Liverpool Township, Columbiana County

How Liverpool Township, Columbiana County began

Liverpool Township occupies the southeastern corner of Columbiana County on the north bank of the Ohio River at the Pennsylvania line. It was set off from St. Clair Township by the county commissioners on June 3, 1834, the last of the county's eighteen townships, although its riverbank was among the first parts of the county settled. Thomas Fawcett laid out Fawcettstown about 1800, the place was relaid as Liverpool in 1816, and after a post office opened in 1830 it was called East Liverpool, the pottery city that now holds the township's southern end. The U.S. Public Land Survey began here in 1785 at the Point of Beginning on the Pennsylvania line. Outside East Liverpool the township was and is mostly farmland, with 3,862 residents in the 2020 census.

Settled c.1795-1800, platted c.1800 (Fawcettstown); 1816 (relaid as Liverpool), incorporated June 3, 1834 (township created from St. Clair Township), by Thomas Fawcett (Fawcettstown); John Fawcett, Daniel Moore and James Pemberton (Liverpool, 1816); Columbiana County commissioners (township).

Where the name comes from

The township takes its name from the town of Liverpool within it. The 1879 county history says Thomas Fawcett first named his town St. Clair for the township it then lay in, that its people called it Fawcettstown for its founder, and that the three Wheeling merchants who bought it in 1816 renamed it Liverpool; the post office of 1830 added 'East' to tell it from Liverpool in Medina County. Wikipedia's East Liverpool article gives the English port city of Liverpool as the model for the 1816 name; the county history does not say.

Before the town

No source reviewed names a Native American village, camp or burial site within Liverpool Township outside East Liverpool itself (covered separately). The township lies within the region ceded under the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh and confirmed by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. The township does hold one site of the first importance to the opening of Native land for sale: the Point of Beginning, on the north bank of the Ohio at the Pennsylvania line in the east end of East Liverpool, where on September 30, 1785 Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, began the geographers' line of the Seven Ranges, the point from which the western lands were surveyed. The 1879 county history notes that settler Joseph McKinnon had fought under Gen. Anthony Wayne against the Indians; it records no Native residents in the township after settlement began.

• Point of Beginning, U.S. Public Land Survey (Seven Ranges) (other) — East end of East Liverpool, on the north bank of the Ohio River at the Pennsylvania line, September 30, 1785 (kent.edu)

Timeline

1. 1785-09-30 — Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, begins the geographers' line of the Seven Ranges at the Point of Beginning on the north bank of the Ohio at the Pennsylvania line, in what is now the east end of East Liverpool.
2. 1795 — Settlement begins in the area that becomes Liverpool Township, among the earliest-settled parts of Columbiana County.
3. 1799 — Noah Grant, a shoemaker and grandfather of Ulysses S. Grant, settles in April at Swamp Meadow, about two and a half miles above Fawcettstown; Joseph McKinnon locates on the 'fractional section' about the same year.
4. 1800 — About this year (the county history says 1798 or 1800) Thomas Fawcett buys 1,100 acres on the river at what is now East Liverpool, builds the first log cabin there and lays out a town he calls St. Clair, known to its people as Fawcettstown.
5. 1808-08-15 — President Thomas Jefferson, with James Madison as Secretary of State, signs the land patent for section 34 of township 6, range 1 to Charles Blackmore, two miles north of East Liverpool.
6. 1809 — By this year Thomas Fawcett Jr. keeps a tavern and ferry at Fawcettstown, and Sutton and McNiebol of Pittsburgh bore for salt on Little Yellow Creek and open the first store of consequence.
7. 1811-07-04 — About 4,000 people gather at a barbecue in a sugar grove on the riverbank; William C. Larwell, the town's first lawyer, reads the Declaration of Independence.
8. 1816 — John Fawcett, Daniel Moore and James Pemberton, merchants of Wheeling, buy Thomas Fawcett's mill and 200 acres, relay the town as Liverpool and advertise lots in the Ohio Patriot of July 2.
9. 1823 — The town has shrunk to 'six families and two bachelors' after the Wheeling proprietors left to take a contract supplying forts on the Missouri River in 1817.
10. 1830 — Scott and Hill build a steam sawmill and a post office is established with John Collins as postmaster; the town is now called East Liverpool to tell it from Liverpool in Medina County.
11. 1834 — Liverpool Township is formally organized, the last of Columbiana County's eighteen townships to be erected, despite being among the first areas settled.
12. 1834-06-03 — The county commissioners create Liverpool Township from St. Clair Township and order its first election for June 23 at the house of Aaron Brawdy in the town; the village of East Liverpool is incorporated the same year, on January 4.
13. 1878 — East Liverpool, the only village in the township and by now the center of American pottery making, has 4,160 inhabitants; outside it the township has no industry of consequence but farming.
14. 2020 — The census counts 3,862 people in Liverpool Township.

Stories

Noah Grant on Swamp Meadow

In April 1799 a Pennsylvania shoemaker named Noah Grant took up land at Swamp Meadow, 'two miles and a half above Fawcettstown,' in the part of St. Clair Township that became Liverpool Township. The 1879 county history calls him the grandfather of General Ulysses S. Grant and says he married a daughter of John Kelly, who had settled on nearby Dry Run. Noah's son Jesse, later the general's father, was six years old, and an autograph letter of his, held in 1879 by Col. H. R. Hill, recalled hearing Robert Dobbins preach there on Christmas Day, 1799. The Grants stayed only about four years before moving on, so the family left little else in the record. Kelly, a neighbor, was the one local distiller broken up by the government's 'whisky boys,' and he left the county, poorer, for a place near Vinton.

Four votes short of a county seat

Thomas Fawcett bought some 1,100 acres on the Ohio at what is now East Liverpool about 1798 or 1800, laid out a town he called St. Clair, and built the first flour-mill in the county on Carpenter's Run. When a county seat was to be chosen, the town fell only four votes short of winning it, and the 1879 history says the defeat disheartened the place for years. In 1816 three Wheeling merchants (John Fawcett, Daniel Moore and James Pemberton) bought the mill and 200 acres, renamed the town Liverpool, and advertised lots in the Ohio Patriot, pitching the harbor and the fact that this was the river point nearest Lake Erie. They sold about twenty lots at $20 to $30 each, took a government contract in 1817 to supply forts on the Missouri River, and left; by 1823 only 'six families and two bachelors' remained and the one street was a grassy sward. Revival came with Scott and Hill's steam sawmill in 1830, when a post office opened and the name East Liverpool was adopted, and the pottery industry did the rest.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · genealogytrails.com · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · kent.edu · en.wikipedia.org

Ohio River The water here

• East Liverpool City100% of residentsOhio River

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-05-07

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