Harrison Township, Perry County

How Harrison Township, Perry County began

Harrison Township, in northeastern Perry County, was established in 1820 and named for William Henry Harrison. Its principal village, Crooksville, grew from a lumber mill and farm that Jacob Reed cleared along Moxahala Creek in the 1820s into a post-office town named for storekeeper Joseph Crooks, who opened his store in 1870, founded around 1874 and a formally incorporated village by 1894. Deep local clay and coal deposits made Crooksville, together with neighboring Roseville, one of Ohio's great stoneware and art-pottery centers from the 1890s into the twentieth century, work still marked each July by the Crooksville-Roseville Pottery Festival.

Settled 1820s (Jacob Reed), incorporated 1894 (Crooksville), by township named for William Henry Harrison; Crooksville grew from Jacob Reed's mill and farm and Joseph Crooks's store and post office.

Where the name comes from

Harrison Township was named for William Henry Harrison, an Ohio legislator who went on to the presidency. Crooksville takes its name from Joseph Crooks, who opened a general store in 1870 and petitioned for a post office; when the name he first proposed, 'Reeds Post Office,' was rejected as a duplicate of an existing Ohio post office, officials suggested 'Crooksville' instead, a choice Crooks's son later said was pleasing to his father.

Before the town

No source found records a Native village, trail, or named site specifically within Harrison Township. The area lies in the Hocking/Moxahala watershed of the historic range of the Shawnee and other nations who hunted and traveled the region before the Treaty of Greenville (1795); no site-specific detail was found.

Timeline

1. 1820 — Harrison Township is established in northeastern Perry County and named for William Henry Harrison.
2. 1820s — Jacob Reed clears heavily timbered land along Moxahala Creek, holding a warranty deed signed by President James Monroe, and establishes a lumber mill and farm that grows to 300-400 acres, the nucleus of Crooksville.
3. 1856 — A rail line is laid through Reed's property; the concession produces a spur, a grain warehouse, and passenger service at 'Reed Station.'
4. 1870 — Joseph Crooks opens a general store and successfully petitions for a post office; the Post Office Department names it Crooksville after his first choice, 'Reeds Post Office,' is rejected as a duplicate; the post office and village date from around 1874.
5. 1890 — J. F. Weaver founds the Roseville Pottery Company in neighboring Roseville, which by 1900 turns from plain stoneware to art pottery lines such as Rozane.
6. 1894 — Crooksville is formally incorporated as a village with a population of about 800.
7. 1900 — Four Ransbottom brothers found the Ransbottom Pottery Company in Roseville; by 1916 it is the largest American producer of stoneware jars, and it continues operating into 2005.
8. 1910 — Nelson McCoy Pottery Company begins operating in Roseville, running until 1990.
9. 1920 — Crooksville's population peaks at 3,311, up from 835 in 1900, during the combined pottery and coal boom.
10. 1966 — The Crooksville-Roseville Pottery Festival begins to support the declining local pottery industry; it continues as a heritage celebration.
11. 1980 — West School in Crooksville is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

The bluebird potteries

Long before Roseville Pottery and Ransbottom built brand names that reached across the country, the hills around Crooksville were dotted with small, unheated kilns firing plain stoneware crocks and jugs for local farm use. Because the buildings had no heat, potters could only work when the weather allowed, starting up in spring 'when the bluebirds returned from their winter migration' and banking their fires when the birds headed south again each fall. Locals called them the 'bluebird potteries.' The deep clay beds and nearby coal for fuel that made this seasonal trade possible are the same resources that, once harnessed year-round by companies like Roseville Pottery (1890) and the Ransbottom brothers' works (1900), turned the Crooksville-Roseville area into one of Ohio's major ceramics centers, known locally as Clay City and Pottery Land.

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

Six wells (4 MGD combined) in a sand-and-gravel aquifer in the Hocking River Buried Valley aquifer system, Dover Township, Athens County (2025 CCR). Ohio EPA's May 2012 source water assessment rates the source highly susceptible to contamination (thin clay cover, aquifer less than 20 ft deep). The water here

• Crooksville61% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Roseville25% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• New Lexington6% of residentsNew Lexington Reservoir(s) (Old & New Reservoir)
• Maysville Regional Water4% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• Muskingum County Water - Se2% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• Southern Perry Co-mainesville2% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Portersville East Branch Water Co.1% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Northern Perry Co.water #20% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Superfund sites (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-09-09

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