Fearing Township, Washington County

How Fearing Township, Washington County began

Fearing Township was established March 8, 1808, on petition of John Porter and others, in the central part of Washington County along Duck Creek just west of Marietta, and is the only Fearing Township in Ohio. It is named for Paul Fearing, who reached the Northwest Territory in May 1788 -- weeks after the Ohio Company's first landing -- became the territory's first practicing lawyer, and was serving as a county commissioner when the township was created; he later served as the territory's delegate to Congress from 1801 to 1803. Levi Chapman and Thomas Stanley Sr. were the first two settlers, arriving as the Indian war wound down in the mid-1790s. A small part of Marietta extends into the township's southwest corner. The 2020 census recorded 858 residents.

Settled mid-1790s (Levi Chapman and Thomas Stanley, Sr.), incorporated March 8, 1808, by petition of John Porter and others; named for county commissioner Paul Fearing.

Where the name comes from

Named for Paul Fearing (1762-1822), an early Marietta lawyer and Northwest Territory delegate to Congress, who was serving as a Washington County commissioner at the time the township was established.

Before the town

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

Timeline

1. 1788 — Paul Fearing, a Harvard-educated lawyer, arrives in the Northwest Territory in May, weeks after the Ohio Company's first landing at Marietta, and becomes the territory's first practicing lawyer.
2. mid-1790s — Levi Chapman and Thomas Stanley, Sr., become the first two settlers within what is now Fearing Township, moving up the Duck Creek valley from Marietta as the danger from the 1791-95 Indian war recedes; Stanley had already been at Marietta since 1790 and served as its constable in 1792.
3. 1795 — On New Year's Day the Chapman family, moving up Duck Creek from Marietta, dines near the Cedar Narrows at the mouth of a creek that is thereafter called New Year's creek; Levi Chapman, who landed at Marietta in 1794 with eight sons and four daughters from Saybrook, Connecticut, settles near Whipple's run and builds a block-house with the help of a guard of soldiers.
4. 1796 — About a year after the Indian war Thomas Stanley builds a grist-mill with the township's first saw-mill, a powder mill, a fulling mill and a distillery, and the first frame dwelling.
5. 1797 — Settlers petition the court of quarter sessions in June for a road from Marietta to the forks of Duck Creek, passing the Cedar Narrows and Levi Chapman's; most of the township's settlers before 1800 appear on petitions of this year.
6. 1801-1803 — Fearing serves as the Northwest Territory's delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.
7. 1804 — Charles Shipman teaches the earliest school the old residents remember, in or near this year.
8. 1808-03-08 — On petition of John Porter and others, Township No. 3, Range 8, is established as a six-mile-square township and named for county commissioner Paul Fearing; the first electors meet April 4 at the house of Henry Maxon and choose Henry Maxon clerk and Thomas Stanley, John Porter, and Resolved Fuller trustees.
9. 1811 — Stanley builds the mill at Stanleyville, which stood several times rebuilt on the site later held by Theobald Beeschar's mill.
10. 1813 — The Fearing religious society, under no denomination, is incorporated on January 29 and builds a church at Stanleyville in 1814 on land given by Thomas Stanley.
11. 1822 — Paul Fearing dies August 21 near Marietta.
12. 1822 — The first camp-meeting in the township is held in a sugar grove on Underhill Lynch's place near the railroad.
13. 1832 — The Donaker family arrives from Germany, probably the beginning of the German immigration that makes Fearing an essentially German township; Conrad Biszantz comes in 1834 and Jacob and Theobald Zimmer from Bavaria in 1836.
14. 1836 — William I. Gray builds a saw-mill and machine shops he calls the Stanleyville mills, from which the town takes its name.
15. 1851 — A Congregational church is organized at Stanleyville three years after the old Presbyterian church ends its regular services; its building goes up in 1856.
16. 1861 — The formation of Muskingum Township further reduces Fearing's territory to its present bounds.
17. 1880 — The population is 1,275, after 1,589 in 1860 and 1,358 in 1879.
18. 2020 — The census counts 858 people in Fearing Township.

Stories

The territory's first lawyer

Paul Fearing graduated from Harvard in 1785, was admitted to the bar in 1787, and reached the Northwest Territory in May 1788, just weeks behind the Ohio Company's first settlers at Marietta. He set up his practice at Fort Harmar, becoming the first lawyer to practice anywhere in the territory, and went on to serve as U.S. counsel for Washington County, probate judge, and associate judge of the court of common pleas, before capping his career as the territory's own delegate to Congress from 1801 to 1803, representing the entire Northwest Territory as a single at-large district in the years just before Ohio became a state. When the township west of Marietta was organized in March 1808, on petition of John Porter and others, it took his name -- a fitting honor for a sitting county commissioner whose legal career had, in a real sense, built the infrastructure the rest of the county's settlers depended on.

The run Whipple fell in

Fearing Township's principal creek carries the name of an old sea captain's bad day. In the early years of settlement, Abraham Whipple and a party of surveyors found a stream too high to cross on foot, so they felled a tree across it to serve as a footlog -- and while using it, the old captain lost his footing and fell in, nearly drowning. Neighbors began referring to the unnamed stream as 'the run Whipple fell in,' and the phrase gradually condensed into its permanent name, Whipple's Run. A tributary entering Duck Creek nearby got its name from a gentler mishap: as the Chapman family pushed up the Duck Creek wilderness toward their new home near Whipple's Run in the winter of 1794-95, they passed the mouth of an unnamed stream on New Year's Day and marked the holiday the only practical way available to them -- by eating their dinner there. They afterward called it New Year's Creek, and the name has stuck.

New Year's creek and the Chapman block-house

Duck Creek was the smallest of the three secondary colonies that spread from Marietta, and the least written about, and the need for a mill was the strongest influence that opened it to settlement. In the winter of 1794-95, as the Chapman family pushed up the wilderness path along the creek toward their future home by Whipple's run, they passed near what is now the Cedar Narrows, at the mouth of a stream that flowed in from the west. It was New Year's Day, and they celebrated the way they could, by eating their dinner; afterward they referred to that stream as New Year's creek, and the name has stuck. Levi Chapman had landed at Marietta in 1794 from Saybrook, Connecticut, with eight boys and four girls, and stayed in the fort a short time before moving upriver, attended by a guard of soldiers who helped him build a block-house. The commander of the fort kept in touch with it until peace was made with the Indians, and when the war ended the Chapmans and the Stanleys were joined by the Tuttles and others, most of whom signed the road petition of June 1797.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Marietta City66% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Putnam Community Water Association17% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Reno Water and Sewer 111% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Highland Ridge W and S Association Inc3% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (Oak Grove wellfield)
• Warren Comm W and S Assn 21% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (Oak Grove wellfield)
• Reno Water and Sewer 21% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Reno Water and Sewer - Kardex1% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-11-06

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