Homer Township, Morgan County

How Homer Township, Morgan County began

Homer Township occupies the southwestern corner of Morgan County, bordering Athens and Perry counties, and has never held an incorporated village. Until 1845 it belonged to Athens County: the land was part of Ames Township when Athens County was organized in 1805, Homer was cut from Ames before 1820, and Homer and Marion townships were transferred to Morgan County on March 11, 1845. The first colony came in 1810, when seventeen members of the Alderman and allied families floated a lumber raft from New York down the Allegheny and Ohio to Marietta and traded it for 640 acres on Sharp's Fork of Federal Creek; Capt. Thomas Lovell, a retired sea captain, settled in 1814. The villages were Mountsville (1837), Wrightsville (1838) and Bishopville (1859), with Joy and Elliott's Cross Roads as post offices. The 2020 census recorded 1,006 residents across the township's 38.3 square miles.

Settled 1810 (Elisha Alderman and Job Phillips scouted Sharp's Fork in 1808; Lovell family 1814), by the Alderman colony of seventeen people (Elisha Alderman Sr. and Jr., Job Phillips, John Stewart, James Ward Smith and their families), who reached Marietta by raft in 1810; township formed from Ames Township, Athens County, before 1820, and transferred to Morgan County March 11, 1845.

Where the name comes from

Not established in the sources checked; the Wikipedia township article notes only that the sole other Homer Township in Ohio is in Medina County, with no origin given for either.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound or trail specific to Homer Township was found; the 1886 county history's Homer chapter, which describes the first colonists reaching Sharp's Fork in 1808 and 1810, says nothing of Native people there. The land lies in the Ohio Company's neighborhood and within the area ceded by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Because Homer belonged to Athens County until 1845, its Native history is told in the Athens County record as well as in Morgan County's.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1805 — Athens County is organized and divided into four townships; Ames Township, the northernmost, takes in the land that becomes both Homer and Marion townships.
2. 1808 — Elisha Alderman and Job Phillips of Olean, New York, scout Sharp's Fork of Federal Creek, like the country, and return east.
3. 1810 — A colony of seventeen Aldermans and relatives floats a lumber raft down the Allegheny and Ohio to Marietta, trades the lumber for 640 acres, and settles on Sharp's Fork in what is now Homer Township.
4. 1814 — Capt. Thomas S. Lovell, a Cape Cod seaman who had crossed the Atlantic forty-one times, settles on the farm later owned by his son John W.; his is about the fourth family in the township.
5. 1820 — Homer, formed from Ames Township and with more than twice its present area, has 201 inhabitants, 101 of them males.
6. 1822 — Hosea Alderman builds what is probably the township's first brick house.
7. 1830 — The census counts 636 inhabitants in Homer, including the present Marion Township; in 1840 the figure is 912.
8. 1837 — Mountsville, the oldest village, is laid out in a plat of twenty-four lots; it later has two stores, two churches, a school, a post office and a G.A.R. post.
9. 1838 — H. Wright lays out Wrightsville, thirty-eight lots, with a Christian church (organized 1849, building 1852), two stores and a post office by 1886.
10. c. 1840 — The township's first church, a hewed-log building, is erected near Mountsville; Liberty Hill Methodist Church is organized in 1841.
11. 1845-03-11 — Homer and Marion townships are set off from Athens County and attached to Morgan County.
12. 1859 — James M. Bishop lays out Bishopville, which lies partly across the line in Athens County; Bishopville Lodge No. 470, F. & A. M., follows in 1872.
13. 1884 — Charles B. Parsons Post of the Grand Army of the Republic is organized at Mountsville on May 17 with about twenty charter members.
14. 1889 — The Pleasant Hill Methodist Church is built at the junction of State Route 555 and Steffy Hambel Lane, northwest of Chesterhill.
15. 2020 — The census counts 1,006 residents in the township's 38.3 square miles.

Stories

A raft of lumber to Marietta

In the spring of 1808 Elisha Alderman and Job Phillips came from Olean, New York to Sharp's Fork of Federal Creek, liked what they saw, and went home. Two years later, in 1810, they came back as a colony of seventeen: Elisha Alderman Sr. and his wife, his son Elisha Jr. and wife, Job Phillips and wife, John Stewart and wife, James Ward Smith and wife, and the unmarried Aldermans Rachel, Elijah, Hosea, Lucy, Elihu and Annar. They loaded their household goods and families on a raft of lumber and floated down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh and the Ohio to Marietta, a voyage of nearly five hundred miles on waters they did not know. At Marietta they sold the lumber and traded it for 640 acres in what became Homer Township. Elisha Sr. lived to an advanced age and died there; Elijah raised eighteen children, and Hosea, a pacemaker among the Methodists, was often called in to settle neighbors' quarrels and put up the first brick house in 1822. The 1886 county historian wrote that the raft voyage showed the 'courage and indomitable energy' of the little band.

A sea captain learns to farm

Capt. Thomas S. Lovell was born at Barnstable, Massachusetts, and followed the sea, making forty-one voyages across the Atlantic before he settled in Homer Township in 1814. He had never farmed and knew nothing of pioneer ways, but the county history says he adapted and 'got along comfortably and well.' His family was about the fourth in the township; he and his brother Russell spent their first winter in a log house that was still standing in 1886 on the farm of his son John W. Lovell. He served one term as justice of the peace, married Charlotte Norcross, and raised seven children, whose children married into the Spurr, Vore, Joy, Jenkins, Walker, Ellis and Wheeler families.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Glouster Public Water System79% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Sunday Creek Valley Water14% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Chesterhill Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Amesville Public Water System2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Trimble Village1% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Southern Perry Co-irish Ridge0% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.0% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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