Fairfield Township, Washington County

How Fairfield Township, Washington County began

Fairfield Township lies in western Washington County and is one of seven Fairfield Townships in Ohio. It was organized by the county commissioners in December 1851 out of parts of Wesley, Barlow, Belpre, and Decatur townships; David Ewell and Joshua Shuttleworth, both from Virginia, were among its earliest settlers before 1814. In 1820 a mysterious 'cold plague' epidemic swept the settlement, killing more than fifty people. Its only settlement, in the township's southwest corner, was first laid out in 1857 as Harshaville, named for landowner Dr. John M. Harsha, before being renamed Cutler for early settler William P. Cutler; the small village of Fishtown, named for storekeeper Daniel Fish, grew up separately in the township's northeast. The 2020 census recorded 1,133 residents, and no incorporated village has ever stood within the township.

Settled before 1814 (David Ewell and Joshua Shuttleworth), platted 1857 (Cutler, as Harshaville), incorporated organized by the county commissioners at their December 1851 session, by formed from parts of Wesley, Barlow, Belpre, and Decatur townships.

Where the name comes from

No source checked explains the township's own name. Its village, Cutler, was first laid out in 1857 as Harshaville for Dr. John M. Harsha, the original owner of the town site, who then voluntarily relinquished the honor in favor of William P. Cutler and the town was rechristened Cutler Station; Fishtown, the township's other small settlement, was named for Daniel Fish, who took over its first store (opened by James Lake in 1837) and gave the place its name.

Before the town

No Native village, mound, trail or treaty site specific to Fairfield Township was found in the sources checked.

Timeline

1. before 1814 — David Ewell, from Virginia, settles about half a mile south of the future Fishtown, one of the earliest recorded settlers; Joshua Shuttleworth, also from Virginia, settles immediately south of Ewell.
2. 1814 — William Dunbar, a Revolutionary War veteran, settles just east of the future Fishtown; the same year Walter Kidwell arrives from Fairfax County, Virginia, with his wife and two sons.
3. 1817 — Hapgood Goddard, a New Hampshire merchant ruined by Jefferson's embargo, settles on section fifteen; he serves fifteen years as township clerk.
4. c. 1819 — The first school house, a log building known as Lake's school-house, is built half a mile west of Fishtown on the State road, with Oliver Miller as first teacher.
5. 1820 — A fever the settlers call the 'cold plague' sweeps the locality, killing more than fifty people and nearly depopulating a neighborhood.
6. 1822 — Phineas Dunsmore, of Goshen, New Hampshire, reaches the area on July 4 with his family and nine hundred acres bought of James Brick of the Ohio Company; he dies in May 1823.
7. c. 1824 — The Methodist Episcopal society builds the first church, the hewn-log 'Kidwell meeting-house,' at Fishtown, named for Walter Kidwell.
8. 1837 — James Lake opens the first store at Fishtown; Daniel Fish later takes it over and gives the village his name.
9. 1840 — A second school house is built near Daniel Dunbar's land on the State road.
10. 1851-12 — The county commissioners organize Fairfield Township from parts of Wesley, Barlow, Belpre and Decatur; the first election on December 20 chooses Peter B. Lake, John Burfield and James Smith as trustees.
11. c. 1857 — A post office is established at Fishtown in Carmi Smith's store; it is later known as Layman and moved in 1861 to W. W. Morris's store.
12. 1857 — The town site in the southwest of the township is laid out as Harshaville for landowner Dr. John M. Harsha, then renamed Cutler Station for William P. Cutler; A. A. Campbell builds its first hotel that fall.
13. 1857 — The Sons of Temperance, Lyman Division No. 52, is organized in the Fishtown Methodist church; no liquor is sold anywhere in the township by 1881.
14. 1863 — A post office opens at the renamed Cutler.
15. 1863-1864 — The log Kidwell meeting-house is pulled down and replaced by a union church, which burns in February 1864 when a fire-brand dropped by a girl lighting the stove ignites shavings under the floor; the Methodists rebuild and dedicate a frame church in 1864.
16. 1865 — The Cutler House hotel is built at Cutler Station; it burns on June 11, 1868, and is rebuilt the next year.
17. 1868 — A union church, thirty by thirty-six feet, is built at Fishtown.
18. 1874 — Grange No. 872 is organized, with Charles A. Goddard as master.
19. 1876 — The Wool Growers' Association, drawing members from Fairfield, Barlow, Wesley, Palmer, Watertown and Warren townships, is organized at William Thompson's house.
20. 1880 — The census counts 731 residents of the township, whose chief products were wheat, oats, corn and fine wool.

Stories

A town renamed for its people, not its owner

When Dr. John M. Harsha laid out a town on his land in Fairfield Township in 1857, it naturally took his name: Harshaville. The doctor's log cabin, standing alone within the platted lots, was the only building on the townsite, and Harsha himself became its first postmaster. But Harsha voluntarily gave up the honor in favor of William P. Cutler, and the village was rechristened Cutler Station. It rode the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, with a hotel built that fall by A. A. Campbell and two stores at Main and Front streets, but never reached the size needed for incorporation; by 1881 it had two general stores, a drug store, a hotel, two shoe shops and a doctor's office.

The cold plague

In 1820, a disease the settlers could only call the 'cold plague' descended on Fairfield Township's pioneer community with a severity that overwhelmed it. The county history records that it took every able-bodied resident's full energy just to tend the afflicted, and that its cause was never determined. More than fifty people died, a whole neighborhood was almost depopulated, and the messenger of death, the narrator says, had darkened almost every household before the fever ran its course. Sixty years later a mineral spring on William Thompson's farm, whose salts and iron were credited with curing ague, stood as the township's only remembered remedy for malarial illness.

The church that burned before it opened

The first church in Fairfield was the hewn-log Kidwell meeting-house at Fishtown, built by the Methodists about 1824 and named for Walter Kidwell. In 1863 it was pulled down and a union church for all denominations went up by general subscription on the same site. The workmen left an opening beneath the front door for the stone steps and stowed shavings and scraps under the floor. Before the steps were set, a young lady came to a service carrying a fire-brand from a neighbouring house to light the stove, dropped it at the door, and the debris caught; the building burned to the ground on February 12, 1864, before help could come. The Methodists rebuilt alone, a frame church forty-five by twenty-eight feet, finished the same year, and a union church followed at Fishtown in 1868.

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

Ohio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield) The water here

• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.98% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)
• Waterford Water/sewer Association1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Beverly Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Tri-county Rural W and S District0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-07-21
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-03

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