Keene Township, Coshocton County

How Keene Township, Coshocton County began

Keene Township, in north-central Coshocton County, was organized in 1824, having been part of Mill Creek Township. Among its earliest settlers were Nicholas Miller, a Virginian who took up land in 1806 with $36 and two axes, Garrett Moore (1806), Benjamin Burrell (about 1807), James Oglesby (1810) and the hunter George Bible (1816). In the northwest, New Englanders from Cheshire County, New Hampshire, led by Jesse Beals, laid out the village of Keene in 1820 and named it for their home; its academy (about 1845) drew students from afar. Keene hoped to be the county seat until Holmes County was cut off in 1824. Newport, a canal town of 1830, vanished into Canal Lewisville. The township had 1,623 residents in 2020.

Settled 1806, platted 1820 (Keene); 1830 (Newport), incorporated 1824 (township organized from Mill Creek Township), by Nicholas Miller (1806); Jesse Beals (Keene village).

Where the name comes from

The village of Keene was named by Jesse Beals, who emigrated from near Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, as did many of its first settlers; the township took the village's name.

Before the town

The 1881 county history says archaeological remains are not numerous in Keene Township, because in Coshocton County they are found mainly in the broad valleys of the larger streams and only the Walhonding touches the township's southwest corner. On the farm of K. D. Miller, on a hill point overlooking that valley, stood a stone mound about 12 feet across and 3 feet high, its stones 'nicely fitted together like mason work' (much of it hauled away, never explored); about a mile southeast, near Saul Miller's, was a flat circular rise covering about an acre, where a plow struck a layer of stone like a pavement leading to a spring; and across the road from Miller's house a sandy hilltop held several pits about ten feet deep of unknown purpose. The source does not date or attribute any of them. The 1881 history also tells that when Nicholas Miller attended a militia muster at Coshocton, an Indian tried to steal his horse and Miller gave him a drubbing; the man threatened revenge but never came. At the county level, the Lenape (Delaware) had their principal town, Goschachgunk (anglicized to Coshocton), at the forks of the Muskingum, and American settlement followed the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

• Stone mound on the K. D. Miller farm (mound) — Hill point overlooking the Walhonding valley, southwest corner of Keene Township, undated; never explored (archive.org)
• Flat circular rise with stone pavement (other) — Ridge just west of Saul Miller's residence, about a mile southeast of the stone mound, undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1800-03-29 — President John Adams signs the patent for the southwestern quarter to Robert Underwood, a Treasury official who never lived in the county, and on May 16 the southeastern quarter to James Hamilton of Carlisle, Pennsylvania; both sell the land in lots of about 100 acres.
2. 1801 — About this year Ebenezer Buckingham of Zanesville has a dam built for a sawmill on Mill Creek on the Underwood section; high water sweeps it away the same fall and the project is dropped, one account adding that a workman died of a rattlesnake bite.
3. 1806 — Nicholas Miller, 'with $36 and two axes,' takes up residence on the Underwood section, paying for part of his 72 acres by helping survey it; Garrett Moore and others settle the same year.
4. 1807 — Benjamin Burrell of Frederick County, Maryland settles on the 500 acres that surveyor J. Matthews had received for locating the section; he dies soon after the War of 1812.
5. 1810 — James Oglesby of Virginia, later the oldest resident of the township, settles by leasing a place from Isaac Evans; he serves twice in the War of 1812.
6. 1816 — Nicholas Miller builds the first permanent mill in the township; George Bible of Virginia settles on the Underwood section, where he kills 100 to 150 deer a year.
7. 1818 — Timothy Emerson of Ashley, Massachusetts settles in the northwest, which fills with New Englanders from Cheshire County, New Hampshire; the Farwells follow in 1825. He starts the township's first Sunday school.
8. 1820 — Jesse Beals lays out the village of Keene, sixteen lots a little northwest of the township's center.
9. 1821 — Dr. Benjamin Hills of Cheshire County, New Hampshire, the township's first physician, settles at Keene about 1820 or 1821; the first school in Keene village, a leaky log cabin, is taught the winter of 1821 by Adam Johnson.
10. 1824 — Keene Township was organized as a civil township of Coshocton County.
11. 1828 — The earliest township records preserved show Timothy Emerson, John Eader and George Ford as trustees and Henry Barnes as clerk.
12. 1830 — Solomon Vail lays out Newport on the new Ohio Canal near the township's southern line; two warehouses and a tavern open, but the rival Canal Lewisville half a mile east soon swallows it.
13. 1835-02-25 — The First Presbyterian Church of Keene is incorporated; its first building, a large frame structure, was put up in 1834 by Charles Farwell, and the present church was dedicated in May 1879.
14. 1845 — A stock company of ten or twelve citizens builds the Keene academy about this year; for several years it enrolls over 100 students from a distance before it is merged into the public schools.
15. 1878 — The German Baptist (Dunkard) church is built on lot 25 and dedicated on July 7, the first church building of that denomination in the county.
16. 1881 — The village of Keene has about 275 residents, two stores, two hotels, three blacksmith shops and two churches, Presbyterian and Methodist Episcopal.
17. 2020 — The census counts 1,623 people in Keene Township.

Stories

Who came first to Keene? Miller, Bible and Oglesby

Among the earliest settlers, according to the 1881 county history, was Nicholas Miller, who took up residence on the Underwood section in 1806; Garrett Moore also came that year, and Benjamin Burrell about 1807. George Bible, a Virginian remembered as a famous hunter who brought down 100 to 150 deer a year and devoted most of his time to the chase, did not arrive until 1816. James Oglesby, also from Virginia, came in 1810, leased a place from Isaac Evans, and by 1881 was the oldest resident of the township. Some later summaries make Bible the first settler and say Oglesby paddled up the Muskingum and Walhonding by canoe; the 1881 history, written when Oglesby was alive, says he came through to Coshocton from Virginia by team.

Thirty-six dollars and two axes

Nicholas Miller came to Coshocton County from Hampshire County, Virginia, in 1804 with his father Henry, who had served seven years in the Revolution as a sharpshooter under General Morgan. After two years at his uncle's in Franklin Township he moved to Keene in 1806; his whole fortune, the 1881 county history says, was $36 and two axes. He bought 72 acres on the Underwood section and paid for part of it by helping survey the section. One winter he slept under a jutting rock rather than walk home each night; when a bear approached he raised such a yell it ran off, and on another occasion he shot a wounded bear dead after it had killed his dog. At a militia muster in Coshocton he caught an Indian trying to steal his horse and gave him a beating. He married Mary Darling, who had driven a four-horse team from Virginia at eighteen, and he went on to add a great deal of land and to build the township's first lasting mill in 1816.

Keene's bid to be the county seat

Keene was settled largely by New Englanders, who named it for their native Keene, New Hampshire, and who brought a taste for schools and sheep with them. When Coshocton County still included much of what is now Holmes County, the village of Coshocton was small and far from the center of the county, and Keene argued strongly that it had the more central location. The formation of Holmes County in 1824 put an end to that hope. According to the 1881 history, prominent men in Coshocton, fearing for their county seat, helped to have the new county cut off. The town built an academy about 1845, and in 1881 it was still a village of about 275.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Coshocton County on the full map

Wells in a buried sand-and-gravel valley aquifer just off State Route 83 N, near where Mill Creek meets the Walhonding River north of downtown Coshocton The water here

• Coshocton99% of residentsSand & gravel aquifer near Walhonding River/Mill Creek valley (wells)
• Bomac Mobile Home Park1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Private schools (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Shale and injection wells (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-22

Cite this page