Hale Township, Hardin County

How Hale Township, Hardin County began

Hale Township, in the southeastern corner of Hardin County, was organized in 1835 out of territory that had been part of Taylor Creek Township. Its two villages, Mount Victory and (in part) Ridgeway, were both platted in 1851. The township sits over the Ridgeway Site, one of the most important Glacial Kame burial grounds in North America, discovered when a railroad crew cut into a glacial gravel deposit in 1856. Today it is farm country crossed by the old Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad grade.

Settled 1829, incorporated 1835, by organized by the Hardin County commissioners in 1835 from Taylor Creek Township.

Where the name comes from

The township history does not give a clear naming source for 'Hale'; the 1883 county history describes only its 1835 organization out of Taylor Creek Township. No source found ties the name to a specific person.

Before the town

The most significant Native American site connected to Hale Township is the Ridgeway Site, a glacial gravel kame on the Hale/Hardin-Logan county line between the villages of Ridgeway and Mount Victory. When the Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad cut into the kame for ballast gravel in 1856, workers uncovered several hundred burials (estimates range from about 308 to over 400 individuals), including more than 50 children under age eight, cremations, a 90-foot string of shell beads wound around a group of bodies, copper beads and tools, worked stone, bird stones, rattlesnake rattles, and dogs buried with people. Careful documentation by excavator John Matson made Ridgeway the type site for the Glacial Kame culture, an Archaic-period tradition (about 8000 to 1000 BC) centered on Hardin and Logan counties; other Glacial Kame sites are compared against it. The historic Wyandot presence tied to nearby Roundhead Township is a few miles west and not documented as extending into Hale Township specifically.

• Ridgeway Site (burial) — glacial kame between Ridgeway and Mount Victory villages, Hale Township, Glacial Kame culture, Archaic (about 8000-1000 BC) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1829 — James Andrews becomes the first landowning permanent settler in what became Hale Township, taking land near Grassy Point (a Levi D. Tharp had squatted on the land around 1828 without purchasing it).
2. 1832-spring — Blair Dille is born, the first child born in the township.
3. 1832-02 — Mrs. Jennings, wife of Isaac Jennings, dies about February 1, the first death in Hale Township; her eldest child dies February 4, her husband March 4, and his brother Cornelius March 27, four deaths in two families only months after they entered the wilderness.
4. 1835 — Hardin County commissioners organize Hale Township out of Taylor Creek Township.
5. 1838 — Moses Kennedy erects a saw mill on Panther Creek about 1838 or 1840, the first mill in Hale Township, and soon attaches a corn cracker, the first grinding mill.
6. 1839 — The township's first school, a one-room log schoolhouse called 'The Rough and Ready,' opens in Mount Victory under teacher Enos Baldwin.
7. 1851 — Ezra Dille plats Mount Victory on his father Cyrus Dille's land; Ridgeway is also laid out the same year.
8. 1851-52 — Jeremiah Elliot builds the first saw mill in Mount Victory, a steam mill that saws railroad ties as the track is laid through the place; the first store there opens in the fall of 1851 and a post office with David Ellis as postmaster in 1853-54.
9. 1856 — Railroad construction crews cutting gravel from a kame between Ridgeway and Mount Victory uncover hundreds of ancient burials, later named the Ridgeway Site.
10. 1858-12-07 — Ridgeway is incorporated under the name West Ridgeway on the petition of forty-eight voters.
11. 1872-11-16 — Grassy Point Grange No. 165 is instituted in the schoolhouse at Grassy Point with sixteen charter members.
12. 1875 — A four-room brick schoolhouse is built at Mount Victory for $5,200.
13. 1875 — A brick schoolhouse with four rooms is built at Mount Victory for $5,200; in 1876 the high school is made a township school, free to all in Hale Township.
14. 1881 — Carter & Howe put a grist mill into Ezra Dille's 1852-53 warehouse by the railroad at Mount Victory, and the township trustees buy ground for a public cemetery.
15. 1882-08-25 — Coleman Asbury Post No. 257, Grand Army of the Republic, is instituted at Mount Victory with twenty charter members.
16. 1893 — The Toledo, Kenton & Columbus railroad is built through Hale Township, touching the east edge of Ridgeway.
17. 2020 — The 2020 census counts 1,537 residents in Hale Township, which covers 36.6 square miles.

Stories

Gravel for the railroad, bones from the ice age

In 1856 the Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad needed gravel ballast for its new line through southeastern Hardin County and sent a crew to dig into a low, rounded hill of glacial gravel between Ridgeway and Mount Victory. Instead of plain gravel the diggers turned up human bone after human bone. Word reached local excavator John Matson, who spent years carefully recording what came out of the pit: somewhere between 308 and over 400 burials, more than fifty of them children under eight, some cremated, some buried in unusual positions, one group wrapped in a 90-foot string of shell beads, along with copper ornaments, worked stone tools, carved 'bird stones,' rattlesnake rattles, and dogs interred alongside people. Matson's careful notes made the Ridgeway Site unusually well documented for its time, and archaeologists later made it the type site for what they now call the Glacial Kame culture, a late Archaic-era tradition whose heartland is considered to be Hardin and Logan counties.

Four graves in two months

The first settlers in the west part of Hale Township arrived in the winter of 1831-32 with, in the words of the 1883 county history, strong arms, radiant hopes and happy hearts. Within months sickness struck two related families. Mrs. Jennings died about February 1, 1832, the first death in the township, and her eldest child followed on February 4. Her husband, Isaac Jennings, died March 4, and his brother Cornelius on March 27. Four of the loved ones were in their graves in two months, buried on their own land before any cemetery existed, with John Wolf said to have made the first coffins. The county historian found no marker for them. Eddy Cemetery, begun about 1837 with the burial of a child of James McConnel, became the first public burying ground.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mt Victory Village94% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - La Rue Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Private schools (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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.
• Basic Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-07-28
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-08

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