Lee Township, Athens County

How Lee Township, Athens County began

Lee Township was set off from Alexander Township and separately organized in November 1819 in the southwestern part of Athens County, bordering Meigs and Vinton counties. Its earliest settlers included Capt. John Martin, a Revolutionary War soldier, and John Holdren, a noted hunter who was, by 1869, the oldest man in the county at ninety-one. Its center is the village of Albany, laid out in 1832-33 by William Graham and incorporated in 1844 (Wikipedia gives 1842); before the Civil War, Albany's location on the Hocking River made it a stop on the Underground Railroad, and its Black population grew from four residents in 1850 to 174 by 1860, supporting the Albany Manual Labor University and, after that school stopped admitting Black students in 1862 (the 1883 county history says 1866), the Albany Enterprise Academy — the first school in the county founded exclusively by and for African Americans.

Settled 1798 (John Holdren, an early settler, arrives in the county and takes up land nearby before settling permanently in Lee Township in 1820), incorporated 1819-11, by set off from Alexander Township and organized in November 1819.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted (Walker 1869, the 1883 Hocking Valley history, the 1916 county history, Wikipedia) explains why the township was called Lee; the 1869 and 1883 histories say only that it was set off from Alexander Township in November 1819.

Before the town

No source consulted documents a Native American village, mound, trail or treaty boundary specific to Lee Township itself. One early settler's recollection touches the topic at second hand: John Holdren, who worked for years at the Scioto salt works near present-day Jackson, Ohio, recalled that Native people there had made salt before the whites arrived by drilling shallow holes in the rock to collect and sun-evaporate brine, before white operators bored deeper wells and built furnaces — a detail about a site outside Athens County, not within Lee Township. It lies in the same southwestern-Athens-County hill country as neighboring Alexander and Waterloo townships, in the broader Hocking Valley region where Adena/Hopewell mound-building activity and later Shawnee presence are documented at a county level; nothing site-specific to Lee Township itself was found.

Timeline

1. 1798 — John Holdren, born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, comes to Athens County and makes a temporary settlement on Margaret's Creek in the south part of Alexander Township.
2. 1819-11 — Lee Township is organized, set off from Alexander Township.
3. 1820 — John Holdren, after years working at the Scioto salt works near present Jackson, Ohio, settles permanently in Lee Township.
4. 1820 — The first township election is held in April: Jacob Lentner, James McGonnegal and Ephraim Martin are elected trustees and Isaac Baker justice of the peace; the township counts 342 residents.
5. 1829 — The post office called Lee is first established on the old Athens and Chillicothe mail road about two and a half miles northwest of the site of Albany, and moves into the village in 1836.
6. 1832 (or 1833) — William Graham lays out the village of Albany on sections two and three; the first house is built by Lucius R. Beckley.
7. 1844 — Albany is incorporated (Wikipedia's article on Albany gives an incorporation date of 1842 instead; both are recorded here rather than resolved). John V. Brown is elected the town's first mayor and J. M. Gorsline its first recorder.
8. 1848 — William S. Lewis founds the Lewis Academy in Albany, admitting students regardless of race or gender, reflecting the Oberlin College ideals of its founder; it is reorganized in 1850 as the Albany Manual Labor Academy, later University.
9. 1857 — The Albany Manual Labor University reaches its peak enrollment of 284 students.
10. 1857 — The three-story frame building of the Albany Manual Labor University (later Atwood Institute), 40 by 100 feet, is completed; from 1857 to 1862 the school averages about eighty students.
11. 1860 — Albany's Black population, an outgrowth of its role as an Underground Railroad stop reachable by the Hocking River from the Ohio, reaches 174, up from four in the township a decade earlier.
12. 1860 (published 1869) — The Wells Library opens in Albany, endowed by the late Henry Wells with a $1,000 perpetual fund and $250 for an immediate book purchase; by 1869 it holds about 400 volumes and lends two books at a time for one dollar a year.
13. 1860 — Lee Township's population reaches 1,301, its largest ever recorded up to 1883; it falls to 1,146 in 1870 and 1,086 in 1880.
14. 1862 — Black community leaders, among them the Rev. Thomas Jefferson Ferguson and Cornelius Berry, found the Albany Enterprise Academy after the Manual Labor school begins to turn away Black students; the academy opens in 1863 or 1864 (sources differ) and has 49 students at its start.
15. 1864 — The Enterprise Institute is first established at Albany according to the 1883 history, with a $3,000 real estate gift from Thomas Carleton of Syracuse, Illinois, and $2,000 from the Freedmen's Bureau.
16. 1866 — The Manual Labor school falls into the hands of the Free Will Baptist church, which denies admission to Black students; with a $3,500 gift from Nehemiah Atwood it is renamed Atwood Institute. (This is the 1883 county history's date; Wikipedia gives 1862.)
17. 1870 — A second building, a girls' dormitory, is added to the Enterprise Academy as enrollment passes 100.
18. 1885 — A fire destroys much of the Enterprise Academy's building; the school closes in 1886 after the death of Ferguson and the fall in Albany's Black population.
19. 1886 — The Albany Enterprise Academy, which had over one hundred students in its early years, closes as public integrated schools become available and many Black residents leave for larger cities.
20. 1911-05-02 — A predawn fire destroys an entire block of downtown Albany — six stores, a hotel and several residences — in an hour and a half.

