Liberty Township, Union County

How Liberty Township, Union County began

Liberty Township was organized in June 1822 as the sixth township formed in Union County, carved from the surrounding unorganized territory in the western part of the county. It gave up its southern third in 1827 when Allen Township was set off. Its only village, Raymond, grew from a farm crossroads platted in 1838 under the name Newton and was renamed for a string of postmasters surnamed Raymond; the arrival of the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad turned it into a shipping point. The township remains agricultural, with Raymond serving as its unofficial center of government though it has never incorporated.

Incorporated 1822.

Where the name comes from

No source says why Liberty Township was named; the 1822 commissioners' order creating it as the county's sixth township simply says it is 'to be known by the name of Liberty Township.' Newton's second name, Raymond: the 1883 history says the Newton post office was named for John Raymond, a New Hampshire native who settled about 1831, helped found the town and was its first postmaster (died April 22, 1850); Wikipedia instead says three of the first six postmasters were Raymonds.

Before the town

No mound, village, trail or treaty site specific to present Liberty Township has turned up in the sources checked; the township was organized in 1822, well after Native American land title in this part of Union County had passed to the United States. The broader county lay in territory used by the Wyandot, Shawnee, Miami, Lenape (Delaware) and Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga) into the early 1800s, and the Greenville Treaty Line of 1795 — the boundary that briefly separated land ceded to the United States from land still held by the Ohio nations — runs through Union County, with a historical marker placed for it near West Mansfield. Jonathan Alder, taken captive as a boy and raised among the Mingo and Shawnee, later settled a few miles away in Jerome Township, in the same county, which gives a sense of how recently this ground had been Native land when American surveyors and settlers arrived.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Miami.

Timeline

1. 1799-09 — The first survey in the township is made in September for David Duncan, assignee (Survey No. 3,444, Lucas Sullivant, deputy surveyor), well after the surveys in the southern townships of the county.
2. 1813 — Levi Carter, a Virginian, settles on land near the future Newton, probably the first settler, after Gen. Duncan McArthur offers 100 acres to any man who will live on it permanently.
3. 1815-09 — Charles Colver, a New Yorker who had settled in Union Township in 1812, becomes the township's second settler, probably in the fall of 1815.
4. 1817-03 — James Herd of Clark County settles in March, the fourth family in Liberty Township.
5. 1819 — Elder J. B. Finley is believed to have organized a Methodist class at Israel Carter's house, the township's first religious body, which lapses; a class organized about 1826 builds a hewed-log church about 1833 and a frame church dedicated September 30, 1859.
6. 1822 — Liberty Township was organized in June, the sixth township formed in Union County.
7. 1824 — The first schoolhouse, a round-log cabin, is built where the Baughan Cemetery now lies; William Edgar is the first teacher, and a hewed-log school follows on the site of the later Dague & Wilson store.
8. 1826-03-28 — The Free-Will Baptist Church at Newton is organized by Elder David Dudley at James Herd's house with five members; it divides in 1837 and has a revival in December 1845.
9. 1827 — Allen Township was created on June 5 out of the southern division of Liberty Township, reducing Liberty to roughly its present bounds.
10. 1831 — Samuel Orahood builds the township's first mill, a water-powered grist mill on Mill Creek about 1831-32; George W. Baxley buys it in 1843 and runs it until the 1860s.
11. 1833 — Ransom Clements builds the township's probably first water-powered sawmill on Mill Creek.
12. 1838-08 — Newton is first surveyed by Levi Phelps for the proprietor, David Paul, in August 1838 as twenty-five lots; the plat is resurveyed on February 1, 1839 for Nathaniel and Melissa Raymond as twenty-three lots.
13. 1839 — The Newton post office opened; three of its first six postmasters were named Raymond, and the settlement came to be called Raymond's post office and then simply Raymond. (The 1883 county history instead says the office was named for John Raymond, a resident who helped found the town and was its first postmaster.)
14. 1847 — George W. Baxley begins a diary that runs nearly thirty years, recording weather, births, deaths and floods; neighbors consulted it to settle dates.
15. 1865-12-25 — On Christmas Day twenty or more women of Newton enter a saloon, destroy its liquor and glassware, and are later arrested for riot.
16. 1880 — A new two-story, two-room frame schoolhouse is built in Newton; in 1882 the township has ten subdistricts and 461 scholars.

Stories

A village that was named by its postmasters

When the crossroads settlement in eastern Liberty Township was platted in 1838 it was called Newton. A post office opened there the next year, and as luck had it three of the first six men to hold the postmaster's job were named Raymond. Neighbors got in the habit of calling the place "Raymond's post office," then "Raymond's P.O.," then just "Raymond's," and finally "Raymond," and the name stuck to the whole settlement even though it was never formally renamed for any single person. The Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad later ran a line along the south edge of town and built a station there; the modern post office sign in Raymond still copies the old railroad depot's lettering. Raymond never incorporated, but it functions today as Liberty Township's unofficial seat of government, home to the township's trustees and fiscal officer even though the village itself has no charter of its own.

The ladies and the Newton saloon

On Christmas Day 1865 twenty or more women of Newton marched into the village's saloon and destroyed its liquor, decanters and glasses. The saloon keeper had them arrested for riot, and twenty indictments were found against him in return; he was fined and jailed and, by the 1883 county historian's account, was financially ruined and unable to press the case against the women. At that point the wholesale liquor dealer who had supplied him, and to whom he was in debt, took up the prosecution himself. The women and many other citizens then raised a subscription, paid for the damaged property, and settled the suit. The episode is known only because a neighbor, the miller George Baxley, kept a diary from 1847 for nearly thirty years, recording even the weather: 20 degrees below zero on January 20, 1852, a hard frost on June 5, 1859, and 118 degrees on August 18, 1869. He also noted the 1852 craze for spirit rappings in the neighborhood, with tongue in cheek, and the great freshet of April 10, 1860 that wrecked property all along Mill Creek.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · remarkableohio.org · uccogs.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Marysville City81% of residentsMill Creek via Marysville Reservoir (Raymond Rd) + wells
• West Mansfield Village18% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Del-co Water Company, Inc.0% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells
• Milford Center Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Public EV charging (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2026-05-05; later elections are not loaded yet.

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