Jefferson Township, Madison County

How Jefferson Township, Madison County began

Jefferson Township, in the eastern part of Madison County bordering Franklin County, was first settled by Michael Johnson in 1796 or 1797. Its early village, New Hampton, was platted in 1822 on the Old State Road; when the National Road came through a mile to the north in the early 1830s, the township's population and trade shifted to a new plat, Jefferson (now West Jefferson), which Rev. Isaac Jones surveyed in 1830-31 and which became the township's only incorporated village. The township also contains the unincorporated communities of Gillivan and Kiousville and. It remains mostly farmland, with West Jefferson as its population center.

Settled 1796 or 1797 (Michael Johnson, first settler), by Michael Johnson.

Where the name comes from

Jefferson Township is one of twenty-four Jefferson Townships in Ohio; the county history and Wikipedia do not say whom it was named for.

Before the town

The 1883 county history records Native presence in Jefferson Township in some detail. An Indian trail ran from the Muskingum and Scioto to Mad River just north of the later National Road, and the 'old camping ground on Spring Fork, near its junction with Little Darby' was the site of an event in 1810, when the pioneer Tobias Bright shot one of two Indians dead; he was tried and acquitted, and settlers built a stockade in 1811 (see the story below). The history lists mounds in the township: four small burial mounds on Little Darby northwest of Jefferson, three of them on James Dun's land and one on Truman Kimball's, in which William Deardorff and Thomas Bates found a skeleton, a copper needle and polished slate ornaments, and a large mound about 200 feet around and ten feet high on Isaac Hambleton's farm, a mile southeast of Jefferson.

• Indian camping ground on Spring Fork (camp) — Spring Fork near its junction with Little Darby Creek, Jefferson Township, early 1800s; killing recorded 1810 (archive.org)
• Hambleton mound (mound) — farm of Isaac Hambleton, east side of Little Darby, about a mile southeast of Jefferson, prehistoric; undated (archive.org)
• Four small mounds on Little Darby (Kimball and Dun lands) (mound) — northwest of Jefferson on Little Darby Creek, prehistoric; undated (archive.org)
• Indian trail from Muskingum and Scioto to Mad River (trail) — just north of the later National Road, before 1800s settlement (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1796-1797 — Michael Johnson becomes the first recorded settler of what became Jefferson Township.
2. 1800 — Reason Francis, a Virginian and hunter, settles between the Big and Little Darby creeks.
3. 1802 — Philip Sidener of Bourbon County, Kentucky, leaves a Scioto distillery plagued by Indians and builds a cabin on the east bank of Little Darby about sixty rods south of the later National Road.
4. 1810 — Tobias Bright shoots an Indian at the old camping ground on Spring Fork; he is tried and acquitted, and Sidener leaves for Kentucky.
5. 1810 — Moses Nickens, a veteran of Washington's army and probably the first Black settler of the township, arrives.
6. 1810-04-30 — Jefferson Township is created by the county commissioners; the order is later declared void and it is re-erected on June 11, 1811.
7. 1811 — Settlers build a stockade about fifteen feet high around an acre including Sidener's cabin during the Indian scare.
8. 1817 — James Burnham arrives in a large train of emigrants, over fifty of them Burnhams, locates in the northwest of the township, and later serves over thirty years as justice of the peace and many years as county commissioner.
9. 1818 — Samuel Sexton and Samuel Jones, from New Jersey, come to what becomes New Hampton.
10. 1822 — Samuel Jones and Samuel Sexton plat the village of New Hampton on the Old State Road within the township.
11. 1830 — Rev. Isaac Jones plats the town of Jefferson on the new National Road; New Hampton's population and buildings gradually relocate there over the following years.
12. 1834 — The village of Jefferson (West Jefferson) is formally established within the township on April 24.
13. 2020 — The township's census population is recorded as 7,212 across 42.1 square miles.

Stories

New Hampton, absorbed

Jefferson Township's first real town was not West Jefferson but New Hampton, platted in 1822 on the Old State Road that ran from Franklinton to Springfield: 93 lots, eight streets, a Baptist church, a post office, and a handful of stores. It was a working village for most of a decade. Then the National Road was built a short distance to the north, and the township's trade and travelers moved with it. Rev. Isaac Jones platted a new town, Jefferson, directly on the new road in 1830, and New Hampton was dismantled and relocated to it piece by piece through the 1830s, its Baptist congregation the last institution to make the move, around 1840. Today the whole of New Hampton survives as a cemetery and a short stretch of road; the township's population center simply moved a mile north to catch the highway.

The stockade on Little Darby

In 1810 the pioneer Tobias Bright called one evening with a neighbor at the camp of two Indians on Spring Fork, where it joins Little Darby, spent the early evening there, and as they started home turned and shot one of the two dead. The 1883 county history calls it a cold-blooded act that caused great indignation among the Indians and spread general consternation over the settlement, and says a general uprising was expected. Bright was tried and acquitted. Philip Sidener, whose cabin stood on the east bank of Little Darby, moved to Kentucky over the affair; the settlers who stayed built, in 1811, a stockade about fifteen feet high enclosing roughly an acre with his cabin in it, and the historian wrote that some of the posts could still be seen in 1883. When the scare passed, Sidener came back and built a new cabin near the later John Heath house. The same chapter notes with some regret that such killings were 'common in pioneer days', because the Indians were 'as a rule, inveterately detested' by settlers who had lost friends in the wars.

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

Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here

• West Jefferson Village68% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Columbus Public Water System25% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Aqua Ohio - Lake Darby4% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Jefferson Lodge Mobile Home1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Picket Fences MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Greentree Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Public EV charging (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (10)

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-01

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