Harrison Township, Darke County

How Harrison Township, Darke County began

Harrison Township, in Darke County's southwestern corner, was erected in May 1818 out of the west end of Twin Township and reduced to its present size in September 1820 when a tier of sections went to German Township. Brawley, Purviance and McClure families entered land along the East Fork about 1810 but were driven off by Native hostility until after the War of 1812; Fort Black, built in 1813 by Lieutenant Black under Captain Nesbitt, stood on the site of New Madison, which Ernestus Putnam surveyed in 1831 after Zadoc Smith's failed 1817 plat. The other village is Hollansburg, laid out in 1838 as a rival to James Stewart's Union. The township had 2,064 people in 1910 and 2,164 in 2020, and the Christopher C. Walker House and Farm is on the National Register.

Settled before 1812 (Brawley, Purviance and McClure families; driven out, then resettled), incorporated 1818-05, by split from the west end of Twin Township.

Where the name comes from

Name origin not confirmed beyond the common Ohio pattern of naming townships for public figures; Harrison Township is one of nineteen townships of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

The 1880 county history records that, before the War of 1812, the Brawley, Purviance and McClure families made land entries in the township's south along the East Fork Valley, but 'the hostile attitude of the Indians compelled them to seek more secure quarters,' with some taking refuge at the fort in Greenville and others returning to older settlements to the south; the families came back and resumed clearing land only after conditions eased in the Greenville treaty era. It also names Ishmael Bunch, of Wayne County, Indiana, as an earlier roaming frontiersman said by tradition to have lived in a log cabin on the township's future land before this conflict, relying on his rifle rather than farming. No specific Native nation, leader, or engagement is named for the hostilities described.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• Fort Black (other) — Harrison Township, on land later platted as New Madison, built fall 1813 (War of 1812) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1810 — Several families, the Brawleys, Purviances and McClures, enter land along the East Fork of the Whitewater but are driven out by Indian hostility and do not return until after the War of 1812.
2. 1813 — Fort Black is built in the fall by Lieutenant Black, of a company commanded by Captain Nesbitt (who simultaneously built a fort in Preble County); David Baldwin, later of Kansas, helps build it and garrisons it for a time.
3. 1813 — Fort Nesbitt, a second blockhouse, is built on the northeast quarter of section 32 the same year as Fort Black.
4. 1817 — Zadoc Smith, who had entered the land including the old Fort Black site, holds a Christmas Day public sale of town lots; only two buyers, Henry Hutton and Frederick Fulke, actually build.
5. 1818-05 — Harrison Township is erected out of the west end of Twin Township.
6. 1819 — Zadoc Smith, discouraged by the failed lot sale, sells his entire claim to Ernestus Putnam, who had entered the adjoining quarter-section; the township's first schoolhouse, intended as such, is built at Yankeetown, with Moses Woods as first teacher.
7. 1820 — German Township is split off from Harrison Township, reducing it to its present size.
8. 1820-09-07 — Harrison Township is reduced to its present size by detaching a tier of sections on the east.
9. 1829 — The Miami Canal is completed to Dayton, easing the township's isolation from commercial markets.
10. 1831 — Ernestus Putnam surveys New Madison, laying out lots on both sides of Main Street, and keeps the first store.
11. 1838-10 — William Hollaman lays out Hollansburg a mile northeast of James Stewart's Union plat of March 1838.
12. 1847 — A brick church built by Putnam and neighbors in New Madison is used by orthodox denominations; the German Reformed take it over in 1857.
13. 1878 — New Madison builds a brick town hall costing about $7,000; its school of 1870 cost $7,500.
14. 1910 — Harrison Township has 2,064 inhabitants.
15. 1982-04-07 — The Christopher C. Walker House and Farm, southwest of New Madison, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
16. 2020 — Harrison Township has 2,164 residents.

Stories

Ninety miles for a sack of flour

The 1880 county history preserves settler Daniel Riegel's account of a grist-milling trip in the winter of 1842-43 that illustrates just how isolated Harrison Township remained decades after its founding. Riegel traveled to Covington with his grain, found several others already waiting and the mill frozen solid, left his grain and went home until the weather softened, returned to help free the wheel -- only to have the ice-laden wheel break on its first turn. He was then forced to haul his grist all the way to a mill on the Whitewater below Paris, a round trip of over ninety miles just to get his flour ground. Such trips, the history notes, were 'prominent undertakings,' made mostly on horseback, with some of the earliest settlers traveling as far as Dayton in search of wheat flour when nearer mills failed them.

A fort, a failed auction, and a second chance

The military blockhouse called Fort Black, built in 1813 during the War of 1812, gave its name to the first attempt at a town on the site that became New Madison. Zadoc Smith, who had acquired the fort's land, staged a Christmas Day auction of town lots in 1817 that the county history calls a 'speculative movement' ahead of its time -- only two buyers, Henry Hutton and Frederick Fulke, ever built on the lots they bought. Discouraged, Smith sold his whole claim in 1819 to neighboring landowner Ernestus Putnam, who spent over a decade buying back the scattered lots before formally vacating the old plat and surveying New Madison fresh in 1831 -- turning a failed military-era speculation into the durable village that survives today.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• New Paris Village52% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• New Madison Village48% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-03-04

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