Jackson Township, Noble County

How Jackson Township, Noble County began

Jackson Township, in the southwestern part of Noble County, was organized in 1819 by Morgan County as Olive Green Township, named for its principal stream, and a few years later renamed for Andrew Jackson because of the township's politics. It was a full congressional township, and the 1887 county history says it was the only one in the county whose boundaries were not changed when Noble County was formed in 1851. The hunter Aaron Hughs settled about 1811, and in 1817 a colony of more than thirty English immigrants nearly doubled the population, with seventeen of them living in one cabin for most of a year. The Keith family made cowbells here for the settlers, and the crossroads of Keith's, Crooked Tree (laid out as Jacksonville in 1854) and Ridge grew up around stores, mills and churches. A corner of Dexter City reaches into the township.

Settled 1811 or 1812 (Aaron Hughs), incorporated organized 1819 as Olive Green Township, Morgan County, by Morgan County; first justices Jonathan Hughs (commissioned August 18, 1819) and Moses Grandstaff (October 21, 1819).

Where the name comes from

The township was organized in 1819 as Olive Green Township, named after its principal stream, Olive Green Creek. A few years later, as the 1887 county history puts it, on account of the political complexion of the township its name was changed to Jackson; Martin's 1904 history says the change came when General Jackson became the idol of the Democracy.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, mound or camp inside Jackson Township is recorded in the sources read. Reasoner's Run is named for a white hunter from Guernsey County who camped and trapped on it before any permanent settlement. Two settlers carried the marks of the Indian wars of the 1790s from elsewhere: Wilbur Sprague, who came about 1814, had been shot through the body by a war party while milking near the blockhouse at the site of Beverly, in Washington County, and the father of Reuben Simons was wounded by a Native attacker near Marietta. Martin's 1904 history says the last hostile act on the Ohio Company lands came in 1795, several years before the first settlement inside the county's present boundaries.

Timeline

1. 1811 — Aaron Hughs, a hunter from Hardin County, Virginia, entered land in the township in 1811 or 1812, paying with $80 of the $150 he got for an earlier improvement in Morgan County.
2. 1814 — Wilbur Sprague, son of a Washington County pioneer, settled on a farm adjoining Aaron Hughs's, about this year.
3. 1817 — An English colony of more than thirty people, the Taylor, Cadwell and Gore families, arrived and nearly doubled the township's population; seventeen of them shared one cabin for nearly a year.
4. 1817 — Peter and Benjamin Keith, Pennsylvania blacksmiths and bell-makers, took up farms at what became Keith's.
5. 1819 — The township was organized by Morgan County under the name Olive Green Township, embracing a full congressional township; Jonathan Hughs was commissioned its first justice of the peace on August 18.
6. 1828 — Until this year the township voted solidly Democratic; naturalized English settlers then began voting against the Jacksonians.
7. 1829 — A horse mill was built at Peter Taylor's, about this year, by the millwrights Ebenezer Cunningham and John Morgareidge.
8. 1834 — A log Methodist meeting-house was built near Keith's, as early as this year.
9. 1835 — James Farley and Peter Keith opened the township's first store near Keith's, and the Keith's post office was established about the same year.
10. 1848 — A log Methodist meeting-house was built at Crooked Tree, about this year.
11. 1854-05-25 — The village of Jacksonville was surveyed for James H. Steadman; its post office was named Crooked Tree for a tree of peculiar shape nearby.
12. 1855 — A steam sawmill was built at Keith's, followed in 1861 by a grist mill built by P. W. Keith.
13. 1856-06-17 — Nathan H. Essex had the projected village of Dungannon surveyed on section 30; it never appeared on maps but survived as the Ridge post office.
14. 1870-10-14 — Keith Lodge No. 466, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was instituted with eleven charter members.
15. 1872 — The present frame Methodist church at Crooked Tree, 32 by 50 feet, was built for about $1,400.
16. 1880 — The census counted 1,267 people in Jackson Township.

Stories

Seventeen to a cabin

In 1817 several English families left Liverpool on a sailing ship and spent sixty days at sea before landing at Philadelphia. They crossed to Pittsburgh in two six-horse wagons, bought a flatboat and started down the Ohio for Cincinnati. At Marietta they met one of the Keiths, who told them of cheap, fertile, unentered land in this township, so they sold the boat at half its cost and came here instead. The party, more than thirty people, nearly doubled the township's population. For almost a year Thomas Taylor, his wife and ten children, his bachelor brother John, and Peter Taylor with his wife and two children all lived in one cabin, which the 1887 history says was crowded only at night.

Aaron Hughs and the last elk

Aaron Hughs came to Ohio from Hardin County, Virginia, in 1804 and settled on Wills Creek. He sold that place for $500, and the money was stolen from him at a tavern. He improved another farm on Olive Green Creek, sold it for $150, and with $80 of it entered land in this township in 1811 or 1812. Hughs lived mostly by hunting and trapping, going into the forest with a rifle, a pocket compass and his dog. He sold venison hams at twenty-five cents each and collected $2 or more for each wolf scalp. He killed four large buck elk after coming here and his son James killed another, which the 1887 history says were the last elk seen in the western part of the county.

Bells from Keith's

Peter and Benjamin Keith, blacksmiths from Pennsylvania, came about 1817 and made cowbells, which they sold to settlers for miles around. Gabriel Hughs, son of the first settler, spent fifteen years peddling the Keiths' bells through northern Ohio and into Indiana, first on horseback and then by wagon, and the 1887 history says they sold nearly everywhere. Peter Keith later led the building of an early church at Keith's. His son Philip built a grist mill there in 1861, and in 1887 the hamlet of Keith's still had a store, a post office, mills and an Odd Fellows lodge.

Here comes the British army

Until 1828 the township voted solidly Democratic, which is why Olive Green had been renamed for Andrew Jackson. The English families who arrived in 1817 became naturalized and voted against the Jacksonians. The 1887 county history records that one local politician, seeing several of the English voters walking to the polls together on election day, called out with an oath, "Here comes the British army!" Gabriel Hughs remembered Nathan Shockley, a squatter on Reasoner's Run, as the first Whig voter in the township and for many years the only one.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Beverly Village72% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Lowell Village27% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Putnam Community Water Association1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tri-county Rural W and S District0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-04-22

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