Franklin Township, Brown County

How Franklin Township, Brown County began

Franklin Township was formed by order of the County Commissioners on December 2, 1822, with its first election held at the house of Henry Dunn. Joseph Abbott, Sr. and Greer Brown, both Revolutionary War veterans, located 1,000 acres of Virginia Military land together on Straight Creek shortly after the war, with Abbott's son John building a cabin there about 1800 and living alone on it for four years before marrying. It is a farm township with no incorporated village of its own, though it holds Arnheim, laid out on the John Prickett farm.

Settled c. 1800 (John Abbott, on his father's Straight Creek land claim), incorporated 1822-12-02, by Brown County Commissioners.

Where the name comes from

No documented source for the township's name was found; likely named for Benjamin Franklin, as with many Ohio townships of this name, though no Franklin-specific source confirms it.

Before the town

James Prickett, an early settler, found the second bottom on the farm above Arnheim covered with huts or wigwams of poles and bark left behind by Indians; he burned them to clear the land and planted an orchard, some trees of which still stood in 1883. The spring near the house was still called the "Old Indian Spring" at the time of writing. No other Native American village, mound or trail specific to Franklin Township is recorded in the sources checked. The township lies within the 1795 Treaty of Greenville cession and the Virginia Military District.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• Old Indian Spring / Prickett farm wigwam site (village) — James Prickett farm, above Arnheim, Franklin Township, unspecified, pre-settlement (archive.org)

Timeline

1. c. 1785 — Joseph Abbott, Sr. and Greer Brown, both veterans of the Continental Army, locate 1,000 acres of Virginia Military land together on Straight Creek, each taking 500 acres, in what becomes the south central part of the township.
2. c. 1800 — John Abbott builds a cabin on his father's Straight Creek land claim and lives there alone for four years before marrying Hannah Reynolds in 1804; the cabin was still standing in 1883.
3. c. 1800-1801 — Mary Long, widow of Irish immigrant William Long, and her unmarried children settle on what becomes known as the Joseph Long farm.
4. 1804-03-01 — John Abbott, who had lived alone on his Straight Creek land since about 1800, marries Hannah Reynolds, whose parents had settled in what is now Jackson Township about 1802.
5. c. 1810 — Jacob Lucas, son of Robinson Lucas, settles on Straight Creek; the Lucas family, with the Springers and Pricketts, had come from Cornick's Run near Ripley, where the sons' shanty at Red Oak Creek was hung round with 21 bears.
6. c. 1820 — The Straight Creek Baptist Church, probably the first church built in the county, replaces its early round-log building with a brick church above Arnheim; its records were lost after the death of its secretary, Stout Drake.
7. 1820 — George Schultz builds a mill on Straight Creek about this time that works poorly, with too little water in the race at low water and backwater at high; parts are later reused in the Abbott Mill.
8. 1822-12-02 — The County Commissioners form Franklin Township, ordering the first election held on the first Saturday in January at the house of Henry Dunn.
9. 1823-01 — The first township election, held at the house of Henry Dunn, chooses John McBeath, Jacob Pindell and John Lindsey as trustees and Hezekiah Lindsey as clerk.
10. 1828-01-01 — Scott Township is formed and takes the part of Franklin east of White Oak Creek.
11. 1832 — George Bohrer builds a steam saw mill on his farm; moved about 1836, it becomes Inskeep's Mill, to which a spoke lathe and planer are added in 1872.
12. 1832 — German settlers organize a Lutheran church under Rev. Gerhardt and build a log building on three-quarters of an acre bought from Louis Weaver; a brick church replaces it in 1852.
13. 1842-09-17 — Elder N. Dawson organizes West Fork Church with fourteen members at a house on Middle Run in Washington Township; its meeting-house on West Fork is in use by June 1846.
14. 1844-09-12 — John Lindsey deeds one acre of land for a burying-ground and for the building of West Fork Church.
15. 1845 — About a dozen families who left the Lutherans in the 1846 split are organized as a German Reformed congregation by Rev. F. Wahl; its church is built in 1847 on half an acre bought from James Ball.
16. 1853-06-25 — Jefferson Township is formed from Byrd, Jackson and the southeastern corner of Franklin, taking the Abbott Mill from Franklin.
17. 1873 — The school in Subdistrict No. 4 burns in the winter of 1872-73 and the district is split; the township then has seven subdistricts, and most schoolhouses are rebuilt in frame after spring 1873, with only Arnheim's in brick.
18. 1874-01-02 — Franklin Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry is organized with 16 charter members and builds a hall with a storeroom on the Ripley and Arnheim turnpike the same year.
19. 1882 — The Georgetown and Sardinia Railroad is under construction across the western part of the township; the Ripley and Arnheim turnpike is its only macadamized road.
20. 2020 — The census counts 1,666 people in Franklin Township, which has no incorporated municipality.

Stories

A preacher who freed his father's slaves

Rev. Charles B. Smith, born in Maryland in 1765, was given some twenty enslaved people and several hundred acres of Kentucky land by his father. Believing slavery wrong, Smith freed the people his father had given him and never set foot on the Kentucky land, choosing instead to settle in free Ohio on a farm just west of Arnheim. He preached as a Regular Baptist minister for nearly fifty years, and when he died in 1844 at age seventy-nine, his remains were brought back to Franklin Township and buried among his congregation in the old Baptist churchyard on Straight Creek, where his tombstone still recorded his decades of ministry.

Twenty-one bears on the shanty at Red Oak Creek

Robinson Lucas's sons William and John arrived at the mouth of Red Oak Creek about a week ahead of the rest of the family and built the first shanty at that site. By the time the family arrived, the two young men had killed twenty-one bears and hung the carcasses in the trees around their new home -- a measure of how thick the bear population still was along the Ohio River hills when Franklin Township's earliest settlers first cleared land there.

The German churches of Franklin Township

After the Straight Creek Baptists and the Scots-Irish and Virginia families came a German settlement in the township, and with it new churches. A Lutheran congregation was organized in 1832 under Rev. Gerhardt, whose members included the Schatzmans, Bohls, Bierys, Zieglers and Kautzes, and they put up a log building on three-quarters of an acre bought from Louis Weaver. In 1846 a division in the church sent some eleven or twelve families off to organize a German Reformed congregation, which had begun in 1845 under Rev. F. Wahl and built its church in 1847; the same pastor served it and the congregation at Higginsport. The Lutherans replaced their log church with the present brick one in 1852, laid and plastered by Henry Kress. By the 1880s the German element had also added barley fields and a few vineyards to the township's farming, though the 1883 history says winemaking had been given up and no vineyard remained.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Georgetown Village45% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Waynoka Regional Water and Sewer Dist28% of residentsLake Waynoka / Sycamore Run reservoirs
• Sardinia Village25% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Tate-monroe Water Association2% of residentsOhio River valley aquifer (collector/vertical wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-18: county board of elections.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-05

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