Glenmont

How Glenmont began

Glenmont is a small village in Richland Township in the southwestern part of Holmes County. It was earlier known as Napoleon, and it was here, on June 17, 1863, that a makeshift earthwork fort called Fort Fizzle was thrown up by several hundred local men resisting the Civil War draft; a detachment of roughly 420 Union troops under orders from Governor David Tod dispersed them within days in what became locally known as the Holmes County Rebellion. The village's platting date is not recorded; Saints Peter and Paul Church was built there in 1857, and a public school building stood in Glenmont by 1910.

Where the name comes from

The name Glenmont is not explained. The settlement was earlier called Napoleon, with its post office named Black Creek, according to the Saint Joseph Mission marker.

Before the town

No Native American site specific to Glenmont is recorded.

Timeline

1. 1847 — On February 15 Peter Durand deeds half an acre near Glenmont to Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati for Saint Joseph Church and cemetery, the church already being built.
2. 1857 — Saints Peter and Paul Church is built at Napoleon (post office Black Creek), now Glenmont; the Saint Joseph Mission closes some time afterward.
3. 1863 — On June 17, during the Civil War, several hundred to about 1,000 local men opposed to the draft entrench behind a makeshift fort (with four small cannon) at what was then called Napoleon, now Glenmont; Governor David Tod orders roughly 420 Union troops, including men of the 3rd Ohio Infantry, to disperse them. Two resisters are wounded before the camp, derisively named 'Fort Fizzle,' surrenders; of 80 men eventually indicted, only Laurant Blanchat is convicted, and President Lincoln later pardons him.
4. 1863 — On June 5, on French Ridge in Richland Township, local men attack the Union enrolling officer Elias Robinson; when Captain James Drake, the provost marshal, jails the ringleaders, armed neighbours free them. After the troops approach the camp on June 17, local Peace Democrats led by Daniel P. Leadbetter negotiate the ringleaders' surrender the next morning; more than forty are indicted, and only Lorenzo Blanchard, owner of the farm where the camp stood, is found guilty.
5. 1888 — Henry Howe's county history records the same episode as the 'Holmes County Rebellion,' locating its 'theatre' in Richland township, the county's southwest-corner township, and dates the arrival of Colonel Wallace's roughly 420 soldiers, landed at Lake Station, to June 17, 1863.
6. 1888 — Howe lists Black Creek, twelve miles west of Millersburg on the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus Railroad, with a population of about 250; the marker says Black Creek was the post office of Napoleon, now Glenmont.
7. 1900 — The census counts 209 residents, the village's first count.
8. 1910 — A wooden public school building stands in Glenmont, recorded in a Columbus Metropolitan Library photograph.
9. 1920 — The census counts 287 residents.
10. 2000 — The census counts 283 residents.
11. 2003 — The Ohio Bicentennial Commission and Ohio Historical Society erect a state marker on the Holmes County draft riots, marker 3-38.
12. 2009 — The Fort Fizzle site becomes a census-designated place sharing Glenmont's ZIP code.
13. 2020 — The census counts 240 residents.

Stories

Fort Fizzle and the Holmes County draft resistance

The Holmes County draft trouble of 1863 began on June 5 on French Ridge in Richland Township, when local men attacked the Union enrolling officer Elias Robinson. Captain James Drake, the provost marshal, jailed the ringleaders, and armed neighbours broke them out. Governor David Tod sent Colonel William Wallace of the 15th Ohio Volunteer Infantry with 420 soldiers from Camp Chase, who came on June 17 (Howe says they landed at Lake Station, in the western part of the county). Nearly a thousand men were camped behind earthworks on the farm of Lorenzo Blanchard, with a few small cannon; when the soldiers approached the camp fired and scattered, and the Peace Democrat politician Daniel P. Leadbetter negotiated the surrender of the ringleaders the next morning. More than forty were indicted, but only Blanchard, the owner of the farm, was found guilty. Wikipedia, which calls the camp Fort Fizzle and spells his name Laurant Blanchat, adds that President Lincoln later pardoned him. Henry Howe wrote in 1888 that the county's good name had suffered by the affair and that the accounts he had were too contradictory to sort out.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org · hmdb.org · hmdb.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Glenmont Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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, 2024, released 2026-03-26

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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