Dover Township, Tuscarawas County

How Dover Township, Tuscarawas County began

Dover Township was erected on March 9, 1810, out of the western part of Goshen Township, and lies in the northern part of Tuscarawas County, surrounding but legally separate from the city of Dover, which occupies much of its center. Christian Deardorff, born in York County, Pennsylvania in 1781, bought a 2,175-acre tract here in 1800 with Jesse Slingluff of Baltimore, scouted the Tuscarawas Valley on horseback in 1802, and by 1806 had settled permanently, building the first mill in the county (after an old horse mill at Gnadenhutten) on Sugar Creek. The 1884 county history records that the Goshen Moravian mission's Christian converts, only eight to ten miles away, were frequent and welcome visitors at the pioneer cabins here, though it also names two Native individuals accused of theft from settlers. Two small rural crossroads, Blicktown and Winfield (the latter originally platted as Mechanicsburg in 1849), grew up within the township outside the city, along with country churches and one-room schools; today one of those schoolhouses survives as a winery. As of the 2020 census the township (which includes the village of Parral in its north) had 4,515 residents across 36.6 square miles.

Settled by 1806 (Christian Deardorff's permanent settlement; his land purchase dates to 1800), incorporated 1810-03-09, by erected March 9, 1810 from the western part of Goshen Township; Christian Deardorff and other early pioneers were its most prominent early settlers.

Where the name comes from

The township takes its name from the city of Dover (originally Canal Dover) that grew up at its center on the Tuscarawas River; no separate origin is recorded for the township's own name beyond that association. Ohio has other, unrelated Dover Townships in Athens, Fulton, and Union counties.

Before the town

The 1884 county history's Dover Township chapter records that the Goshen Moravian mission's Christian Munsee (Delaware) converts, only eight to ten miles distant, were frequent visitors at the pioneer cabins here; families would sometimes wake to find a party of them sleeping on the cabin floor, feet to the fire, having entered quietly overnight, and they brought wild honey and venison to their white neighbors, who welcomed them. The same source states that theft did occur on occasion: it names two individuals, Little John and Philip Konochie, in connection with thefts from settler families, including a gold watch chain and a silver chain taken from a Mrs. Roth; Little John was accused, admitted to the theft under threat, and reported that the items had been carried to Sandusky before he himself disappeared. No source ties these individuals to a specific nation, mission, or named village beyond "the Goshen Moravian Indians," so none is asserted here beyond what the source states; for the region's Delaware (Lenape) towns, the Moravian missions, the Portage Path/Great Trail corridor, and the treaties that ceded this part of Ohio.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Christian Munsee.

• Johnson Site II (other) — above Brandywine Creek, west of Dover, in Dover Township, prehistoric (culture/period not established in sources consulted) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1800 — James Morrison of Lexington, Kentucky conveys 2,175 acres (the south part of the third quarter of Township 9, Range 2) to Christian Deardorff of Pennsylvania and Jesse Slingluff of Baltimore for $4,022.
2. 1802 — Christian Deardorff, in company with Jesse Slingluff, travels through Ohio on horseback and visits the Tuscarawas Valley, favorably impressed with the country.
3. by 1806 — Deardorff emigrates permanently to his land, builds a cabin on the hillside near Sugar Creek about three-quarters of a mile west of Dover, and lives there alone for about eleven years; he erects a grist and saw mill on Sugar Creek half a mile from its mouth -- the first mill in Tuscarawas County apart from an old horse mill at Gnadenhutten.
4. 1810 — Dover Township is erected on March 9 from the western part of Goshen Township; the house of Christian Deardorff is chosen as the first voting place, and the first township election is held the first Monday of April.
5. 1849 — William Haverstock lays out eleven lots on the south side of Main Street under the name Mechanicsburg, in the extreme northwestern part of the township; Eli Booth adds seventeen lots north of Main Street the same year. Michael T. Kohr builds the first house, a log cabin still standing in 1884.
6. 1853 — James Delany plats eight more lots at the same site in November and gives them the name Winfield, replacing Mechanicsburg; Eli Booth adds nine more lots the following March.
7. 1855 — Winfield's United Brethren church, the only church in the village, is built at a cost of $2,000; early members include the Kohrs, the Keplingers and the Rosenbergs.
8. 1867 — The Dover Salt Company is formed and drills a well about two and a half miles up the Tuscarawas Valley from Dover, striking a strong vein of salt water at 900 feet; by the 1880s it produces about seventy barrels of salt and a considerable amount of bromine daily.
9. 1900 — Parral is laid out as a village in the north of the township, taking its name from Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico.
10. 1984 — The Johnson Site II, an archaeological site above Brandywine Creek west of Dover, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 9.
11. 1992 — The Christian Pershing Barn, off State Route 39 west of Dover, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 19.
12. 2020 — The U.S. Census records 4,515 residents in Dover Township, which by then includes the village of Parral in its north and the city of Dover at its center.

Stories

A township built around a city that isn't part of it

Dover Township is one of the places in Ohio's township system where the map plays a trick: the city of Dover sits almost entirely inside the township's boundary and shares its name, but has been its own incorporated, self-governing municipality since 1842, when Canal Dover became a village (a city since 1903, later renamed Dover), and is not part of the township for government purposes. Outside the city limits, the township that surrounds it kept a rural, agricultural character through the 19th and 20th centuries, with its own small crossroads settlements -- Blicktown, a hamlet of four or five houses, a grist mill and a lime kiln on the canal south of Dover, and Winfield, platted first as Mechanicsburg in 1849 -- its own country churches, and its own one-room schoolhouses built to serve farm families who lived too far from town to attend the city schools. One of those schoolhouses, identified on Wikimedia Commons simply as "building 6," still stands in the township and today operates as a winery rather than a school.

From Pinchgut to Pinchey: how Winfield got its other name

At an 1883 old settlers' reunion on the Dover fairgrounds, Squire Hoopingamer stood up and told the story behind Winfield's local nickname, "Pinchey." Before the town was laid out, he said, a young man known for stinginess got married and invited the whole neighborhood to his cabin-raising, promising food "after early breakfast." He served his guests only a scant dinner and sent them home before supper. In revenge, the neighborhood took to calling the place "Pinchgut," a name later softened in polite company to "Pinchey." The story, preserved only because old settlers still remembered it at a public gathering decades later, is exactly the kind of small, specific local memory that rarely survives into a written record at all.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Tuscarawas County on the full map

Sugar Creek Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (Dover wellfield) The water here

• Dover City89% of residentsSugar Creek Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (Dover wellfield)
• New Philadelphia City11% of residentsTuscarawas River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Midvale0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Tcmsd-wainwright0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tuscarawas Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Superfund sites (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (4)

Spills reported since 2021 (11)

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