Eagle Township, Vinton County

How Eagle Township, Vinton County began

Eagle Township was organized as part of Hocking County on April 25, 1818, and originally included what became Jackson Township until that area split off in 1831. Its boundaries shifted twice more: in 1834 Hocking County cut off its northern tier of sections, and that winter the remainder was transferred by the Ohio General Assembly to Ross County, where it stayed until joining the newly formed Vinton County in 1850. Among its first settlers were Moses Dawson, who hosted the township's first election in 1818, and John Ratcliff, whose family name later attached itself to Radcliff's Station in neighboring Vinton Township. The township also holds Ratcliffe Mound, an unexcavated prehistoric earthwork about five miles northeast of Londonderry that has never been firmly attributed to a specific mound-building culture.

Incorporated 1818-04-25, by organized as part of Hocking County, later transferred to Ross County and finally to Vinton County in 1850.

Where the name comes from

Not verified in sources checked.

Before the town

Ratcliffe Mound, a 14-foot-high, 86-foot-diameter conical earthwork in a steep-walled valley about five miles northeast of Londonderry, lies within Eagle Township. Mounds of this shape were commonly built by the Adena or Hopewell cultures in southeastern Ohio, but Ratcliffe Mound itself has never been excavated and lacks surface features that would let archaeologists identify its builders with confidence. The mound's name likely comes from a nearby landowning family: a John Ratcliff was among Eagle Township's first settlers, and the Ratcliff/Radcliff surname recurs among the township's and neighboring Vinton Township's earliest residents, though no source checked directly states that the mound was named for this family.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture, Hopewell culture.

• Ratcliffe Mound (mound) — about 5 miles northeast of Londonderry on SR 327, Eagle Township, unidentified prehistoric, possibly Adena or Hopewell (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1818-04-25 — Eagle Township is organized as part of the newly formed Hocking County, at the time including the territory that later becomes Jackson Township.
2. 1818-05-09 — The township's first election is held at the house of settler Moses Dawson.
3. c. 1816 — Lawrence Rains builds the township's first mill, at the mouth of Pike Run on Salt Creek; Solomon Cox builds a second mill on Pretty Run shortly after.
4. 1831-12-02 — Jackson Township is split off from Eagle Township.
5. 1834-06-02 — Hocking County commissioners cut off Eagle Township's north tier of sections, attaching them to Salt Creek Township, Hocking County, leaving Eagle five miles north-south by six east-west.
6. 1834-1835 winter — The remainder of Eagle Township is transferred by special act of the Ohio General Assembly to Ross County.
7. 1850 — Eagle Township, together with Harrison Township, is transferred from Ross County to the newly organized Vinton County.
8. 1859 — The township's first post office is established at Eagle Mills, from which it takes its name, with Miles Riddle as first postmaster.
9. 1975-08-28 — Ratcliffe Mound is added to the National Register of Historic Places, recognized for its potential archaeological value despite never having been excavated.

Stories

A mound nobody has ever dug

Tucked at the bottom of a steep-walled valley about five miles northeast of Londonderry, Ratcliffe Mound rises 14 feet and spans 86 feet across, a circular cone of earth surrounded by farmland. Southeastern Ohio is full of mounds the Adena and Hopewell cultures built between roughly 800 BC and AD 500, and Ratcliffe Mound looks like their work, but no archaeologist has ever excavated it. Without a dig, there is no pottery, no tool, no burial to compare against known Adena or Hopewell sites, so the mound was added to the National Register in 1975 on the strength of its form and its rarity rather than on proof of who built it, a monument whose builders remain, officially, unknown.

A township passed between three counties

Eagle Township's early history reads like a game of hand-me-down among Ohio's southeastern counties. Organized in 1818 as part of the brand-new Hocking County, it lost its eastern half to Jackson Township in 1831, and in 1834 lost its remaining northern tier as well, shrinking it to a strip just five by six miles. That same winter the Ohio General Assembly transferred what was left to Ross County by special act, where it sat for sixteen years until Vinton County was organized in 1850 and finally claimed it for good, alongside neighboring Harrison Township. By the time it settled into its permanent home, Eagle Township had spent roughly sixteen years apiece under Hocking and Ross County government.

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

Eight wells in the buried Teays River Aquifer, in the Scioto valley north of Chillicothe The water here

• Ross County Water Co. Inc98% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (buried valley groundwater)
• Laurelville, Vlg Of2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Mounds and earthworks (1)

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