Greenfield Township, Fairfield County

How Greenfield Township, Fairfield County began

Greenfield Township, immediately northwest of Lancaster, drew some of Fairfield County's very first settlers in 1798 and 1799, who planted three separate neighborhoods at the forks of the Hocking, at Yankeetown, and at the Rock mills, a site the 1883 county history calls the largest ancient earthwork in the county and a longstanding trading rendezvous for Indians from Chillicothe. The township itself was laid out and named for its green fields in 1805. Its village of Carroll grew up at the junction of the Hocking Canal with the Ohio Canal system after the canal era began, and remains the township's trading center; a second canal-era village, Havensport, has nearly vanished. The township is named for open, fertile land rather than for any person.

Settled 1798, platted 1805.

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history states simply that Greenfield "was laid out in 1805, being named from its green fields," without further explanation. No other source consulted adds to this.

Before the town

Fairfield County's 1883 history places the largest and most interesting ancient earthworks it knew of in the county on a hill in Greenfield Township, a short distance above the upper falls of the Hocking River at the Rock mills: a four-hundred-and-twenty-foot square oriented to the cardinal points, with two circles (125 and 200 feet across) and a small mound inside the smaller circle overlooking the works and the country for miles around. By 1883 the embankments, once about four feet high, had been cleared, leveled and plowed over, destroying most of their value to investigators; no artifacts were recovered from them. The same book's county-wide Indian Tribes chapter says the Rock mills settlement, founded about 1799-1800 by James (or Joseph) Loveland and Hezekiah Smith, was "a favorite center for the Indians," who gathered there seasonally, drawn partly by whiskey the millers sold and partly to trade; the Indians regularly arrived carrying fresh lead of unknown origin, which they would sell but never explain the source of, and exchanged furs for flour, salt, whiskey, tobacco and muslin. Fairfield County lay within the vast 1795 Treaty of Greenville cession, and the Wyandot people held a town called Tarhetown (or Cranetown), after their chief Tarhe, on the site of present Lancaster until the treaty; hunting parties continued visiting the Hocking Valley, Greenfield included, until about 1810-1812. No source consulted names a specific village, trail or burial site inside Greenfield Township's own boundaries apart from the Rock mills earthwork; modern preservation sources place the standing 1824 Rock Mill structure itself across the township line in neighboring Bloom Township, so the earthwork and trading-post narrative that the 1883 county history tells as part of Greenfield's early settlement may describe a site now administratively on the Bloom Township side of the boundary, a discrepancy we could not resolve.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee.

• Rock mills earthwork (earthwork) — on a hill above the upper falls of the Hocking River, described in Greenfield Township in the 1883 county history; modern sources place the surviving Rock Mill structure in neighboring Bloom Township, precontact, mound-builder culture not specified by the source (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of what becomes Ohio, including the future Greenfield Township, to the United States; the Wyandot leave their town at the site of Lancaster soon after.
2. 1798-1799 — The first settlers in this part of the county establish three neighborhoods: at the forks of the Hockhocking, at Yankeetown, and at the Rock mills, among them Isaac Meason, Captain Joseph Steward, Alexander Sanderson and James Wells.
3. 1799-1800 — James (or Joseph) Loveland and Hezekiah Smith build the first mills in the area, a sawmill and gristmill known as the Loveland Mills (later Rock Mills), and are the first to sell goods in the township, buying their stock in Detroit; the site becomes a seasonal trading rendezvous for Indians from Chillicothe.
4. 1800 — Levi Steward, son of Captain Joseph Steward, is born, remembered as the first child born in the township.
5. 1805 — Greenfield Township is laid out and named for its green fields.
6. 1813 — The Lutherans build the township's first church.
7. 1830 — Jacob Claypool builds the Greenfield Academy for school and church purposes; Dr. Williams teaches there for about a decade and educates many of the county's leading men.
8. 1831 — Isaac Havens plats Havensport, a boat station on the canal about a mile and a half northeast of Carroll.
9. 1838 — The Methodists of Carroll organize under Elijah Dove and Harry Messmore, becoming the largest religious society in the township.
10. 1855 — The Napthalia Masonic lodge is established in Carroll.
11. 1884 — Photographer J. J. Wolfe of Lancaster makes a photograph of Blaine's schoolhouse in Greenfield Township, later preserved by the Library of Congress.

Stories

Three Settlements and a Trading Post

Greenfield Township's first white residents in 1798 and 1799 did not settle as one community but as three: a cluster at the forks of the Hockhocking near the Claypool neighborhood, another remembered as Yankeetown, and a third at the Rock mills. The Rock mills settlement grew up around a sawmill and gristmill that two Yankees, James (or Joseph) Loveland and Hezekiah Smith, built about 1799 or 1800, and around the store they stocked with goods hauled down from Detroit. For years afterward the place drew regular visits from Indians coming from as far as Chillicothe, who traded furs for the millers' whiskey, tobacco, flour and muslin, and who reliably reappeared from their hunting camps carrying fresh lead that older residents believed came from a hidden local source no white settler ever located, despite years of searching the hills around the mill and south of Lancaster.

An Earthwork Plowed Away

When the 1883 county history was compiled, its authors judged the ancient works on the hill above Rock mills the largest and most interesting in Fairfield County: a square nearly a football field on a side, oriented to the four points of the compass, joined to two circles of different sizes, one holding a small mound positioned to overlook the whole complex and the countryside beyond. Forest had covered the site until shortly before the book was written, but by 1883 the land had been cleared and the four-foot embankments plowed flat, mixing their distinctively yellow clay into the surrounding soil. No artifacts were ever recovered from the earthwork, and the county historians confessed they could not say who built it or when, only that no such clay occurred naturally nearby.

Carroll at the Canal Junction

Carroll grew up where the Hocking Canal met the main line of the Ohio Canal system, laid out by contractor William Tong after the canal's completion; his own house, part of which still stood in 1883, was the settlement's first building, and he also built the state dam and the first mill before dying before the town was fully laid off. William Breck opened the first store and the first hotel, and for years canal boat traffic was heavy enough that the innkeeper regularly made up beds on the floor to house overflow guests. When railroads replaced canal boats, Carroll's trade in wheat and corn kept the town alive; by 1883 the firm of Saylor & Ebright alone handled about 60,000 bushels of grain a year.

Photographs

Local history sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · historic-structures.com · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Lancaster City79% of residentsHocking River Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Carroll Village8% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Baltimore Village7% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Greenfield Twp Water District2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Fairfield County Utilities2% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (central Ohio, aquifer undocumented)
• Little Walnut Water Treatment Facility1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Sugar Grove Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Brookdale Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Colony Village MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (3)

Public schools (3)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 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.
• OP&F Examination, 2023, released 2025-05-15
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-07

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