Jackson Township, Montgomery County

How Jackson Township, Montgomery County began

Jackson Township, in the western tier of Montgomery County along Big Twin, Little Twin and Tom's Run creeks, first appeared as a subdivision of the county on June 6, 1814, with its present thirty-six-square-mile boundary set in 1820. The land was settled shortly after neighboring German and Jefferson townships, once it opened to regular purchase in 1801, and the earliest recorded land buyers took up their quarter-sections between 1805 and 1814. It remained an agricultural township of farms, mills and country churches through the nineteenth century, and it holds the village of Farmersville within its borders and part of New Lebanon on its northeastern edge; the larger, separately incorporated communities of Germantown and West Alexandria lie next to or near it but are not part of the township. Today it is still mostly farmland with a population of just over six thousand.

Settled 1801-1814 (land purchases), by First documented land purchasers under the state auditor's records: Christopher Mason (NE quarter, May 29, 1805), Abraham Hoover (SE quarter, March 25, 1805; SW quarter, October 3, 1814), John Miller (NW quarter, October 30, 1810).

Where the name comes from

No known source explains why the township carries the Jackson name; Ohio has thirty-seven Jackson Townships, a name common across the state's township-naming era. Nothing found ties this one specifically to Andrew Jackson or any other namesake.

Before the town

No mound, village, trail or treaty site specific to present-day Jackson Township was found in the sources checked. The township's land lay within the Great Miami valley country contested and hunted by the Miami, in alliance with the Shawnee, Wyandot, Potawatomi and Ottawa, before the 1795 Treaty of Greenville opened the region to settlement (per the county-level Dayton-area sources reviewed for this project); no source found names a specific camp, trail or burial site within the township's own boundaries.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot, Potawatomi, Ottawa.

Timeline

1. 1801 — Land in the future Jackson Township area opened to regular settlement, following settlement already underway in neighboring German and Jefferson townships.
2. 1805-05-29 — Christopher Mason purchased the northeast quarter-section, among the earliest recorded land buys in the township.
3. 1805-03-25 — Abraham Hoover purchased the southeast quarter-section.
4. 1810-10-30 — John Miller purchased the northwest quarter-section.
5. 1814-06-06 — Jackson Township was first organized as a subdivision of Montgomery County.
6. 1814-10-03 — Abraham Hoover purchased the southwest quarter-section, completing the earliest documented round of land purchases in the township.
7. 1816-12-02 — Philip and Elizabeth Slifer deeded land on what is now Clayton Road, near Farmersville, to the local German Reformed and Evangelical Lutheran community, the origin of Slifers Presbyterian Church.
8. 1819 — During an outbreak of the 'cold plague,' a malaria-like illness, the Rev. Thomas Winters (German Reformed) and Rev. John C. Dill (Evangelical Lutheran) ministered to the sick in the Slifer congregation and the community began building its first log church, completed in 1825.
9. 1820 — Jackson Township's boundaries were set essentially as they remain today.
10. 1896 — The present Slifers Presbyterian Church building on Clayton Road was erected by architect William Blum of Dayton and local builder Charles Routzahn, replacing an 1858 brick church.
11. 1953 — After 134 years as a joint German Reformed/Evangelical Lutheran congregation, Slifers Church voted to become Presbyterian; the same year, Farmersville's Winter Zellar 'Zero' Swartsel, builder of the Bottle Farm roadside attraction, died and willed his land to the township for a children's recreation park.

Stories

The bridge over Tom's Run

A plate-girder railroad bridge built in the 1890s for the Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw Railroad still stands over Tom's Run in the western part of the township, near Farmersville, on the abandoned route later run by Penn Central. The Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw was one of the many nineteenth-century short lines that never reached all the places in its title: its main line ran only from Addison, Michigan, south to Carlisle near Franklin in Warren County, and never got to Cincinnati or to Mackinaw City. The bridge's deeper center span, built to carry heavier freight loads than its shorter end spans, is a design feature the Library of Congress's Historic American Engineering Record singled out as a good example of nineteenth-century railroad bridge practice when it documented the structure in 1994. Original stone abutments from the bridge's construction still stand on the hillside south of the crossing.

Slifers Church and the cold plague

In December 1816, Philip and Elizabeth Slifer deeded land at what is now the corner of Clayton and Chicken Bristle roads, south of Farmersville, to the German-speaking families who had settled the area, for use as a church and burying ground. Before any building went up, an outbreak of the 'cold plague' -- a malaria-like sickness -- struck the settlement in 1819, and the Reverend Thomas Winters of the German Reformed Church and the Reverend John C. Dill of the Evangelical Lutheran Church spent that year ministering to the sick and the grieving, work that is remembered as having renewed the congregation's faith. That same year the community, pooling what little money it had, began raising its first log church, finished in 1825 and enlarged later that year. A brick church replaced it in 1858 for $500, and the building standing today, designed by Dayton architect William Blum and built by local builder Charles Routzahn, dates to 1896. The congregation, jointly German Reformed and Evangelical Lutheran for 134 years, became Slifers Presbyterian Church in 1953.

Photographs

Local history sources: jtwpmc.com · en.wikipedia.org · hmdb.org · loc.gov · commons.wikimedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• New Lebanon Village46% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Farmersville Village46% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Germantown City7% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Voyager Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Southwest Regional Water District0% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Jefferson Regional Water Authority0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 3 of 3 passed.

Ballot issues

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 2026-06-09

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