Jackson Township, Knox County

How Jackson Township, Knox County began

Jackson Township, in the southeastern corner of Knox County, was founded in 1815 and named for Andrew Jackson. Washington Houck, who had come from Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania in 1805, moved into the township a few miles east of Clay Township and, together with John and Samuel Wheeler, laid out the plan for the village of Bladensburg in 1833, which today sits astride the Jackson-Clay township line. The township has no incorporated village fully within its own borders. Its best-known landmark, the Mill Road Bowstring Bridge, an 1876 iron truss bridge that once carried Mill Road over Wakatomika Creek east of Bladensburg, was moved to Ariel-Foundation Park in Mount Vernon around 2014 and restored as a pedestrian bridge, leaving the township itself without the physical structure but keeping its National Register listing tied to its original Jackson Township location.

Settled 1805 (Washington Houck arrives in Knox County), platted 1833 (Bladensburg laid out), incorporated 1815 (township organized), by named for Andrew Jackson; Bladensburg platted by Washington Houck with John and Samuel Wheeler.

Where the name comes from

Jackson Township was named for Andrew Jackson; it is one of thirty-seven townships of that name in Ohio. The nearby village of Bladensburg, platted in 1833 on the Jackson-Clay township line, appears in N. N. Hill's 1881 history of Knox County; the origin of its name is not recorded.

Before the town

Hill's 1881 county history says the hills of Jackson Township were a favourite hunting ground of the Indians, who came from the region of Greentown and Upper Sandusky in large numbers and often camped for weeks; the old Indian trail from Greentown to Coshocton County crossed the township and served the first settlers as a guide. Farmers have ploughed up great quantities of arrow points, wedges and other stone implements, and the most remarkable ancient work is a wide trench encircling a small hill on the farm of Mrs. I. Kerr, almost obliterated by ploughing; one or two small mounds lie in the north. Knox County was Wyandot, Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware) country before settlement.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot, Shawnee.

• Hilltop trench on the Kerr farm (earthwork) — farm of Mrs. I. Kerr, Jackson Township, prehistoric; culture not given in the source (archive.org)
• Greentown to Coshocton trail (trail) — across Jackson Township, historic (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1805 — Washington Houck arrives in Knox County from Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, first settling in Clay Township before moving a few miles east into what becomes Jackson Township.
2. 1810-04 — Robert Eaton, who came from Wheeling and was a soldier of the Whiskey Rebellion, becomes the first white settler of Jackson Township, on section 7; David Meelick follows in August, buying 160 acres from the government at $2 an acre.
3. 1815 — Jackson Township is organized within Knox County and named for Andrew Jackson.
4. 1816 — Samuel Wheeler builds the first grist mill in the township about this year, and S. Brown the first saw mill about 1818; Samuel D. Ross builds the first carding mill in 1818.
5. 1819 — Andrew McCamment, a Pennsylvanian, settles on section 19.
6. 1828 — Thomas Nichols arrives from Virginia and buys his land from the government in the south of the township.
7. 1833 — Washington Houck, with John and Samuel Wheeler, lays out the village of Bladensburg on the boundary between Jackson and Clay townships.
8. 1876 — The Mill Road Bowstring Bridge, an iron bowstring arch-truss bridge, is built over Wakatomika Creek on Mill Road east of Bladensburg by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio.
9. 1880-09 — John Farquhar kills an eleven-foot black snake in Jackson Township after a desperate fight.
10. 1979 — The Mill Road Bowstring Bridge, still standing in Jackson Township, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (December 5, 1979).
11. 2014 — The Mill Road Bowstring Bridge is relocated from its original Jackson Township site to the newly developed Ariel-Foundation Park in Mount Vernon and restored over several years as a pedestrian walkway.
12. 2020 — The census counts 1,076 residents in Jackson Township.

Stories

The bridge that left Jackson Township

For over a century the Mill Road Bowstring Bridge carried traffic over Wakatomika Creek east of Bladensburg, in rural Jackson Township. Built in 1876 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, it was a bowstring arch-truss, a type first patented by bridge engineer Squire Whipple in 1841, and its two arched iron compression tubes bear the name of the Phoenix Iron Company of Philadelphia. By the early twentieth century, bowstring arch-truss bridges like this one had been largely replaced by sturdier iron box trusses, and this one is described as a rare survivor. The Jackson Township bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Around 2014, rather than leave it to decay on its rural road, the bridge was disassembled and moved to Mount Vernon's new Ariel-Foundation Park, where it was restored over several years and now carries foot traffic over one of the park's small lakes. The bridge's National Register listing still credits its origin on Mill Road in Jackson Township, even though the physical structure now stands miles away in the county seat.

Johnny Appleseed's trees in Jackson

Johnny Appleseed was a frequent visitor to Jackson Township. One of his largest nurseries stood in Coshocton County near here, and he found a market for his apple trees among the settlers of Jackson, so that many of the township's first orchards grew from trees raised in his Coshocton nursery. The 1881 county history notes that some of those trees were still standing in several orchards. Jackson's first settlers, Robert Eaton in 1810 and David Meelick the same August, found a wilderness of oak, sugar maple and chestnut with Indians as their only neighbours, and Meelick, a hunter, killed hundreds of deer and turkeys; he believed the southern hills would stay unbroken forest forever, and lived to see them thickly settled.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · knoxpages.com · historic-structures.com · en.wikipedia.org · historicbridges.org · knoxpages.com · archive.org

Every historic place in Knox County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Frazeysburg48% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Knox County Water and Wastewater26% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Gambier Village18% of residentsBuried Valley Aquifer (Kokosing River valley wells)
• Utica Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Country Hills MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Martinsburg Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-10-21

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