Felicity

• Ohio's Archaic periodOhio's Archaic period ran 7,000 years. People here built dugout canoes, grew squash, buried dogs beside their dead and traded Lake Superior copper.

How Felicity began

Felicity was laid out in 1817 by founder William Fee and first called Feestown in his honor, with a post office of that name established in 1811. At his daughter's request the name was changed to Felicity, a shift that became official for the post office in 1829. The village sits in Franklin Township a few miles north of the Ohio River, not far from the site where, in 1786, a Native woman remembered as "Sweet Lips" was executed by her own chief on a charge of witchcraft -- one of the county's few documented historic-era Native accounts, recorded because surveyor John O'Bannon had the spot pointed out to him by a Native guide the following year.

Settled 1811, platted 1817-04-19, incorporated 1836-03-14, by William Fee and Peter Hastings.

Where the name comes from

First called Feestown after founder William Fee, who with Peter Hastings laid it out; the 1880 county history says 'Felicity also owes its derivation to the name of Wm. Fee', while Wikipedia says the name was changed at the request of Fee's daughter, officially for the post office in 1829.

Before the town

The clearest documented Native American account tied to the Felicity area comes from just outside the later village site: near Smyrna graveyard, a short distance from Felicity, a Native woman remembered as "Sweet Lips" was executed by tomahawk in 1786 by her own chief, on an accusation of witchcraft and sorcery said to have hurt her people's success in hunting and war. The site was later marked and its story explained to surveyor John O'Bannon, working in Franklin and neighboring Washington townships in the fall and winter of 1787-88, by a Native guide who had witnessed the execution himself. The nation involved and further detail on the woman and the chief who ordered her death are not recorded. The wider Native history of the surrounding area includes Cornelius Washburn's 1791 fights near Cedron on Bullskin Creek and the Moravian missionary Christian Frederick Post's near-founding of a mission on the same creek in 1758.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Sweet Lips execution site (other) — Franklin Township, near Smyrna graveyard, a short distance from Felicity, 1786 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1786 — Near Smyrna graveyard, a short distance from the future village site, a Native woman remembered as "Sweet Lips" is executed by her own chief on a charge of witchcraft.
2. 1787-12-25 — John O'Bannon surveys the Bryan and Carter tracts, 600 acres on which Felicity later stands, for Captain Morgan Bryan and Major Nicholas Carter of the Continental Line.
3. 1806-09-15 — William Fee buys the 400-acre Carter survey for $360, after Thomas Fee bought the 200-acre Bryan survey in October 1805 for $500; William Fee takes over Thomas's tract in 1818 and becomes the largest landowner in this part of the township.
4. 1811 — A post office named Feestown, honoring founder William Fee, is established.
5. 1812 — William Bradley teaches a school a little south of the village, the first in this part of Franklin Township of which the county history has any account.
6. 1817 — William Fee lays out the village.
7. 1818 — Village lots are sold at public sale in front of William Fee's house, the first choice going to John McGraw for $60; McGraw builds a hotel at Main and Market streets in 1819 and keeps it about four years.
8. 1823 — The Felicity post office is established with Moses Larkin as postmaster, according to the 1880 county history; Wikipedia dates a post office named Feestown to 1811.
9. 1825 — A union meeting house for all denominations is built at Felicity about this year; in 1832 the Methodists erect their own church, which is still in use in 1879.
10. 1829 — The post office name officially changes from Feestown to Felicity, at the request of Fee's daughter.
11. 1836-03-14 — The Ohio legislature incorporates Felicity as a town corporate, with a mayor, recorder and five trustees, the first election to be held May 2, 1836; in 1853 it is reorganized under the general act of 1852 as the village of Felicity.
12. 1847 — Forty members of the Felicity Methodist Church leave over the slavery issue and organize the Felicity Wesleyan Church; several of its members go on to serve as Underground Railroad conductors.
13. 1861 — The Felicity Guards, organized at Felicity before the war began, are recruited quickly and mustered into the 22nd Ohio as Company I under Captain Farron Olmstead, later a lieutenant colonel of the 59th Ohio.
14. 1874-05-12 — Felicity decides to build a new union school building with four rooms; the special township school for Black pupils, authorized on April 20, 1852, gets its own building just outside the village in 1874.
15. 1879-06-02 — The Felicity Library and Reading-Room Association is organized with members paying $1; its library of over a hundred books is housed in Fee's Block.
16. 1880 — Felicity, the second village of the county in population and business, has about 1,200 inhabitants by the county history's count (1,047 by census), a fourth of them Black residents who arrived after 1850.
17. 1960 — Felicity's population reaches 878 in the 1960 census; it was 651 in 2020.

Stories

Six stations toward freedom

Felicity's location a few miles north of the Ohio River, and its mixed population of antislavery Methodists and Covenanter Presbyterians, made it one of Clermont County's most active Underground Railroad communities, with at least six documented stations operating in and around the village. Arthur Fee (1791-1879) hid fugitives in his own fruit cellar before arranging their transport onward to Bethel. His relative Oliver Perry Spencer Fee (1823-1873), grandson of village founder William Fee, ran a more audacious operation: he loudly proclaimed pro-slavery sentiments in public, specifically to win the trust of slave owners and slave catchers passing through, while secretly moving fugitives north. Will Sleet, a free Black blacksmith in the village, assisted escapees as well. The tension the work created inside Felicity's churches came to a head in 1847, when forty members of the Methodist congregation broke away over the slavery question to form the Felicity Wesleyan Church, several of whose members became Underground Railroad conductors in their own right.

The founders, the lot sale and the first hotel

William Fee bought 400 acres in 1806 and, with the shipwrecked Irish local Methodist preacher Peter Hastings, platted seventy-two lots on April 19, 1817, with streets named Walnut, Main, Light, Union, Market and West. The first settlers called the place Feestown. Fee's cabin was a log building fifteen feet by twenty with a ground floor and a large rock set up for a chimney, later replaced by a two-story log house with a long porch and then a brick residence. In 1818 the lots were sold at auction in front of his house, and John McGraw paid $60 for the best one, the southwest corner of Main and Market, where he built a hotel the next year in a double log house; he was the first public-house keeper. By 1837 the town had a hatter, chairmaker, saddler, tailor, wagon-maker, shoemaker, two blacksmiths and several merchants, and by 1880, a fourth of its people were Black families who had come after 1850.

Photographs

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

Eleven vertical wells and one collector well in the Ohio River valley aquifer at Clermontville and Moscow The water here

• Tate-monroe Water Association66% of residentsOhio River valley aquifer (collector/vertical wells)
• Felicity Village34% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 3 of 4 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 2025-10-07

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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