Israel Township, Preble County

How Israel Township, Preble County began

Israel Township lies in the southwestern corner of Preble County, bordering Butler County and Union County, Indiana. The 1881 county history records three well-defined mounds in the Four Mile Creek valley, attributed to the Mound Builders, one of which -- about 30 feet high on the Ridenour place -- was excavated and found to contain human remains, ornaments and a large jawbone the excavators marveled at. The earliest recorded settler was Joseph Kingery, who arrived from Virginia in 1803; correction: a claim that Cornelius Vanausdal settled here in 1805 appears to conflate him with settlers of the same surname in neighboring Lanier Township, where he is independently documented, rather than Israel. Israel became a station on the Underground Railroad, and in 1858 a dying South Carolina slaveholder named Sloan personally brought his fourteen enslaved people here to settle them as free residents near Morning Sun. The unincorporated village of Fairhaven, laid out in 1832, lies within the township. Israel Township had 1,131 residents at the 2020 census.

Settled 1803 (Joseph Kingery), incorporated 1809-03-07 (split from the undivided first range into Jefferson and Israel townships); present boundary set 1812-03-02, by Preble County commissioners.

Where the name comes from

The township received its name from Commodore Israel, of the United States Navy -- part of the same naval-hero naming pattern responsible for Somers, Preble and other county place names. This corrects an earlier claim that no origin could be found.

Before the town

Israel Township contains three well-defined mounds in the Four Mile Creek valley, attributed by the 1881 county history to the Mound Builders: two close together in section twenty-one (one on William Bell's place, one on Samuel Graham's farm, the latter originally 7-8 feet high before being nearly leveled by excavation), and a larger one on the Ridenour place in section twenty-nine, near Little Four Mile Creek, standing about 30 feet high. Excavation of the Ridenour mound turned up human bones (which the excavators believed, likely with exaggeration, indicated an occupant eight feet tall), a large jawbone, and rings and ornaments; the county history concluded the mounds' hilltop positions suggest they may also have served defensively. Earlier, Peter Ridenour, who entered land in the township in 1800, was driven off for six years by troublesome Indians before returning to settle permanently in 1806.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee.

• Bell mound (mound) — section 21, on William Bell's farm, Israel Township, attributed to the Mound Builders (archive.org)
• Graham mound (mound) — section 21, on Samuel Graham's farm, Israel Township, attributed to the Mound Builders; originally 7-8 feet high (archive.org)
• Ridenour mound (mound) — section 29, on the Ridenour place near Little Four Mile Creek, Israel Township, attributed to the Mound Builders; the largest of the three, about 30 feet high (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1800 — Peter Ridenour entered land in section thirty-three but was driven off by troublesome Indians and relocated temporarily to Venice, Butler County.
2. 1803 — Joseph Kingery, a Virginia native, settled in section thirty-two -- the earliest recorded settlement in Israel Township.
3. 1805 — Several families settled the township, including William Ramsey, John Ramsey and Abraham Miller from Virginia, and Joseph Caldwell, a Quaker widower, who settled on the future site of Fairhaven.
4. 1806 — Peter Ridenour returned and built a cabin on his section-33 claim, later building the township's first grist- and saw-mill and, in 1807, its first distillery.
5. 1808-04-04 — The first township election for the whole undivided first range was held at the house of Benjamin Kurcheville.
6. 1809-03-07 — The first range was divided along an east-west line, creating Jefferson Township to the north and Israel Township to the south.
7. 1812-03-02 — Israel Township's northern boundary was moved to six miles from the county line, giving the township its present dimensions.
8. 1832 — Jonathan Caldwell, son of early settler Joseph Caldwell, laid out the town of Fairhaven on his father's original 1805 claim.
9. 1833-12-28 — A post office was established at College Corner, a village straddling the Ohio-Indiana line partly within Israel Township.
10. 1841 (about) — A South Carolina emigrant brought two enslaved people, including a man later known as 'Old Gabe' (Gabriel Smith), to a homestead just across the Indiana line; Smith later settled at Claysburgh in Israel Township as a free man and became a celebrated fiddler and Underground Railroad conductor.
11. 1858 — A dying South Carolina slaveholder named Sloan personally brought his fourteen enslaved people to Israel Township by wagon, purchased land near Morning Sun, and settled them there as free residents before returning south, where he died soon after.
12. 2020 — The U.S. Census recorded 1,131 residents in Israel Township.

Stories

Three mounds in the Four Mile valley

The 1881 county history is unusually specific about Israel Township's ancient earthworks: three well-defined mounds, all overlooking the Four Mile Creek valley from positions that would have offered a clear view of it -- a vantage the historian thought suggested they may have doubled as places of defense as well as burial. Two sit close together in section twenty-one, on the farms of William Bell and Samuel Graham; the Graham mound, once seven or eight feet high, had been nearly leveled by the time of writing through repeated digging. The largest, on the Ridenour place in section twenty-nine near Little Four Mile Creek, still stood about thirty feet high. Excavation there turned up human bones, a jawbone with what the excavators described as a double row of teeth, and rings and ornaments buried with the dead -- physical evidence, however imperfectly understood by nineteenth-century diggers, of the Mound Builder cultures that occupied this valley long before the township's first recorded settler, Joseph Kingery, arrived from Virginia in 1803.

A dying man's journey to free his people

In 1858, a slaveholder named Sloan, who owned a plantation in the Newbury district of South Carolina, felt his life nearing its end and resolved to free his people before he died. He had likely heard of Israel Township's reputation -- by then well established as a Quaker-settled, antislavery community and a stop on the Underground Railroad -- and decided to make it the end point of one final journey. He set out with his fourteen enslaved people, crossing the mountains by wagon over several weeks, and arrived in Israel Township having brought them all the way from the Deep South to freedom in Ohio. Sloan bought a small parcel of land next to the village of Morning Sun, saw his people settled comfortably on it, and then returned home to South Carolina -- where, the county history records, he died almost as soon as he arrived. Of the fourteen people he freed, only one, Alfred Sloan, was still alive in the township when its history was written in 1881.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · genealogytrails.com

Every historic place in Preble County on the full map

Three district wells (~1,600 gpm each) in the Great Miami buried valley, Ross Twp, southwest Butler County The water here

• Southwest Regional Water District36% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Camden, Village Of35% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• College Corner Water29% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)

Bridges rated poor (4)

Public EV charging (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-16

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