Fayetteville

How Fayetteville began

Fayetteville sits on the south bank of the East Fork of the Little Miami River in Perry Township, Brown County's northernmost township. Erastus Atkins built the first house on the site in 1811; Cornelius McGroarty, an Irish immigrant who had settled in Cincinnati, bought the tract in 1818 and later donated the ground for St. Patrick's Catholic Church and Cemetery. The village incorporated in 1868 with Patrick Savage as its first mayor, and by 1883 counted about 400 residents, mostly of Irish and French descent.

Settled 1811, incorporated 1868, by petitioners W. C. Hall, S. Bavouset, John C. Kelly, A. Mosset, C. A. Sourd, Frank Jacquemin, John Dillen and James Connally.

Where the name comes from

The origin of the name Fayetteville is not documented.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound or trail specific to Fayetteville is recorded. The site lies within the 1795 Treaty of Greenville cession and the Virginia Military District.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1811 — Erastus Atkins builds the first house on the site where Fayetteville now stands, a double log house on the ground later occupied by the residence of T. S. Murray; the same year, Thomas McCarthy buys the farm to its south that included the present village limits.
2. 1811 — Nathan Bishop, a Vermont-born salt maker, settles near the site and buys the farm west of the East Fork from Erastus Atkins; he later runs a huckster wagon to Cincinnati, becomes constable and justice, and is the village's mayor when he dies in 1876.
3. 1818 — Cornelius McGroarty, an Irish-born settler who had come from Cincinnati, buys the present site of Fayetteville; he later donates the land on which St. Patrick's Catholic Church and Cemetery were built.
4. c. 1835 — Dr. W. B. Thompson settles in the village and becomes its first postmaster; he practices there until his death in Cincinnati in 1878.
5. 1845 — The Fayetteville Methodist Episcopal Church is built, a brick building on the north side of Humber Street, the township's only Methodist church by 1883.
6. 1851 — Fayetteville Lodge No. 172, F. & A. M., is established, with Peter Lane and U. G. Porter among its charter members; it moves its meetings to Marathon in 1856.
7. 1868 — Fayetteville is incorporated; its first officers are Mayor Patrick Savage, Marshal James Busey and Clerk P. K. Martin.
8. 1870-1874 — Dillen & McConn build the Fayetteville Mills in 1870; fire destroys the frame buildings in 1874, and John Dillen rebuilds an elegant brick mill with modern improvements the same year.
9. 1879 — The Fayetteville Total Abstinence Society is organized with Thomas Barry as president and Rev. John Bowe as chaplain, and about sixty members.
10. 1880 — The Dickens Club, a literary society of thirty members, is organized by U. G. Campbell, A. J. Bookmeyer, T. M. Barry and Dr. T. M. Reade, meeting first in Reade's office and from spring 1882 in the schoolhouse.
11. 1881 — The village school, District No. 2, is a brick building with two departments and two teachers, and enumerates 127 school-age children; in October James B. Campbell builds a two-story sample room and billiard hall on Pike street, with a ball-room upstairs.
12. 1882 — Fayetteville has about 400 people, two churches, two schools, two hotels, two drug stores, and three lawyers, three physicians and a resident priest, with Milton Fox as mayor.
13. 2010 — The census counts 330 people in Fayetteville, 317 in 2020.

Stories

A soldier of Waterloo becomes Fayetteville's postmaster

John Ballard, who came to Fayetteville about 1830, had lived an extraordinary life before settling in the village. As a boy in Ireland he took part in the rebellion of 1798, later serving as a soldier in Napoleon's army and surviving the battle of Waterloo. He went on to serve in the United States Army, rising to captain of a company, and was offered a land grant by the federal government which he declined to accept. He served as Fayetteville's postmaster for many years and died in 1874 at the age of ninety-four.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · npgallery.nps.gov · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org

Ohio River intake at the plant's riverfront on Kellogg Ave in the California neighborhood, east Cincinnati The water here

• Western Water Company85% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)
• Fayetteville Village15% of residentsOhio River (Miller Plant, ~88%) plus Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (~12%)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2024: 1 of 1 passed.

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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-08-13
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2025-08-28

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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