Greenville Township, Darke County

How Greenville Township, Darke County began

Greenville Township was the whole of Darke County when the county was organized in the winter of 1816-17, and it was then carved down, township by township, to its present central shape (Twin and Wayne in July 1817, Washington in 1819, Richland in 1820, Neave in 1821); it is the only Greenville Township in Ohio. It holds the site of Wayne's Fort Greene Ville and the 1795 treaty, and in the early 1800s the Shawnee Prophet's village stood on Mud Creek just above the fort site. White settlement began with Azor Scribner's trading post in 1806-07 and Samuel Boyd's cabin in 1807, and John Devor and Robert Gray platted Greenville on August 14, 1808; in 2020 the township had 17,159 people, 4,373 of them outside the city.

Settled 1807, platted 1808-08-14 (Greenville, by John Devor and Robert Gray), incorporated 1809 (as Darke County's original township), by Samuel Boyd (first white family, 1807) and Azor Scribner (trader, 1806-07).

Where the name comes from

Named, like the city at its center, for Fort Greene Ville, which General Anthony Wayne named for Revolutionary War officer Nathanael Greene.

Before the town

Greenville Township holds the site of Fort Greene Ville, built by General Anthony Wayne's army, and the ground where the Treaty of Greenville was signed August 3, 1795, ending the Northwest Indian War. The 1880 county history adds an early-1800s Native village inside the township: after the 1795 treaty, at a date it could place only between 1796 and 1804, Tenskwatawa the Shawnee Prophet and his brother Tecumseh moved with a few families from the town of Upper Piqua and set up a small village on the west side of Mud Creek, above Greenville, within what were later the Bishop and Bryson farms; the settlement lasted until about 1811, and Tecumseh left Greenville for the Wabash in 1808. A Frenchman built a small trading cabin opposite the burned fort about 1805 and lost his stock to the village in 1806, after which Azor Scribner reopened the cabin as a post. An early road crossing the West Branch was known as the 'Squaw Road' or Delaware Path. No mound or earthwork specific to the township outside the city was found in the sources consulted.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Ottawa.

• Prophet's town on Mud Creek (village) — west side of Mud Creek above Greenville, later the farms of William F. Bishop and Joseph Bryson, between 1796 and 1804 until about 1811 (Tecumseh left in 1808) (archive.org)
• Delaware Path (Squaw Road) (trail) — crossed the West Branch in the Greenville area, before 1810 (archive.org)
• Fort Greene Ville and Treaty of Greenville (treaty) — Greenville, at the centre of the township, 1793-1795 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1795-08-03 — The Treaty of Greenville is signed within the township's bounds, at Fort Greene Ville.
2. 1805 — A Frenchman builds a small log trading cabin on the west side of Mud Creek opposite the site of the burned fort; in 1806 the Shawnee Prophet's village on the creek takes his stock, and he leaves.
3. 1807 — Samuel Boyd, a Maryland native, settles with his family 2.5 miles north-northeast of the fort site on Boyd's Creek, the first white family in Greenville Township; Azor Scribner, who opened a trade in the Frenchman's cabin in late 1806 or early 1807, moves his family to a surviving fort building in 1808.
4. 1808-08-14 — John Devor and his son-in-law Robert Gray plat the town of Greenville on the half-section that had held Fort Greene Ville; the plat is acknowledged August 14 and recorded in Miami County.
5. 1809 — Greenville Township is organized as the original township of newly created Darke County, at the time encompassing all of the county's territory.
6. 1809 — Enos Terry lays out a rival plat also called Greenville northeast of the first; William and Joseph Wilson, Irish-born, settle north of town, and their neighborhood is long called 'Ireland'.
7. 1810 — James and Henry Bush settle at and adjoining the Prophet's town site on Mud Creek, and Andrew Bush on the West Branch where the Squaw Road crossed it; James Bush becomes an associate judge when Darke County is organized in the winter of 1816-17.
8. 1817-07 — Twin Township and Wayne Township are cut from the south and north ends of Greenville Township, the first divisions of the county.
9. 1819 — Washington Township is formed in March from the part of Greenville Township lying in Range 1; Richland (1820) and Neave (1821) follow, and in 1829 part of Richland is returned to Greenville.
10. 1827 — The township trustees divide Greenville Township into school districts under the new state school law; the district's three directors, in a feud, do not speak and take no action, and a new board is elected the next year.
11. 1839 — Franklin Township is formed from Van Buren Township and Sections 5-8 of Town 9 North, Range 3 East are kept in Greenville Township.
12. 1848 — Construction of the railroad, chartered earlier, begins late in the year after years of stagnation between 1840 and 1848, during which the township had no turnpikes or railroads and farmers hauled grain to Dayton and Piqua.
13. 1852 — Railroad service arrives in the township, spurring growth in Greenville and outlying communities.
14. 2020 — Greenville Township has 17,159 residents in the 2020 census, 4,373 of them outside the city of Greenville; Woodington lies on the Brown Township line.

Stories

The only Greenville Township in Ohio

When Darke County was organized, the whole of it was placed in a single township, and that township took the name of the fort-turned-town at its center: Greenville. As the county's population grew, the government carved out new townships one by one from Greenville Township's original territory, the way most Ohio counties divided their land, until Greenville Township was reduced to roughly its present 57.5 square miles around the county seat. Because no other Ohio county happened to duplicate the name, Greenville Township, Darke County remains the only township of that name anywhere in the state. Outside the city itself, the township holds small rural crossroads such as Woodington, on the line with Brown Township, named simply for John Woodington, the first settler recorded there.

Azor Scribner and the Frenchman's cabin

In late 1806 or early 1807 Azor Scribner left his wife and small children near Middletown and came north with a small stock of Indian goods, including tobacco and whisky, and opened for business in a French trader's deserted log cabin on the west side of Mud Creek opposite the burned fort. The Frenchman had built the cabin about 1805, but the Shawnee Prophet's village nearby had taken his entire stock of powder, lead, flints, tobacco and whisky the following summer, and he left. Scribner brought his family up in 1808, abandoned the cabin on the west side of the creek and moved into one of the fort buildings that had escaped the fire inside the pickets. Samuel Boyd, who built a cabin 2.5 miles north-northeast of the fort site on what is still Boyd's Creek, was the first settler to bring a wife and children into the township. Scribner died in 1822, and his widow soon married a Yankee adventurer who left her within a year and ended up in a Canadian jail for his part in McKenzie's rebellion.

Three directors who would not speak

When Ohio's Guilford school law of 1827 told township trustees to divide their townships into school districts, Greenville Township's trustees did so, and Greenville District chose three men as school directors: John Beers, David Briggs and Linus Bascom. By the county historian's account none of the three would speak to either of the others because of old feuds, and they let the whole year pass doing nothing but being sworn into office. The next year a new board was elected and went at once to work, pulling down an old log building on Lot 32 that belonged to neither the town nor the district and moving the logs to half of Lot 3, which Hill Wiley had deeded to the school district in discharge of fines for assault and battery. Early teachers, including Beers, Talbot and Williams, had taught in the old house at intervals between 1818 and 1824.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Darke County on the full map

Greenville Creek (primary, approximately two-thirds of water treated) blended with eight wells east and south of the plant; wells used during periods of high stream turbidity The water here

• Greenville City96% of residentsGreenville Creek (primary, ~78%) blended with 8 wells
• Ansonia Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Sherwood Forest MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Northtowne Communities Llc1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Community health centers (1)

Power plants (1)

Police stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-07-23

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