Jefferson Township, Noble County

How Jefferson Township, Noble County began

Jefferson Township lies in the southern part of Noble County, drained by the Middle and East forks of Duck Creek. The Noble County commissioners erected it on May 1, 1851, from the northern part of Enoch Township, Monroe County, and the southern part of Aurelius Township, Washington County; the 1887 county history says its ragged western line was a compromise that left some settlers opposed to the new county in Washington County. David Ales, a New Englander whose house was the only tavern for miles on the Barnesville and Marietta State Road, was probably its first settler. Middleburg was laid out about 1844 by Church Tuttle, an abolitionist and Underground Railroad agent, and Dexter City grew up in 1870 and 1871 with the Cleveland and Marietta railroad and the Macksburg oil district. The 2020 census counted 187 residents.

Settled early 1800s; David Ales probably the first settler (date not recorded), platted Middleburg about 1844; Dexter City August 5, 1870, incorporated erected May 1, 1851 from parts of Enoch Township (Monroe County) and Aurelius Township (Washington County), by Noble County commissioners.

Where the name comes from

Jefferson Township carries a name common across Ohio, one of twenty-four townships in the state named Jefferson (after Thomas Jefferson); no source found gives a township-specific naming story distinct from that pattern.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, mound or treaty site inside Jefferson Township is recorded in the sources read. The 1887 county history says Native people had not entirely left the country when George Hupp, one of the first settlers, arrived; it tells of an old hunter called Mull Ryan who frightened the Hupp family by giving a loud war-whoop outside their cabin one night, and nearly got shot for it. Martin's 1904 history records an old Native trail along the West Fork of Duck Creek, which drains the western edge of this township, but does not place any part of it inside Jefferson.

Timeline

1. 1814 — The Morgareidge family came from Maine and settled on a farm adjoining the later site of Dexter City.
2. 1815 — John Hall, a New Englander who had been a teamster in the War of 1812, settled on the East Fork soon after the war and married a daughter of David Ales.
3. 1830-12-25 — Thomas Morris and his family, from England, arrived on the quarter-section he had entered; he later ran one of the early horse-powered grist mills.
4. 1833 — Christian Huffman, a native of Germany, settled on Middle Creek about this year, the first native German settler in Jefferson and Enoch townships.
5. 1834 — Wesley Neptune first visited the site of Middleburg, then covered by a sugar grove.
6. 1836 — Samuel S. Neptune came to his farm on the Middle Fork, when the few settlers lived mostly along the creek; he had to go five miles to find enough men for a cabin raising.
7. 1837 — A post office named Middle Creek is established at the site that later becomes Middleburg.
8. 1840 — The Methodists built a hewed-log meeting-house at the old cemetery south of Middleburg, as early as this year.
9. 1844 — Church Tuttle, a native of Vermont, laid out Middleburg on Middle Creek and became its first merchant and postmaster.
10. 1846 — Wesley Neptune started a tannery at Middleburg, run by him and his sons until 1885.
11. 1851-05-01 — The Noble County commissioners erected Jefferson Township with 23 sections.
12. 1853 — James Rowland Sr. built a steam grist mill, about this year, at the future site of Dexter City.
13. 1861 — A frame Methodist church was built in Middleburg and the log church abandoned.
14. 1870-08-05 — Dexter City was laid off into lots by surveyor R. W. St. John for Hiram Flanders, proprietor, and named for resident Dexter W. Sullivan.
15. 1871 — The railroad reached Dexter City in the summer; Dexter W. Sullivan built its first dwelling and David McKee opened its first store, and Dexter City Lodge No. 496, I.O.O.F., was instituted on August 22.
16. 1872 — The Dexter City post office was established with Oscar W. Hussey as postmaster, and the Methodist church there was organized.
17. 1873 — Middleburg built a large two-story school building to replace the first one, which had burned.
18. 1880 — The census counted 1,506 people in Jefferson Township.
19. 1882 — Dexter City was incorporated as a village.
20. 1905 — The Middle Creek/Middleburg post office, in continuous operation since 1837, closes.
21. 1914 — The Huffman Covered Bridge, a 50-foot wooden kingpost-truss span, is built over the Middle Fork of Duck Creek about 1.5 miles south of Middleburg.
22. 1975 — The Huffman Covered Bridge is added to the National Register of Historic Places (reference no. 75001513).
23. 1998 — A major flood on the Middle Fork of Duck Creek washes out the Huffman Covered Bridge's supports and carries the structure away; the same flood kills six people in the area.
24. 2020 — The census records 187 residents in Jefferson Township.

Stories

Ales' tavern and the cholera

David Ales, a New Englander, was probably the first settler in what became Jefferson Township. He lived on the East Fork, where a stream is still called Ales' Run, and his house on the old Barnesville and Marietta State Road was for years the only place of entertainment for travelers for many miles. Some time between 1830 and 1840 cholera reached the creek settlement. Ales, returning from a trip down the Ohio on a boat, was its first victim and died before reaching home. His wife died soon after, then his son-in-law Henry Lowe and all of Lowe's family, along with Henry Murduck, Charles Clark, William Gray's wife and others in the neighborhood.

Church Tuttle's village

Church Tuttle, a Vermont-born Yankee who grew up near Carlisle, bought the land at Middleburg from Philip Kitts and laid out the village about 1844. He was its first merchant and first postmaster and served for years as justice of the peace. The 1887 county history calls him an early abolitionist and one of the most active agents of the Underground Railroad in this section. He went into tobacco packing, which in the end did not pay; after him other dealers packed more than four hundred hogsheads a year at Middleburg. Tuttle later moved to Washington County and died at Marietta. Middleburg kept a reputation for its schools, with a two-story schoolhouse built about 1858 that the history calls the best in the county at the time.

The bridge the flood took

In 1914 a wooden kingpost-truss covered bridge went up over the Middle Fork of Duck Creek, about a mile and a half south of Middleburg, carrying local traffic on a rural road for more than eighty years. It was a modest structure, only fifty feet long, but it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 as one of the county's surviving covered bridges. In 1998 a severe flood swept through the Duck Creek valley, undercut the bridge's supports and carried the structure downstream. The same flood killed six people in the area. The bridge was never rebuilt, and its National Register listing now records a structure that no longer exists.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Noble County on the full map

No water-system data is linked to Jefferson Township, Noble County's ZIP codes yet.

Shale and injection wells (4)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-30
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2025-05-08

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