Liberty Township, Knox County

How Liberty Township, Knox County began

Liberty Township, in western Knox County, was established by the county commissioners on June 4, 1822 and took its name from the American ideal of liberty, one of twenty-five Ohio townships sharing the name. Its earliest settlers -- Francis Atherton, Francis Blakeney, Thomas Fletcher, George Ginn, Francis Hardesty, and Alexander Dallas -- arrived from Washington County, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1805 and settled on Dry Creek. Its principal town, Mount Liberty, was laid out in 1835 by Samuel Thatcher Sr. and George Beardsheare on the state road from Mount Vernon to Columbus; the 1881 county history states plainly that it is the principal town within Liberty Township itself. Two Mound Builder earthworks, much reduced by plowing, are recorded a mile east of Mount Liberty on the former Higgins farm. The township has stayed rural and agricultural, governed since its founding by an elected three-member board of trustees, with a 2020 population of 1,906.

Settled 1805 (Francis Atherton, Francis Blakeney, Thomas Fletcher, George Ginn, Francis Hardesty, and Alexander Dallas, from Washington County, Pennsylvania), platted 1835-10-08 (Mount Liberty, by Samuel Thatcher Sr. and George Beardsheare, surveyed by T. G. Plummer), incorporated 1822-06-04 (township established); boundaries confirmed 1825-03-09.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for the American ideal of liberty rather than for a person or place; it is one of twenty-five townships of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

The 1881 county history records very few Mound Builder relics in Liberty Township: a mound about 30 feet in diameter, originally 8 to 10 feet high but reduced by plowing, on the J. D. Higgins farm a mile east of Mount Liberty, which Higgins opened himself and found only ashes and charcoal; and, in an adjoining lower field, a circular embankment about 100 feet in diameter, so worn by plowing that its original height could not be determined, with the appearance of a possible military work. The county historian notes that the Native people living in the area at the time of white settlement professed complete ignorance of the mounds' origin. Early settlers George Lewis's children recalled Native people 'prowling about the premises' while the men were away at Shrimplin's mill grinding corn. No source ties any of this to a specific nation by name for Liberty Township itself.

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

• Higgins farm mound (mound) — J. D. Higgins farm, one mile east of Mount Liberty, Liberty Township; about 30 feet in diameter, originally 8-10 feet high, unknown (Mound Builder) (archive.org)
• Higgins farm circular embankment (earthwork) — adjoining field, lower ground than the Higgins mound, Liberty Township; about 100 feet in diameter, unknown (Mound Builder) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1805 — Francis Atherton, Francis Blakeney, Thomas Fletcher, George Ginn, Francis Hardesty, and Alexander Dallas arrive from Washington County, Pennsylvania and settle on Dry Creek, the township's earliest recorded settlers.
2. 1808 — Francis Atherton builds the first frame house in the township.
3. 1808 — The first public road through the north of Liberty Township, surveyed nearly due west from Mount Vernon to the county line, is returned to the county commissioners on August 5.
4. 1810 — Joseph Higgins pitches his tent a mile east of the future site of Mount Liberty, and Lewis Bricker Sr. of Greene County, Pennsylvania, buys 1,600 acres in the northeast of the township and sends his children to settle it.
5. 1811 — William Nash teaches the township's first school near Michael Yoakam's home.
6. 1817 — Joseph Eichar, Benjamin Martin and James Carpenter, appointed by the state commissioners, file their survey of a road from Mount Vernon to Delaware, later called the Old Delaware Road, on September 1.
7. 1822 — Liberty Township is established June 4 by the county commissioners; the first election is held June 15 at the schoolhouse near Francis Wilkins's.
8. 1825 — Gilman Bryant builds the first successful mill on Dry Creek, a saw-mill followed by a grist-mill in 1825.
9. 1829 — Henry Lavering keeps a small store of powder, lead, tobacco, whiskey and groceries where Henderson Bird later lives; it is counted the township's first, and he is appointed first postmaster in 1832.
10. 1830 — The Christian church of Liberty Township is organized by Rev. Daniel Long.
11. 1830 — Township population is recorded at 553; it is 1,205 in 1840.
12. 1833 — Samuel Thatcher Sr. opens a hotel on the Columbus road just west of the site of Mount Liberty, and in 1839 builds a second one at the east end of the village.
13. 1835 — Samuel Thatcher Sr. and George Beardsheare lay out the town of Mount Liberty on October 8 on the Mount Vernon-Columbus state road.
14. 1837 — Dr. Henry A. Childs becomes Mount Liberty's first resident physician.
15. 1845 — A frame Methodist Episcopal church, 36 by 45 feet, is built at Mount Liberty under Rev. Mr. Berry, for a class formed in 1837 and meeting until then in the log schoolhouse.
16. 1860 — Township population is recorded at 1,251 (1,320 in 1850); it is 1,044 in 1890, 908 in 1900 and 808 in 1910.
17. 1872 — The Cleveland, Mt. Vernon & Columbus railroad is under construction; William H. Smith opens a store near the county infirmary at what becomes the hamlet of Bangs, named for U.S. mail routes superintendent George H. Bangs.
18. 1880 — The village of Bangs on the Cleveland, Mt. Vernon & Columbus railroad near the township's east line, begun by William H. Smith's store in 1872, is regularly platted that fall, with eleven dwellings; Mount Liberty has about 175 inhabitants.
19. 2020 — Census records 1,906 residents in the township.

Stories

The Brickers' upside-down wagon

Lewis Bricker Sr. of Green County, Pennsylvania bought 1,600 acres in what became northeastern Liberty Township and sent his elder sons ahead to claim it in the spring of 1810. Peter Bricker and his brother-in-law George Lewis camped one night, heard owls hooting and wolves howling, saw many Native people in the surrounding woods, and by noon the next day were headed back home, convinced the region would never be settled. Their father, more accustomed to frontier conditions, sent another party that fall and eventually got ten of his children established in the township, who between them raised enormous families -- Peter Bricker alone had a dozen children, George Lewis sixteen. One of the elder Brickers arrived too late in the fall to build a cabin and none could be rented, so he flipped the bed of his large Pennsylvania wagon upside down and lived under it through his first Knox County winter.

A spelling book cut from a newspaper

William Nash taught Liberty Township's first school as early as 1811 near Michael Yoakam's home, in a log cabin with puncheon furniture and a clapboard roof. Books were a rare luxury on the frontier, but Yoakam's mother improvised: she cut letters out of a newspaper, pasted them onto a wooden paddle, and sent her eleven-year-old son off to his first day of school equipped with his own homemade spelling primer. John Yoakam still recalled the cabin and his mother's paddle vividly when the county history was compiled seventy years later, by then the last survivor of Nash's small class.

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

Every historic place in Knox County on the full map

Wells drawing groundwater from the buried-valley aquifer along the Kokosing River near Mount Vernon The water here

• Mount Vernon City87% of residentsBuried Valley Aquifer (Kokosing River valley wells)
• Del-co Water Company, Inc.12% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells
• Colonial Terrace Mhc Llc0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Westgate Mobile Home Community0% of residentsBuried Valley Aquifer (Kokosing River valley wells)
• Knox County Water and Wastewater0% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Grandview MHP A0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Private schools (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 1 of 3 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 2.

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 2026-04-14

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