Stories

Bears, salt and ninety-one years

John Holdren came to Athens County in 1798 as a young man and spent six or seven years working the Scioto salt works near present-day Jackson, cutting six cords of wood a day. He recalled that before white operators bored deep wells there, Native people had made salt by drilling shallow holes into the rock and letting the sun evaporate the brine that seeped in. Holdren settled permanently in Lee Township in 1820 and, in his younger days, was a celebrated hunter: with a partner he once killed forty-six bears in six weeks along the headwaters of Sunday, Monday and Rush creeks, and in one two-week hunt with his sons killed thirty deer. In his narrowest escape, he shot and only wounded a large black bear that was mauling his dog; when he rushed in with a knife, the bear tore his blanket clean off his body before he stabbed it and it released him and fled. He served in the War of 1812 and, by 1869, at ninety-one, was reckoned the oldest person in Athens County, still able to walk to Albany with a staff in each hand.

A library built on one man's bequest

Henry Wells, a grandson of early Lee Township settler Hiram Howlett, died in 1860 and left Albany $1,000 as a permanent fund for a public library, plus $250 to buy an initial batch of books. The town's Free Masons donated a room to house it at first; in March 1868 Wells's mother, Mary Weethee, willed the town a frame building to serve as a permanent library room, on the condition Albany kept it in repair and paid the taxes. By the time the county history was compiled the following year, the Wells Library held about 400 volumes and any family in Albany could borrow two books at a time for a dollar a year — a small endowment that a local historian held up as proof of how much good a modest sum, well directed, could do.

The Enterprise Academy

When the Albany Manual Labor school, begun in 1848 to admit students 'regardless of race or gender,' passed to the Free Will Baptists in the 1860s and stopped admitting Black students, the Black residents of Albany built their own. The Rev. Thomas Jefferson Ferguson, a Black educator, writer and activist, and Cornelius Berry were among its founders; the community sold stock shares, collected donations, and received $2,000 from the Freedmen's Bureau and $3,000 worth of real estate from Thomas Carleton of Syracuse, Illinois. The 1883 county history dates the Enterprise Institute to 1864, the village history says it opened with 49 students in 1864, and Ohio University's exhibit says 1863. Up to 100 students attended in its early years, and alumni include Olivia Davidson, later the second wife of Booker T. Washington. A fire in 1885, Ferguson's death and the departure of Albany's Black residents for larger cities ended the school in 1886. The 1883 historian called the village 'the Negro's Mecca.'

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · albanyoh.org · ohio.edu

Mostly private wells The water here

• Albany Village53% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (horizontal collector wells)
• Athens29% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (wells)
• Leading Creek Conservancy District12% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Le-ax Regional Water District4% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (horizontal collector wells)
• Zaleski Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Sunday Creek Valley Water0% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Athens Co., the Plains S.d. 10% of residentsHocking River Valley aquifer (wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 3 of 3 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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-10

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