries on June 11, 1811.
5. 1812 — Charles Atchison is township treasurer, probably the first; a Methodist class is organized at the Upper Glade, giving the McDonald Church.
6. 1816 — Thomas Gwynne laid out Lawrenceville about 1.5 miles northwest of what became Lafayette; it was the township's earliest platted settlement.
7. 1825-07-02 — A post office is established at Lawrenceville.
8. 1834-10-01 — William Minter platted the village of Lafayette, named for the Marquis de Lafayette, on ground the National Road would soon reach (the date Wikipedia gives; the 1883 county history says Minter began laying off lots in 1837).
9. 1836-1837 — The National Road was completed through the township but bypassed Lawrenceville, causing that older settlement to decline while Lafayette grew along the new highway; the Red Brick Tavern was built at Lafayette in the same years and was open by the time the road reached it.
10. 1836-12-31 — The Lawrenceville post office is moved to Lafayette and takes its name, with John Minter as first postmaster.
11. 1837 — William Minter, owner of the land, begins to lay off lots for Lafayette along the new National Road, according to the 1883 county history (Wikipedia gives the plat as October 1, 1834); the first house is built by Joseph Bell and Calvin Anderson keeps the first tavern.
12. 1859 — The Red Brick Tavern closed as railroad travel drew traffic away from the National Road.
13. c. 1859 — The Urbana, Mechanicsburg and Jefferson turnpike, built by a stock company, is completed through the northwest corner of the township; it remains a toll road until the 1870s.
14. 1873-74 — The McDonald church at the Upper Glade builds a new brick church, dedicated in March 1874 free of debt after George G. McDonald pays the last $40.
15. 1881 — The township builds a two-story brick town house, 30 by 46 feet, on the corner of the public square at Lafayette.
16. 1890 — The township has 894 residents, 882 in 1900 and 883 in 1910.
17. 1905-12-31 — The Lafayette post office closes and mail is routed through London.
18. 1924 — The Red Brick Tavern's owners reopened it as a restaurant once automobile traffic revived the old National Road corridor.
19. 1975-09-05 — The Red Brick Tavern in Lafayette was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
20. 2020 — Deer Creek Township has 967 residents.

Stories

A road that made one town and killed another

Lawrenceville came first, laid out by Thomas Gwynne in 1816 on a site its founders expected to matter. It didn't work out that way: when surveyors ran the new National Road through the township two decades later, in 1836-37, the route missed Lawrenceville by a mile and a half. William Minter had already platted Lafayette, named for the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette, directly on the road's path in 1834 (1837 by the 1883 county history's account), and it was Lafayette, not Lawrenceville, that grew. U.S. Route 40 still runs down Lafayette's main street on the National Road's old alignment; Lawrenceville survives only as a name on old plats.

Six presidents under one roof

The Red Brick Tavern went up at Lafayette in 1836-37, built of brick fired from local clay with interior trim hauled in from Zanesville, its main block facing the highway and a narrower wing running back along a side street. It was reportedly Ohio's second-oldest stagecoach stop on the National Road, and in its heyday it fed and lodged travelers on the first floor while the twelve rooms above and four more on a private third floor took overnight guests, six U.S. presidents reportedly among them. When the railroads pulled traffic off the road in the 1850s, the tavern's business collapsed and it closed in 1859. It sat dormant until the automobile made the old National Road relevant again, and in 1924 new owners reopened it as a restaurant, a use that carried it into the twenty-first century and onto the National Register in 1975.

The stage coaches at Lafayette

When the National Road reached the township in 1836-37, the old Columbus-to-Springfield stage line left the 'horrible mud road' where coaches mired hub-deep and had to be pried out with rails, and moved to the new pike. William Minter, who owned the land, laid out Lafayette beside it, naming it for the general; Joseph Bell built the first house and Calvin Anderson kept the first tavern, followed by John McMullen, Stanley Watson's house under Mr. Coleman, and Bell himself. They did, in the county historian's words, a 'rattling business' as stage after stage drove up; it was common to see eight or ten four-horse coaches in the town at once, loaded with passengers and baggage. Not fewer than six or seven taverns stood along the road in Deer Creek Township, four of them at Lafayette. When the railroads came the road lost its prestige, the stages and hotels went, and, he wrote in 1883, the 'shrill whistle of their bugle-horns' was heard no more. Old Lawrenceville, which the road had bypassed, was sold and turned into a pasture.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · blog.jimgrey.net · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Madison County on the full map

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Spills reported since 2021 (11)

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