Hopedale

• Clark Gable1901-1960Cadiz-born, Hopedale-raised film star who won the 1934 Best Actor Oscar for It H...
• George Armstrong Custer1839-1876Harrison County-born Union cavalry general killed with five companies of the 7th...

How Hopedale began

Hopedale was laid out in Green Township on October 15, 1849, by Cyrus McNeely, a Cadiz Township native who settled there that year and later founded the Hopedale Normal College. It received a post office in 1850 and was incorporated on April 1, 1860. Hopedale Normal College, first the McNeely Normal School, was the first college of eastern Ohio to admit both sexes and enrolled over 7,000 students by 1893. McNeely's house between Hopedale and Unionvale was a station on the Underground Railroad. The village grew with soft coal mining, and after strip mining began around 1920 its population rose from 561 in 1920 to 984 in 2000; the 2020 census counted 920.

Settled 1849, platted October 15, 1849 (plat filed July 30, 1851), incorporated April 1, 1860, by Cyrus McNeely.

Where the name comes from

The origin of the name "Hopedale" is not documented.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty boundary specific to Hopedale is documented; the land was included in the general Ohio cessions of the 1780s-1790s (Treaty of Fort McIntosh, 1785, and Treaty of Greenville, 1795) before organized American settlement began, and it lay within range of Mingo, Delaware (Lenape), and Shawnee hunting and travel along the Ohio River tributaries.

Nations recorded here: Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1809 — Cyrus McNeely, who will lay out Hopedale forty years later, is born in Cadiz Township on May 27.
2. 1849 — Cyrus McNeely plats the village of Hopedale in Green Township on October 15 and settles there the same year; the plat is filed on July 30, 1851.
3. 1850 — A post office is established at Hopedale.
4. 19th century — The Delaney House, a farm homestead in Hopedale with a dry cistern and a tunnel to the main house, is documented as a stop on the Underground Railroad.
5. 1860 — Hopedale is formally incorporated as a village on April 1.
6. 1870 — The village's population is recorded as 359.
7. 1880 — The census counts 414 residents.
8. 1888 — Howe's gazetteer names Hopedale as the seat of Hopedale Normal College, with W. G. Garvey president; the school census is 106.
9. 1893 — S. B. McGavran's county history records more than 7,000 students enrolled at Hopedale Normal College, the first college in eastern Ohio open to both sexes and a trainer of common-school teachers.
10. 1903 — The Hopedale First National Bank is organized with $50,000 capital.
11. 1920 — The census counts 561; the four-story pegged-frame flour mill and a creamery operate, and steam shovels strip the Pittsburgh No. 8 coal seam in the township.
12. 1940 — The population reaches 901.
13. 1960 — The census counts 932 residents.
14. 2000 — The census counts 984, the highest on record.
15. 2020 — The census counts 920 residents.

Stories

The founder's house as an Underground Railroad station

Cyrus McNeely, who platted Hopedale in 1849 and later founded Hopedale College, kept his own house there as a station on the Underground Railroad, one link in a chain that ran through Harrison County's Quaker and Seceder Presbyterian settlements before the Civil War. Hanna's 1900 county history, quoting an earlier account, lists McNeely's house as the station "between Hopedale and Unionvale," alongside others kept by Quaker and Covenanter families at Mount Pleasant, Smithfield, Lloydstown, Unity, and Hammond's Cross Roads; conductors moved escaped slaves by night from station to station toward Richmond and Yellow Creek, then on to Salem in Columbiana County and from there toward Canada. Franklin College at New Athens, founded by the abolitionist minister John Walker, was remembered in the same account as "the fountain-head of the abolition sentiment of eastern Ohio" that shaped the generation who ran these stations. Those who sheltered freedom seekers took real legal risk under the federal fugitive slave laws of the period.

The normal school that taught the teachers

Cyrus McNeely, who laid out Hopedale in 1849, built a school into the village. It began as the McNeely Normal School, with three departments, the highest under Dr. York, a physician and graduate of Franklin College, and later was empowered to grant degrees as Hopedale Normal College. Where Franklin College at New Athens turned out professional men, Hopedale prepared teachers for the common schools and was the first college in eastern Ohio to open its doors to both men and women. Its heads included Edwin Regal, John Ogden, William Brinkerhoff, a pioneer stenographer of the region whose students used shorthand as a step to higher work, and Dr. Jamison. By 1893 S. B. McGavran counted more than 7,000 students on the college books, and Howe listed W. G. Garvey as president in 1888. The school closed when larger institutions absorbed such colleges.

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

Ohio River intake serving the city's water treatment plant on the riverfront in Toronto The water here

• Hopedale Village100% of residentsBlend: Ohio River (via Jefferson Co. WSD/Toronto) and Tappan Lake (via HCWSD East Cadiz)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page