Fairfield Township, Highland County

How Fairfield Township, Highland County began

Fairfield Township in northern Highland County was one of the four townships the county was divided into when it was organized in 1805, and at first it reached far north into land given to Fayette County in 1810. The 1902 county history calls it the Quaker region: Nathaniel Pope, a Friend from Virginia, cleared land on Lees Creek at the site of Leesburg in 1799 or 1800 and raised the first wheat grown in the county, and a log Friends meeting house stood there by 1803-04. Madison Township (1810) and Penn Township (1852) were later cut from its territory. It contains the villages of Leesburg, platted in 1814, and Highland, platted as New Lexington in 1816, and remains farm country, with 3,661 residents in 2020.

Settled 1799 or 1800, by Nathaniel Pope and his cousin John Walters, Quaker families from Virginia; organized as a township by 1805.

Where the name comes from

No reason for the name is given in the three 19th-century county histories (Thompson 1878, Scott 1890, Klise 1902); it is one of seven Fairfield Townships in Ohio.

Before the town

The 1902 county history reports two prehistoric sites in Fairfield Township on the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society's list, without naming or locating them. It also records Native neighbors at the first settlement: when the Pope family came to Lees Creek, Native people had encampments all along Rattlesnake Creek as far down as the falls, visited the settlers' camp almost daily, and hunted with them. One of them, described as a Shawnee, raced William Pope on foot after a bear on Hardin's Creek, and they showed the settlers places on Lees, Rattlesnake, Hardin's and Fall creeks where they had taken white captives in earlier years. The Quaker preacher Bathsheba Lupton is remembered for riding among the settlers when young men were visiting the Native camps on Sundays. The land lay within the 1795 Treaty of Greenville cession.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.

• Native encampments along Rattlesnake Creek (camp) — Along Rattlesnake Creek as far down as the falls, near the Lees Creek settlement at Leesburg, about 1799 to the early 1800s (archive.org)
• Two prehistoric sites reported to the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (other) — Fairfield Township (not located in the source), prehistoric (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1796 — In the fall Nathaniel Pope, a Quaker, leaves Virginia with his family for the Northwest Territory, first settling at Quaker Bottom on the Ohio River.
2. 1799 — After the Quaker Bottom settlement breaks up in 1798, Pope winters at the Falls of Paint and cuts his way to Lees Creek, where he and John Walters settle at the site of Leesburg; Scott (1890) dates the move to the spring of 1800.
3. 1800 — Pope raises a few acres of wheat on the land later occupied by Leesburg, the first wheat grown in what became Highland County.
4. 1803 — William Lupton comes from Virginia, buys Pope's farm and builds the first sawmill on Lees Creek; James Howard builds the first corn mill in the neighborhood.
5. 1803 — Under an April 1803 act, James Johnson is elected justice of the peace for Fairfield.
6. 1804 — A log Friends meeting house built in 1803-04 near Leesburg receives its first burial, a Mrs. Ballard.
7. 1805 — At the organization of Highland County, Fairfield is one of its four original townships, with New Market, Liberty and Brush Creek.
8. 1807 — Fairfield Monthly Meeting of Friends is established under the Redstone Quarterly Meeting in Pennsylvania; Jacob Jackson is its first preacher.
9. 1807 — A militia company is organized in Fairfield under Capt. Richard F. Bernard, succeeded in 1811 by Capt. Thomas M. Johnson.
10. 1807 — At the October 13 election the entire Fairfield Township vote is thrown out, for reasons not recorded, which gives the sheriff's office to Augustus Richards over William Hill.
11. 1810 — On June 10 the land between Rattlesnake and Paint creeks is set off from Fairfield as Madison Township; the creation of Fayette County the same year takes Fairfield's northern reaches.
12. 1814 — James Johnson plats Leesburg; the county history also lists a Leesburg plat of 1821 by S. McClure, A. Chalfont and C. Lupton.
13. 1816 — John Conner plats New Lexington, whose post office was called Highland.
14. 1832 — A log Methodist church, Pleasant Hill, is built on the land of the pioneer preacher Isaac Pavey; in 1852 the congregation moves to a new building in Leesburg.
15. 1848 — The Leesburg store of state senator Buel Beeson burns, a fire the county history attributes to feeling against the early temperance movement.
16. 1849 — Dunkers in Fairfield build a church on the Samantha turnpike, with Thomas Major as first preacher.
17. 1852 — On March 5 part of Fairfield is set off, with part of Union, as Penn Township.
18. 1876 — The Leesburg bank is established.
19. 1900 — The census counts 2,342 people in Fairfield Township, including 783 in Leesburg and 265 in New Lexington.

Stories

The first wheat harvest

Nathaniel Pope bought his land on Lees Creek cheaply from General Massie, who told him to choose his own location. He cleared the creek bottoms, planted corn, and sowed a few acres of wheat on ground later occupied by the town of Leesburg, the first wheat raised in what became Highland County. No sickles could be had in the neighborhood, so at harvest he sent two sons down Paint Creek to find hands, each told to bring his own. The men cleared the field, threshed the grain on a floor with flails made of young hickories, and had it cleaned up before night. Some went hunting and others cut a bee tree, and the day ended with venison, honey and whisky. Pope and Walters then cut the first road from the Falls of Paint to Lees Creek for Quaker friends following them from Quaker Bottom, and the neighborhood filled quickly.

The Fairfield Friends

The Quakers who followed Pope held meetings as soon as two or three could gather. Bathsheba Lupton is credited with founding the Fairfield meeting, and a log meeting house was standing near Leesburg by 1803-04. Fairfield Monthly Meeting was established in 1807 under the Redstone Quarterly Meeting in Pennsylvania, with Jacob Jackson as its first preacher, followed by Mildred Ratcliffe, who left for Pennsylvania in 1816. The county history says the meeting once had a thousand members and later divided, with meeting houses on Hardin's Creek, on Lees Creek, at Oak Grove and at Lexington. The meeting also tended the grave of Thomas Beals, the Quaker preacher who died in the woods on Salt Creek and was buried in a coffin hollowed from a walnut log; its committee enclosed the grave with a stone wall. When Penn Township was carved from Fairfield in 1852, it was named for William Penn in honor of these Quaker families.

A bear race on Hardin's Creek

In the first years on Lees Creek, the Pope family's nearest neighbors were Native hunters camped along Rattlesnake Creek. Late one fall the Popes were hunting on horseback on Hardin's Creek when their dogs started a bear, and the dogs from a nearby Native camp joined the chase. A Shawnee hunter offered to join if one of the white men would run it on foot, and William Pope accepted. The two outran the horsemen, but at the creek the Shawnee plunged straight through while Pope detoured a few yards downstream. As the Shawnee crept toward the treed bear for a sure shot, Pope steadied his rifle against a tree and fired first. The county history tells the story as one of many hunts the settlers and their Native neighbors made together in those years.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Leesburg Village87% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Greenfield Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)
• New Vienna Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Ross County Water Co. Inc1% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (buried valley groundwater)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2023-11-07; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-22

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