Lebanon Township, Meigs County

How Lebanon Township, Meigs County began

Lebanon Township occupies the eastern edge of Meigs County along the Ohio River, organized in 1813 as one of the townships that made up Meigs County when it was formed from Gallia and Athens counties in 1819. It is the only township named Lebanon in Ohio. It has no incorporated village of its own; its best-known place is the unincorporated river hamlet of Portland, on the eastern shoreline, where the largest Civil War battle fought in Ohio, the Battle of Buffington Island, was fought on July 19, 1863. The township remains rural and sparsely settled, with a 2020 population of 897.

Incorporated 1813 (township organized).

Where the name comes from

No source located explains why the township was named Lebanon (a common Ohio place name drawn from the biblical Mount Lebanon, used by many early townships settled by New England and mid-Atlantic migrants). Lebanon Township, Meigs County is confirmed as the only township of that name in Ohio, but no dedicated name-origin account for this specific township was found.

Before the town

The 1908 Pioneer History of Meigs County records mounds in Lebanon Township: one on the Bicknell farm in the Great Bend, surrounded by a well-defined horseshoe-shaped fortification at a regular distance from its base, which was never opened but was plowed over until much of its shape was leveled, and a larger mound on the James Hall farm that was opened and yielded human bones, copper trinkets, mica, stone arrows, pipes and stone axes. The author thought such conical mounds on hilltops served as watch towers and says settlers dug many of them down; he names no culture. A conical burial mound on Buffington Island is attributed by a scenic-byway page to the Adena culture. The township lay within the area the United States treated as ceded by the Treaties of Fort McIntosh (1785) and Fort Harmar (1789), confirmed at Greenville (1795).

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Adena culture.

• Price Mound (Buffington Island) (mound) — Buffington Island, Ohio River, Lebanon Township, Adena culture (c. 800 BC - AD 100) (ohioriverscenicbyway.org)
• Bicknell farm mound with horseshoe enclosure (mound) — Bicknell farm, Great Bend of the Ohio, Lebanon Township, undated; described in 1908 (archive.org)
• Hall farm mound (mound) — James Hall farm, Lebanon Township, undated; opened by settlers (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1813 — Lebanon Township is organized, one of the twelve townships that made up Meigs County when the county was formed from Gallia and Athens counties in 1819.
2. 1813 — Lebanon Township was formed out of Letart Township and had the longest river frontage of any township in the county; Dr. Philip Lauck and Rev. Ezra Grover came from eastern Virginia that year and bought a tract on the Ohio bottom, where Rev. Grover opened his door to preaching.
3. 1820 — The township's heads of families, among them Price, Pickens, Lawrence, Flesher and Giles, were listed in the census; settlers cut cordwood for steamboats on the Ohio to pay for their farms.
4. 1832 — A flood on the Ohio drove several Lebanon Township families from a two-story log house into flatboats at nightfall, to sleep in an open field in falling snow.
5. 1833 — During the cholera epidemic a steamboat landed below Sandy and its crew buried a dead passenger beside the road after a householder refused a grave; the householder died of cholera the next summer, the only death from the disease ever known in the place.
6. 1840 — A trapper named Allen, from Washington County, exterminated the gang of wolves with dens near the heads of Ground Hog and Oldtown creeks that had been killing sheep.
7. 1863-07-18 — Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan's raiders, retreating from a 700-mile raid through Indiana and Ohio, reach the Ohio River at Buffington Island opposite Jackson County, West Virginia, but find the ford defended by local militia and delay their crossing overnight.
8. 1863-07-19 — Union cavalry under Henry M. Judah and Edward Hobson, backed by the gunboats USS Moose and Allegheny Belle, attack Morgan's force on the floodplain north of Portland; about 750 of Morgan's roughly 1,930 troopers are captured in the largest Civil War battle fought in Ohio, while Morgan escapes with about 700 men (he is captured a week later near Salineville).
9. 1891 — Portland had the Gale House hotel and the Portland Flouring Mill, and Langsville a roller mill, stores and a wagon maker.
10. 1970-11-10 — The Buffington Island battlefield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
11. 2020 — The census counted 897 residents.

Stories

The largest Civil War battle fought in Ohio

In the summer of 1863, Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan led about 2,460 cavalrymen on a raid meant to draw Union attention away from Tennessee, crossing the Ohio River into Indiana on July 8 and riding east across southern Ohio with Union forces in pursuit. By July 18 the exhausted column reached the river at Buffington Island, opposite Jackson County, West Virginia, hoping to cross back to friendly territory, but found the ford held by local Meigs County militia and chose to wait until morning rather than force a night crossing. That delay proved fatal: at dawn on July 19, 1863, Union cavalry under Generals Henry Judah and Edward Hobson converged on the raiders from two directions on the floodplain north of the river hamlet of Portland, while the gunboats USS Moose and Allegheny Belle shelled them from the water. The Confederate force broke apart; about 52 were killed, 100 wounded, and roughly 750 captured, while Union losses were comparatively light. Morgan himself escaped upriver with around 700 men, but was run down and forced to surrender a week later near Salineville in Columbiana County. It was the largest Civil War battle fought in Ohio (Morgan's surrender followed the fighting at Salineville), and the battlefield near Portland was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

The horseshoe around the Bicknell mound

The Pioneer History of Meigs County says tumuli were seen in many places, always conical and usually on hilltops. In Lebanon Township the Bicknell farm mound in the Great Bend stood in a level field, with a well-defined horseshoe fortification surrounding it at a regular distance from the base. It was never opened, only plowed over until much of the hill shape was leveled. A larger mound on James Hall's farm was dug into and gave up human bones, copper trinkets, mica, curious stone arrows, pipes and stone axes. The author guessed such mounds served as watch towers, and complained that settlers' curiosity had despoiled many of them; of the culture that built them he says nothing. Not far away, on the Great Bend, a hollow sycamore on Bicknell's bottom land was another landmark noted by the same history.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Meigs County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Racine Village94% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Syracuse Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Shale and injection wells (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 3 of 3 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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 2024-08-27

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