Green Camp Township, Marion County

How Green Camp Township, Marion County began

Green Camp Township, in southwestern Marion County along the Scioto River, takes its name from a War of 1812 camp: the 1883 county history says Capt. Green encamped here with a company of soldiers, though it also notes a green, grassy camping ground as a possible origin. Alexander Porter squatted here in 1819, before the land was surveyed, and the township was organized on June 8, 1824. A two-story blockhouse in the northeast, built in the troubled years before the war with Britain, gave its name to the oldest cemetery. The village of Berwick, platted in 1838 by David Beach and renamed Green Camp in 1875, grew up at the mouth of the Little Scioto, and the township had 1,080 residents in 2020.

Settled 1819, by Daniel Markley and Alexander Porter among the first settlers, 1819-1820.

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history says opinion differed: some thought the name came from a green, grassy camping ground near the Scioto, but the weight of authority held that Capt. Green encamped here with a company of soldiers during the War of 1812, and the place was long called Green's Camp. It adds that the name could easily have been twofold.

Before the town

No named village, mound or trail specific to Green Camp Township is recorded in the sources checked, but the township sits directly on the historical fault line of the 1795 Treaty of Greenville: the U.S. Army built a two-story blockhouse on a hill in the township during the War of 1812 as one of a chain of such posts along the Greenville Treaty line, built to guard settlers against Native people who had allied with the British. Bodies found near the blockhouse site were later reinterred at Green Camp Cemetery. The 1883 county history also records early settler George Wright, who lived among tribes at Upper Sandusky (the Wyandot reservation) and married a Wyandot woman before moving to Green Camp township.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• The Old Blockhouse Site (other) — Green Camp Township, Marion County, on the Greenville Treaty line, War of 1812 (1812-1815) (remarkableohio.org)

Timeline

1. 1812 — During the War of 1812 a Capt. Green encamped with a company of soldiers in what became Green Camp Township, according to the 1883 county history, giving the place its name of Green's Camp; a two-story blockhouse was also built in the township's northeast to guard settlers against Indians made hostile by British influence.
2. 1819 — Alexander Porter and other early settlers, including Daniel Markley, James Owen, Armanus Ashbaugh, Andrew Sullivan, David A. Towne and James Murphy, took up land in the township.
3. 1820 — Armanus Ashbaugh entered the block-house tract in the northeast, and Alexander Porter, who had squatted in 1819 before the land was surveyed, was joined within a year or two by Andrew Sullivan, David A. Towne, James Murphy and the Perrys.
4. 1821 — Ezekiel Thatcher was killed by a falling tree; his was the first burial later removed to Green Camp Cemetery.
5. 1824-06-08 — Green Camp Township was organized; an election a month earlier for justice of the peace had given Samuel Fish seventeen votes and Joseph Boyd eleven.
6. 1825-11-06 — Sophia Ann Ashbaugh, aged one year and ten months, was buried in the Block-House Cemetery south of the blockhouse site, the only marked grave among about twenty-five.
7. c. 1832 — A colony of Germans bought land four miles west of the Scioto, laid out a mile-long street and built a hand-turned corn mill; milk sickness in 1838 killed several and the rest sold out and left for Hancock County and Missouri.
8. 1838 — David Beach, owner of 40 acres at the mouth of the Little Scioto, platted the village of Berwick in June 1838; it was later renamed Green Camp.
9. 1838 — The township's first school, District No. 5, opened for the winter term of 1838-39.
10. 1842 — Schoolteacher Cyrus Carter, barred out of the District No. 5 schoolhouse before Christmas, climbed onto the roof and dropped through, and the big girls of the school put him under a puncheon floor board until he agreed to treat the school.
11. c. 1854 — Wolves, which had killed sheep within six rods of occupied houses, were largely gone; the county had paid $8 for each full-grown wolf scalp, $4 for a whelp and $2 for a wildcat.
12. 1866 — Green Camp Cemetery was established in the township, later receiving remains removed from the old Block-House Cemetery.
13. 1875 — The village of Berwick was incorporated as Green Camp, its post office renamed at the same time because another Berwick post office in Seneca County interfered with the mails.
14. 1883 — The township reported 8,758 acres owned, 114,707 bushels of corn and 31,971 bushels of wheat.
15. 2020 — The census counted 1,080 residents, 310 of them in the village of Green Camp, in the 24.4-square-mile township.

Stories

The blockhouse on the hill

During the War of 1812, with Britain's Native allies raiding the Ohio frontier, the U.S. Army raised a two-story blockhouse on a hill in what is now Green Camp Township, one link in a chain of such posts strung along the 1795 Greenville Treaty line to shield settlers to the south. Ashbaugh, Owen and the other families who arrived a few years later found the works still standing and used the adjoining ground, the Block-House Cemetery, to bury their own dead; a stone there marks Sophia Ann Ashbaugh, who died November 6, 1825. When the graves were later moved to the new Green Camp Cemetery in 1866, the reinterred bodies included those found near the old blockhouse. A county historical marker placed in 1999 by the Marion County Historical Society and the Ohio Historical Society now stands at the site.

A settler who lived among the Wyandot

Among the township's first residents was George Wright, who according to the 1883 county history had lived with Native tribes at Upper Sandusky and married a Wyandot woman before settling in Green Camp township. There he became known for making combs and jewelry and for repairing rifles. When he died he left his entire farm to the township to fund its schools, an unusual bequest that the county historian singled out for mention among the township's early biographies.

Barred out on the day before Christmas

The old custom in Green Camp Township's schools was to bar the teacher out on the day before Christmas until he promised to treat the pupils to apples and cider. The scholars came before daylight and piled the benches against the door. In the winter of 1842 a young man named Cyrus Carter, teaching in District No. 5, found himself shut out and decided to outwit them. He climbed onto the roof, pulled up some of the boards and dropped through to the floor. The large girls of the school were waiting; they raised one of the puncheon floor boards, put him in the hole underneath, and kept him there until he agreed to treat. The schoolhouse was a round-log building with a clapboard roof held down by poles, greased-paper windows, a stick chimney and seats of split linn logs, and the clay chinking washed out each year and left quite a hole under the floor.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · remarkableohio.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Aqua Ohio - Marion92% of residentsScioto River and Little Scioto River intakes, blended with local groundwater wells
• Aqua Ohio - La Rue Village4% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Del-co Water Company, Inc.4% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells
• Pleasant Acres Mobile Home Community Llc0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-07

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