Letart Township, Meigs County

How Letart Township, Meigs County began

Letart Township forms a peninsula in southeastern Meigs County, wrapped on three sides by a bend of the Ohio River, with West Virginia across the water. Gallia County's associate judges laid it out as one of three townships in 1803 under an act of May 10, 1803, the year David Sayre and Thomas Alexander entered land here; it originally ran from the mouth of Shade River to the mouth of Kerr's Run, and Lebanon and Sutton townships were carved from it in 1813-1814. It takes its name from Letart Falls, the rapids that river pilots were appointed to guide boats over from 1804 and that a floating mill once sat beside. The township has no incorporated village; the Letart Falls post office ran from 1826 to 1959, and the 2020 census counted 733 residents.

Settled 1803 (David Sayre, per Wikipedia; Larkin says Sayre and Thomas Alexander entered land in Letart that year), incorporated 1803 (laid out by the Gallia County associate judges under the act of May 10, 1803), by David Sayre and family; Thomas Alexander.

Where the name comes from

The township and the Ohio River rapids it is named for (Letart Falls) take their name from a Frenchman, reported in local tradition as James Le Tort, said to have drowned at the falls; the falls themselves have since disappeared beneath the pool of a downstream lock and dam. Letart Township is the only township of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

No named Native village, camp or trail is recorded inside present Letart Township. The township lies on the Ohio River within the area the Treaty of Greenville (1795) recognized as already ceded by the Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785) and the Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789); the valley was hunting and travel ground for the Shawnee and other nations. Larkin's pioneer history describes one rock-art site a few miles away: the 'Pictured Rocks of Antiquity', about four miles below Letart Falls, where early settlers found names 'not English' and the figure of a squatting Indian with a tomahawk pipe cut into the face of a fallen rock. Dr. Fuller Elliot, who lived near the rock, thought a party of Frenchmen made them after the French evacuated Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh). The inscriptions are now obliterated; the village of Antiquity takes its name from the rock, and the source does not say which township it lies in.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Pictured Rocks of Antiquity (other) — About four miles below Letart Falls on the Ohio River, near the village of Antiquity; township not stated, carvings reported by early settlers; attributed by Dr. Fuller Elliot to a French party after the evacuation of Fort Duquesne; now obliterated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1803 — Under an act of May 10, 1803, the associate judges of Gallia County divide the county into three townships, Gallipolis, Kerr's and Letart, and order the first election of a justice of the peace for Letart at the house of Henry Roush.
2. 1803 — David Sayre, Thomas Alexander and others enter land in Letart Township; Sayre is traditionally the first settler.
3. 1804 — Thomas Sayre is appointed pilot for Letart Falls, to guide boats over the rapids, under authority for the Gallia County courts to appoint one; the pilot gave bond for the proper discharge of his duty.
4. 1805-12-31 — Levi Stedman, collector of taxes for Letart Township, is given a receipt at Gallipolis for $30.32 on account of the township's 1805 county tax.
5. 1812 — Adam Harpold, born in 1790, settles in Letart, marries Dorothy Roush in August and opens the first store for dry goods and groceries in the township; they raise sixteen children.
6. 1813 — Lebanon Township is formed out of Letart Township, followed by Sutton Township in 1814.
7. 1820 — Larkin prints the names of the heads of families of Letart, Lebanon and Sutton townships for this year; Letart names include Sayre, Roush, Harpold, Alexander, Deviney and Hayman.
8. 1826 — A post office named Letart Falls opens in the township; it remains in operation until 1959.
9. c. 1831 — Dr. Jeremiah B. Ackley, a young physician trained at Ohio University, opens an office at Letart and practices on both sides of the river; Dr. John McClintock follows in 1839.
10. 1849 — Cholera strikes Letart: Balser Roush and his family, living above Racine, are victims and several die; Dr. Ackley attends them.
11. 1959 — The Letart Falls post office closes.
12. 2020 — The census counts 733 people in the township.

Stories

A township named for a drowning

Letart Township takes its name from the rapids on the Ohio River known as Letart Falls, which once broke the river's surface at this bend before twentieth-century locks and dams drowned them under a slack-water pool. Local tradition, recorded in the township's Wikipedia entry, holds that the falls were named for a Frenchman, given as James Le Tort, who drowned there. The first American settlers did not arrive until 1803, when David Sayre and his family came from New Jersey by way of western Virginia. A post office named for the falls opened at Letart Falls in 1826 and closed in 1959.

Pilots and a floating mill at Letart Falls

The swift water at Letart Falls made it a hazard to boats and, at least once, an asset. After the Indian war in the Ohio Valley, a floating mill built at Marietta in 1791 broke loose from its moorings and drifted about sixty miles down the Ohio before its chain cable caught on a rock. French settlers from Gallipolis bought it and kept it at Letart Falls, where the current was strong enough to turn it; the first miller Larkin could name was George Burns, who also kept what was said to be the first store at Letart. By 1804 the falls were considered dangerous enough that the Gallia County courts were authorized to appoint a pilot to take boats over them, and Thomas Sayre received the post that year. Few charts of the river existed even in 1811, when the steamboat New Orleans made the first steam descent of the Ohio, so local pilots mattered.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

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

Power plants (1)

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-03

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