Jackson Township, Darke County

How Jackson Township, Darke County began

Jackson Township, in northwestern Darke County along the Indiana border, was settled by 1830 when James Marquis arrived from the Allegheny Ridge of Virginia; an 1880 county history names him the pioneer, while Wikipedia credits ten unnamed families in 1829. Formed by petition in 1833 out of territory then part of Washington Township, it originally reached north through Townships 13, 14 and 15 of Range 1 before Gibson Township was split off in 1836 and Mississinawa Township in 1839, leaving Jackson at its present size. The Ohio side of Union City grew up in the township's northwest corner after the railroads reached it in the 1850s.

Settled 1830 (James Marquis, per the 1880 county history); Wikipedia gives 1829 and ten families, incorporated 1833, by organized by petition, split from Washington Township.

Where the name comes from

Name origin not confirmed beyond the common Ohio pattern; one of thirty-seven Jackson Townships statewide, presumably for Andrew Jackson.

Before the town

No Native American village or site specific to Jackson Township is documented in the sources checked. The 1880 county history records that gravel hills in the township were used by an unidentified earlier people as burial grounds, and that excavation of gravel for the State Line pike turned up a quantity of human bones thought to belong to them; no further identification, period or exact location is given. The township lies in northwestern Darke County along the Indiana border, part of the broader homeland ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, roughly three decades before Marquis settled there.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• Gravel-hill burials, State Line pike (burial) — Jackson Township, along the State Line pike excavation, unrecorded, described in 1880 as belonging to an earlier people (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1830 — James Marquis, a Virginian of Alleghany Ridge, arrives with his family as the township's first settler; his brother William K. Marquis joins him in 1831, and for two years theirs are the only two families in the township.
2. 1833 — Three settlement clusters (a road-crossing group including William Parent and John Armstrong; a southwest group including John Woods, the Marquis family and Frederick Roe; and a northeast group including the Strait, Vail and Wright families) petition for township formation; the court appoints John Armstrong Justice of the Peace and William Parent Constable pending election.
3. 1836-06 — Township 15 and the north tier of sections of Township 14 are detached from Jackson and organized as Gibson Township.
4. 1839-03 — The remainder of Township 14 is formed into Mississinawa Township, leaving Jackson Township at its present size.
5. 1852-12-25 — The Dayton and Union Railroad reaches Union City, the first railroad completed to the settlement; a second line (the future Bee Line) is finished the following year, and rapid growth follows.
6. 1861 — The First Christian Church of Union City, Ohio organizes with about 35 members under Elders Henry Gittinger, Harrison Vinson and C. M. Sharp; the United Brethren buy the congregation's building in 1876.
7. 1880 — The township supports ten school districts with eight brick and two frame schoolhouses (brick houses costing about $1,200 each), three mills (the Buckthorn mill on the Teegarden pike, a mill built by J. Hayes in 1875, and a steam sawmill at Dogtown dating to about 1855), and remains without a post office of its own, being served by Union City's offices.

Stories

A township pieced together, then pieced apart

When Jackson Township organized in 1833, it was a large territory, taking in what are now Townships 13, 14 and 15 of Range 1 -- land that had been part of Washington Township. It did not stay that size for long. In June 1836, its northern reach (Township 15 and the top tier of sections in Township 14) was cut away and organized as Gibson Township, later folded into Mercer County. Not quite three years after that, in March 1839, the rest of Township 14 was carved off again to form Mississinawa Township. What was left, by 1839, was the compact township that exists today -- a shape arrived at not by original design but by two rounds of subtraction in six years, typical of how Darke County's northern townships took their final form.

Wolves at dusk and turkeys in the corncrib

The 1880 county history's account of Jackson Township's earliest days describes a dense, unbroken forest with no roads beyond blazed paths between clearings. Wolves began a dismal howling about dark and kept it up for hours; wild turkeys came into the clearings looking for food, and settlers found they could simply leave the corncrib door open and catch two or three birds at once when they wandered in. The township's first road, cut by petition to the county commissioners, ran from the Greenville and Mississinewa pike in the southwest corner northeast to where the Greenville and Fort Recovery road crossed the Stillwater -- the single route that, for years, connected the township's scattered settlement clusters to the outside world.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Union City Village90% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (Randolph County, IN)
• Ansonia Village7% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• A and R Union City Park MHP3% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Northtowne Communities Llc0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Public schools (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-06
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-22

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