Gilead Township, Morrow County

How Gilead Township, Morrow County began

Gilead Township was organized in June 1835, after the 1824 creation of Marion County had put most of it in Marvin Township, and it is the only township of that name in Ohio. Lewis and Ralph Hardenbrook made the first settlement in 1817 and a New York Quaker settlement followed on section 14 in 1818; Jacob Young laid out the village of Whetstone, soon renamed Mount Gilead, in 1824, and it became the Morrow County seat in 1848. The township also holds Edison, which grew up at the 1851 railroad station, and Mount Gilead State Park. It had 5,942 residents in 2020.

Settled 1817 (Lewis and Ralph Hardenbrook, southeast quarter of section 2), platted 1824-09-30 (Whetstone, now Mount Gilead), incorporated 1835-06 (township organized), by Lewis and Ralph Hardenbrook; Jacob Young (platted Whetstone).

Where the name comes from

The township takes the name of Mount Gilead, its county seat. The 1911 county history says the hamlet of Whetstone (also called Youngstown) was named Mount Gilead by Daniel James, an old bachelor, after a village on Catoctin Mountain in Loudoun County, Virginia; Wikipedia dates the naming to 1832.

Before the town

The Owl Creek Trail, used by Wyandot and Delaware (Lenape) travelers in the 1700s and early 1800s, ran through the township on its way from Upper Sandusky through Mount Gilead to Fredericktown and beyond. The 1911 county history adds that a trail or blazed track from Owl Creek to Shaw Creek and the Sandusky plains passed the early settlers' farms, and that Indians passed to and fro on hunting and trading trips and sometimes camped in the neighborhood for several years after settlement. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville line crosses the township: land north and east of it lay in the New Purchase and the small southern part in the United States Military Lands.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware).

• Owl Creek Trail (Old War Trace) (trail) — through Mount Gilead, within Gilead Township, 1700s-early 1800s (hmdb.org)
• Treaty of Greenville boundary line (treaty) — across the southern part of Gilead Township, 1795 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1817 — The first settlement in the township, at the site that became Mount Gilead, was made by Lewis Hardenbrook.
2. 1818 — Jonathan Wood, Asa Mosher and Peleg Rogers, from New York, settle on section 14, laying the foundation of the Quaker settlement; the first school in the township is in that settlement.
3. 1823 — Colonel Kilbourn of Worthington lays out a state road through the township, from Worthington to New Haven in Huron County, about this year.
4. 1824 — Marion County is organized in March, putting most of the present township into Marvin Township; on September 30 Jacob Young of Knox County lays out the village of Whetstone, usually called Youngstown, on the Whetstone, later Mount Gilead. Charles Webster is its first resident.
5. 1824 — A second village, Jamestown, is platted on the Mansfield road near Allen Kelley's, with James Bailey's small store and Appleton Rich's blacksmith shop, and a third, Friendsboro, is laid out by the Moshers but never built.
6. 1836 — A mill dam is built on the Whetstone at Mount Gilead, known as Cooper's dam.
7. 1851 — The Cleveland and Columbus railroad (later the Big Four) begins running in February with a station two miles west of Mount Gilead, called Gilead Station, later Levering and then Edison.
8. 1861 — John Beatty, who lived at Mount Gilead from about 1849 to 1859, becomes the first man in Morrow County to enlist in the Civil War; he rose to colonel of the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry and brigadier general in 1862.
9. 1911 — Edison has 387 inhabitants, a hotel, church, bank and a few stores, its prosperity due to the crossing of the Big Four and the Toledo and Ohio Central.
10. 2020 — The township's population is 5,942, including Mount Gilead (3,503) and Edison (422).

Stories

One township, two villages, one state park

Gilead Township has two villages: Mount Gilead near its center, the seat of Morrow County, and Edison in the west. The 2020 census counted 5,942 residents in the township, 3,503 of them in Mount Gilead and 422 in Edison. Wikipedia says the township was organized in 1835 and is the only Gilead Township in Ohio. The 1911 county history says the hamlet of Whetstone was named Mount Gilead by Daniel James after a village in Loudoun County, Virginia, and that the town became the seat of the new Morrow County in 1848.

Three towns on paper

The first plan for a town in Gilead Township was Friendsboro, laid out by the Mosher family on the Delaware road where it crossed the old boundary, and it was never built. On September 30, 1824 Jacob Young of Knox County, who owned the land, platted a village on the knolls of the Whetstone. Its proper name was Whetstone, though everyone called it Youngstown, and its first resident was Charles Webster. About the same time a third village, Jamestown, was platted on the Mansfield road, with James Bailey's small store and a blacksmith shop, and that was the end of it. Whetstone became Mount Gilead when an old bachelor, Daniel James, who sold goods for the village storekeeper, named it after a Virginia village on Catoctin Mountain, and in 1848 it became the seat of the new Morrow County.

The Quaker settlement of 1818

In 1818 three New Yorkers, Jonathan Wood, Asa Mosher and Peleg Rogers, took up land on section 14 of what was then the Three Mile Strip. Most of their large families settled around them, forming a Quaker settlement that held the township's first school and later two stone quarries. Asa Mosher built the first grist and saw mill in the neighborhood in 1821, on the Whetstone in what is now Cardington Township, and elections were held in a schoolhouse near Mosher's mill from 1824 to 1834. Supplies were so scarce in early years that meal had to be packed on horseback from Owl Creek and Delaware County.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · hmdb.org · morrow.ohgenweb.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org

Del-Co's East Knox wellfield at Bryant and Lucerne Rds, Wayne Twp, about 5 miles WSW of Fredericktown The water here

• Del-co Water Company, Inc.55% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells
• Mt Gilead Village33% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Candlewood Lake Association Inc8% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Cardington Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Private schools (1)

Bridges rated poor (3)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Shale and injection wells (4)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-01-01: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2018: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Cite this page