Franklin Township, Adams County

How Franklin Township, Adams County began

Franklin Township in the east of Adams County was organized February 25, 1828, from Meigs Township, and named for Benjamin Franklin. Zane's Trace ran through it, and its first settlers, Peter Platter and Peter Wickerham, arrived in 1797 or 1798; Wickerham opened a tavern at Palestine, was licensed as an innkeeper in 1801, and built the first brick house in the region in 1805 (other accounts date his brick inn to 1800-01). General Massie built the sulphur-spring health resort called Massie's Springs here in 1802, and Urban W. Cannon laid out Locust Grove in 1835. The township's Covenanters formed the Brush Creek Reformed Presbyterian congregation in 1815, and John A. Cockerill, the Drummer Boy of Shiloh, was born in a log cabin here.

Settled 1797-98, incorporated February 25, 1828, by Peter Platter and Peter Wickerham; organized from Meigs Township.

Where the name comes from

Named for Benjamin Franklin; one of twenty-one townships of this name in Ohio.

Before the town

A large rockshelter on Bacon Flat Road in Franklin Township is noted in the township's own Wikipedia article as a notable feature, but no source we found gives its cultural affiliation, dating, or excavation history; rockshelters elsewhere in the unglaciated Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio are frequently associated with Archaic through Late Woodland use, but no source we found specifically confirms that period for the Bacon Flat site. The Adams County Paleo-Indian District lies a few townships to the south.

• Bacon Flat rockshelter (other) — Bacon Flat Road, Franklin Township, Adams County, unconfirmed (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1797 — Peter Platter and Peter Wickerham come to the township in 1797 or 1798; Wickerham opens a tavern at what is now Palestine on Zane's Trace the following year.
2. 1800-1801 — Peter Wickerham, a Revolutionary War veteran, built the Wickerham Inn on Zane's Trace northeast of Peebles; it is the oldest brick building in Adams County (the 1900 county history instead dates his first brick house to 1805).
3. 1801 — The county court licenses Peter Wickerham as innkeeper at four dollars a year, on a petition saying he lives on a part of the road that needs an innkeeper.
4. 1802 — General Nathaniel Massie builds the health resort known as Massie's Springs at the sulphur spring that still bears his name, expecting it to rival the springs of his native Virginia; every trace of the buildings had vanished by 1900.
5. 1805 — Wickerham builds the first brick house in this region; Curtis Cannon keeps a tavern and tannery near the later Locust Grove.
6. 1807 — Dr. Cuming, traveling Zane's Trace from Limestone to Wheeling, stops overnight at Mershon's log tavern north of Locust Grove, where the landlord's sons entertain guests with fiddling.
7. 1815 — Covenanter families who had settled along Brush Creek since 1801 are organized on October 11 as the 'Chillicothe' congregation, named for the nearest post office; the Rev. Robert Wallace is installed in 1814 and the first elders are named in 1816. The congregation was later renamed Brush Creek.
8. 1825 — The Locust Grove Methodist Episcopal church is organized about this year, building a log house in 1828 and a frame church at the Grove in 1854.
9. 1828 — Franklin Township was organized and named for Benjamin Franklin.
10. 1835 — Urban W. Cannon, who built a hotel in 1830 and planted a grove of locusts opposite it, lays out the town of Locust Grove on the old stage road from Maysville to Chillicothe, and a post office of the same name is established.
11. to c. 1850 — The Wickerham Inn operated as a stagecoach stop and tavern on Zane's Trace.
12. 1863 — Confederate soldiers under General John Hunt Morgan slept in the Wickerham Inn on the night of July 15 during Morgan's Raid through Adams County.
13. 1866 — Locust Grove Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons is chartered on October 17.
14. 1979 — The Wickerham Inn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

A brick inn that sheltered fugitives, then Confederates

Peter Wickerham, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, built a brick inn along Zane's Trace in Franklin Township in 1800-01 (the 1900 county history says 1805), making it not only a stagecoach stop and tavern for travelers on the pioneer road but the oldest brick building anywhere in Adams County. For decades the inn served double duty: openly as a public house until roughly 1850, and secretly as a station where runaway slaves seeking freedom were hidden as they moved north along the Underground Railroad. The inn's history took an ironic turn during the Civil War, when Confederate raiders under General John Hunt Morgan, sweeping through southern Ohio on the night of July 15, 1863, stopped to sleep inside the very building that had sheltered escaping freedom seekers a generation earlier.

Massie's Springs

In 1802 the surveyor and town-founder General Nathaniel Massie built a health resort at a sulphur spring in what is now Franklin Township. The place was expected to rival the celebrated resort in his native Virginia, but, Evans and Stivers says, his expectations were never realized, and by 1900 all traces of the former buildings were gone, leaving only the spring that still bears his name. The township had better luck with its taverns on Zane's Trace: Peter Wickerham's at Palestine, for which he was licensed in 1801 at four dollars a year, James Horn's a mile north, Curtis Cannon's from 1805 and Mershon's log tavern, where Dr. Cuming of Zane's Trace stopped in 1807. His notes remarked on the fiddling of Mershon's sons and on the stagecoach that slept at Cannon's on its way from Limestone to Chillicothe. Locust Grove, laid out in 1835 by Cannon's son Urban, became the only village in the township.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · theclio.com · appalachianfreedom.com · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Adams County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Peebles Public Water System69% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Adams County Regional Wd31% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-30
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-07-16

Cite this page