Jefferson Township, Tuscarawas County

How Jefferson Township, Tuscarawas County began

Jefferson Township, in the southwestern part of Tuscarawas County, was formed from Bucks and York townships on March 7, 1837. Its first settlers, John Hawk and Daniel Ridenour, arrived with their families in 1827 to land that older residents still called Indian territory, and a scatter of other families followed through the 1830s, most of them Pennsylvania Germans followed later by Germans newly arrived from the old country. The little crossroads settlement of Phillipsburg -- with its post office (called Stone Creek), store, blacksmith shop, water saw-mill, log grist-mill and, by 1840, a Lutheran and German Reformed union church -- was the township's early center; the village later took the Stone Creek name outright. Swiss cheese dairies, coal and black-band iron ore brought some added income in the later 19th century, and the Cleveland, Marietta and Pittsburgh Railroad reached the area through a 900-foot tunnel, but Jefferson has remained a farm township of small population ever since.

Settled 1827, incorporated 1837-03-07, by formed from Bucks and York townships on March 7, 1837; first settled by John Hawk and Daniel Ridenour in 1827.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted documents a specific reason for the name Jefferson beyond the common practice of naming Ohio townships for American presidents; Ohio has 24 townships named Jefferson.

Before the town

The clearest documented Native American connection to this specific township is indirect: an early county history records that when John Hawk arrived in 1827, "the Indians had then left the country," and a companion source (the 1875 township chapter) records that older area residents still called the ground "Indian territory," implying it was recently vacated or still recognized as Native land at the time of settlement. No named Lenape, Wyandot, or other village, trail, or treaty line is documented as sited within the township in the sources checked, and no mounds or earthworks specific to Jefferson Township were found.

Timeline

1. 1827 — John Hawk, a Pennsylvania native, becomes the township's first settler in spring, arriving with his wife Catherine and three children on the northwest quarter of Section 18; a few weeks later Daniel Ridenour, a Pennsylvania-born blacksmith of German parentage, settles nearby in Stone Creek Valley. Both are Lutherans and Democrats; older area residents still call the ground Indian territory.
2. 1829 — Francis Putt, a young man from York Township, settles at the site of the future cheese factory just south of Phillipsburg; he later sells to Samuel Shawyer and moves to Ragersville.
3. 1831-1832 — Samuel Dickey settles in the northeast corner of Section 24 in 1831; the same year Michael Wherley arrives from Harrison County and settles nearby, and in 1832 his father Henry Wherley, a York County, Pennsylvania native, joins him on the northeast quarter of Section 18.
4. 1832-1833 — William Sattler and the elderly couple Michael Harmon and wife enter the township and become owners of the farm on which Phillipsburg is later located; Sattler later sells to Philip Leonhart and moves to Iowa.
5. 1835 — John Hawk builds the township's first and only water saw-mill, on Stone Creek in the northwest quarter of Section 18; the first school is taught the same year in a round-log cabin on Hawk's farm by Samuel Shook of Salem Township, at 50 cents a month per scholar.
6. 1837 — Jefferson Township is formally organized on March 7, formed from parts of Bucks and York townships.
7. 1840 — A small frame Evangelical Lutheran church is built on a hill about half a mile north of Phillipsburg, on a lot donated by John Hawk for a church and graveyard; occasional services in German and English had earlier been held in Hawk's barn.
8. 1848 — Adam Sherrets lays out a failed village plat called Pleasant Valley, thirty-five lots, on Lot 30 near the junction of Dott's Fork and Stone Creek, south of Phillipsburg; it never becomes an actual village.
9. 1854 — Phillip Leonhart (a native of Germany) lays out Phillipsburg on Stone Creek with thirty-four original lots; Adam Regula becomes the first merchant.
10. 1877 — A frame union church, 40x60 feet, is built in Phillipsburg through the joint efforts of the Evangelical Lutheran and German Reformed congregations, at a cost of over $1,900, replacing the 1840 church they had shared.

Stories

Phillipsburg's first decade

When John Hawk and Daniel Ridenour brought their families into this part of Tuscarawas County in 1827, the Indians had already left the country, though wolves and deer were still abundant and older settlers in the area still spoke of the ground as Indian territory. Over the next decade a small cluster of families followed: Francis Putt in 1829, Samuel Dickey and Michael Wherley in 1831, Henry Wherley in 1832, and William Sattler and the aged Michael Harmon and his wife in 1832 or 1833, settling the very farm on which Phillipsburg would later stand. John Hawk built the township's only water saw-mill on his own land in 1835, the same year the first school opened in a log cabin on his farm, and Philip Dotts ran a log grist-mill on the west branch of Stone Creek. Occasional Lutheran and German Reformed services were held in Hawk's barn until a small union church went up on land he donated in 1840. The trades that let a farm township hold together before roads or rails reached it -- milling, smithing, preaching, and eventually the mail -- were all in place years before Phillip Leonhart platted the village itself in 1854.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Newcomerstown Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 1 of 1 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 2026-05-21

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