East Sparta

How East Sparta began

East Sparta began as Sparta, laid out by Amos Janney, a Quaker, and recorded on the 22nd of the third month, 1815, with only four streets named Buffalo, Elk, Wolf and Bear; Janney named it for the rival of Athens in the belief that a great name would help it flourish. Janney built the first saw and grist mill in Pike Township on the Nimishillen just below the village, and Luther Drury of Canada built a bloomery and forge here about 1810; the post office, opened in 1854 as Pierce, was named for President Franklin Pierce. By 1881 Perrin found a store or two, a few shops, a Disciples church (organized about 1840), a Methodist church and a small collection of houses. The Town Pump and the Towne Pump Tavern (1909, burned 2017) became its landmarks, and the village had 749 residents in 2020.

Settled 1806 (Pike Township's first settlement, at the future village site, per most accounts, though the 1881 county history does not place the first settlers there), platted March 22, 1815 (the 22nd of the third month, in Janney's Quaker style), by Amos Janney.

Where the name comes from

Perrin's 1881 county history says Amos Janney called the village Sparta after the rival of Athens in ancient Greece, believing a great name would cause it to flourish and become as great as its ancient namesake. Wikipedia says the village later became East Sparta, without giving a date.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty site specific to East Sparta is documented in the sources consulted. The site lies in the area of Stark County ceded by the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1806 — George and Catherine Young arrive at the site of present East Sparta, by most accounts, becoming Pike Township's first permanent settlers (the 1881 county history has George Young on land elsewhere in the township).
2. 1810 — Luther Drury, who came from Canada with his wife, two children and a niece, builds a bloomery and forge near the future Sparta to make wrought iron from local ore; he sells it in 1823 to James Hazlett of Canton.
3. 1815 — The village is laid out on March 22 under the name Sparta.
4. 1815 — Amos Janney, a Quaker surveyor, records the plat of Sparta with four streets named Buffalo, Elk, Wolf and Bear, and builds the first grist and saw mill in the township on the Nimishillen just below the village.
5. 1820 — Abraham Cozier opens the first store in Sparta about this year but does not continue long; James Hazlett of Canton, who owned property in the village, sponsors a larger store after he closes.
6. 1826 — Hazlett sells the forge to Janney; he buys it back in 1840 together with Janney's mill and farm, after which the forge is discontinued and Janney's first mill, burned, is replaced by a better one.
7. 1840 — The Disciples' Church in Sparta is organized about this year; a Methodist church was also built in the village by 1881.
8. 1854 — A post office is established in Sparta under the name Pierce, for President Franklin Pierce, with John Croft as the first postmaster.
9. 1881 — Perrin reports that Sparta has never attained large proportions: a store or two, a few shops, a post office, two churches and a small collection of houses.
10. 1909 — The Towne Pump Tavern is constructed, becoming a long-lived local landmark alongside the village's Town Pump.
11. 1940 — The census counts 690 residents in East Sparta, 961 in 1960 (the peak) and 749 in 2020.
12. 2015 — The village dismantles a water tower on June 3 that had served East Sparta for 70 years.
13. 2017 — The Towne Pump Tavern, standing since 1909, is destroyed by fire on July 28.

Stories

The pump that outlasted its tavern

For more than a century, East Sparta's identity centered on a single corner: the village's namesake Town Pump, paired from 1909 onward with the Towne Pump Tavern built beside it. Generations of residents photographed the pump dressed up for Christmas, and the tavern became the kind of fixture small Ohio villages build their sense of place around. That century-long pairing ended abruptly on July 28, 2017, when fire destroyed the tavern. The pump itself survived, undamaged, and remains East Sparta's namesake landmark even with the building that had stood beside it for 108 years gone -- a reminder that in a village this size, a single physical object can carry more of the local identity than any building around it.

A Quaker names a town Sparta

Amos Janney, who had settled in Pike Township by 1812 and was a surveyor, laid out his town in 1815 and recorded the plat in the Recorder's office in the quaint Friends' reckoning, the third month, twenty-second. He named it Sparta, Perrin says, after the rival of Athens, believing a great name would make it flourish, and he platted only four streets, two each way, named Buffalo, Elk, Wolf and Bear. Janney built the township's first saw and grist mill on the Nimishillen just below the village; the grist mill had a frame of four forked posts, a clapboard roof and sides never weather-boarded, and its three-foot millstones were cut from quartz boulders found on the Sugar Creek plains. Perrin calls Janney honest and a good surveyor but careless in business details. He sold up and moved to Indiana, where he died, and the plat's ancient name outlasted his mill; Perrin saw in 1881 a village that never grew large.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Stark County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• East Sparta Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 10 of 12 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 1.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-02

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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