Harrison Township, Knox County

How Harrison Township, Knox County began

Harrison Township, in east-central Knox County, was organized March 9, 1825 and named for General William Henry Harrison, one of nineteen Ohio townships carrying his name. Jeremiah Biggs and Andrew Casto, who arrived about 1808, are the earliest recorded settlers; a decade later, in 1825, the township lay in the path of the Burlington storm, one of the most destructive tornadoes recorded in early Ohio, which flattened houses and timber along a three-quarter-mile swath. An old Native trail linking Greentown to the Wakatomika crossed the township, and Indian Field's Run took its name from a large Native cornfield at its mouth; the 1881 county history states plainly that the township has no mounds. It has no incorporated village within its own boundaries. The township has stayed rural, recording 854 residents at the 2020 census.

Settled c. 1808 (Jeremiah Biggs and Andrew Casto, earliest settlers), incorporated 1825-03-09 (township organized).

Where the name comes from

Harrison Township is named for General William Henry Harrison, the military and political leader who later became the ninth U.S. president; it is one of nineteen Harrison Townships in Ohio.

Before the town

The 1881 county history states explicitly that there are no mounds in Harrison Township. Indian Field's Run, the township's principal stream, was named for a large tract of land at its mouth that Native people had cleared and planted with corn before white settlement. An old trail running from Greentown to the Wakatomica crossed the township and continued to see Native travelers, coming to hunt deer from Greentown and the Upper Sandusky area, for several years after the War of 1812; General Lewis Cass reportedly used this same trail on horseback while traveling to his post as governor of Michigan Territory, stopping overnight at pioneer Simon Dudgeon's house. No source names a specific nation resident within the township itself; the broader county was Wyandot, Shawnee, and Delaware (Lenape) territory.

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

• Indian Field's Run cornfield (village) — at the mouth of Indian Field's Run, Harrison Township, which took its name from the cleared cornfield there, pre-1808 (archive.org)
• Greentown-to-Wakatomica trail (trail) — crossing Harrison Township, used by Native travelers into the 1810s and by early settlers before roads existed, to 1810s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1808 — Jeremiah Biggs, born in Virginia in 1769, settles on section sixteen; he and Andrew Casto are recorded as the township's earliest settlers.
2. 1810 — Simon Dudgeon, an Irish immigrant from County Donegal who had bought his sons out of British army service to bring the family to America, enters land near the township's center.
3. 1811 — Simon Dudgeon, who bought land near the center of the township in 1810, returns from Washington County, Pennsylvania, with his bride Nancy Elliott; he eventually holds 712 acres and raises ten children.
4. 1818 — John Schooler, a veteran of the Indian wars and the War of 1812 and later a Knox County legislator, settles in the township's southeast.
5. 1819 — The brothers George, Adam, Henry and Andrew Lybarger, Pennsylvania Germans from Bedford County, spend the winter in Mount Vernon and the next spring buy a large tract of Owl Creek bottom land in the northwest of the township.
6. 1823 — The Methodists erect the township's first church, a log building called Mt. Labor church, in the northeastern part of the township; the Union Grove cemetery is also laid out this year.
7. 1825 — Harrison Township is organized March 9; on May 18 the Burlington storm, one of the most destructive tornadoes recorded in early Ohio, sweeps across the township from southwest to northeast, flattening log, frame and brick houses and timber along a path about three-quarters of a mile wide, with hail reported larger than hen's eggs.
8. 1830 — Township population is recorded at 726.
9. 1832 — A small log church built on Nathaniel Ross's farm by the Disciples (then called Campbellites) is the seed of the later Union Grove church; the Mt. Zion cemetery is first used the same year.
10. 1833 — William Lepley builds the township's first saw-mill on Indian Field's Run; he is later killed there after falling onto an upright saw.
11. 1835 — The Mt. Zion Evangelical Lutheran church is organized by Rev. H. W. Lauer, its congregation drawn largely from the township's Pennsylvania German settlers.
12. 1837 — The Mt. Zion Evangelical Lutheran congregation raises its first frame church; a larger frame building replaces it in 1854.
13. 1841 — The Union Grove church, a frame building in section fifteen used by several denominations but chiefly the Disciples, is built.
14. 1842 — The township's first post office, Wolfe's post-office, opens with George Wolfe as postmaster; it operates about ten years before closing.
15. 1846 — A second tornado crosses the southern part of Harrison Township on September 2 and kills sixteen-year-old Rachel Ann Ross when a falling log strikes her; the 1881 county history dates it 1845 in the storm account and 1846 in the Ross family sketch.
16. 1857 — In November a whirlwind sweeps the southern part of the township, throwing down Jacob Ellett's house and injuring members of his family.
17. 1860 — Township population is recorded at 778, against 833 in 1840 and 751 in 1850.
18. 2020 — Census records 854 residents in the township.

Stories

The Burlington storm

On May 18, 1825, one of the most destructive tornadoes recorded in early Ohio tore across Harrison Township from southwest to northeast, prostrating everything in a path about three-quarters of a mile wide. Log, frame, and brick houses alike were blown down and not a large tree was left standing; the storm brought hail reportedly larger than hen's eggs. Early settler Michael Harrod's brick house, the second built in the township, was among those destroyed, and his wife and infant child were buried under the falling bricks; she suffered a broken arm, but the child was unharmed. Nathaniel Ross, who had built the township's first brick house, also lost all his buildings and much valuable timber in the same storm, and was struck again on September 2 (1845 or 1846; the county history gives both) when a second tornado killed his sixteen-year-old daughter, Rachel Ann, after a falling log crushed her.

Nathaniel Ross, Abolitionist and Campbellite

Nathaniel Ross, who settled in Harrison Township about 1815, was among the very first people in Knox County to publicly embrace Abolitionism, a stance that brought him sustained social and political ostracism from his neighbors; he was also one of the first in the area to adopt the religious views of Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ, at a time when being called a 'Campbellite' carried nearly as much stigma as being an Abolitionist. He never wavered from either position, and by the time the 1881 county history was written, both the political cause and the religious movement he had championed had become widely accepted. Ross organized one of the township's earliest Disciples congregations in a small log church on his own farm about 1832, a body that grew into the Union Grove church built in 1841.

Simon Dudgeon and the sound of an axe

Simon Dudgeon, born in County Donegal in 1776, landed at New York in 1801 with one English shilling after his father had bought out the army service of Simon and two of his brothers. After years of wage work in Connecticut and New York he walked west in 1810, picked a tract near the center of what became Harrison Township, and entered three quarter-sections. The neighbor Paul Welker told the county historian how he first learned of the newcomer: out hunting a deer that had run into brush by some frog ponds, he heard an axe, crept up expecting to find an Indian, and found instead Dudgeon chopping logs for a cabin behind the big frog ponds, a spot Welker thought an odd one to choose. Dudgeon married in Pennsylvania, came back in 1811, and by his death in 1845 owned 712 acres; his family held more than 1,500 acres in the neighborhood by 1862.

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

Wells drawing groundwater from the buried-valley aquifer along the Kokosing River near Mount Vernon The water here

• Gambier Village90% of residentsBuried Valley Aquifer (Kokosing River valley wells)
• Knox County Water and Wastewater10% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Martinsburg Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-06-02

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