Mad River Township, Champaign County

How Mad River Township, Champaign County began

Mad River Township, in southwestern Champaign County between Urbana Township and Jackson Township, is one of the three townships the county's associate judges created on April 20, 1805, and at first it covered nearly half the county. William Owens, a poor Virginian who came up the Mad River and Nettle Creek in 1797, is remembered as the first white settler of the township and of the county, and by the first township election in May 1805 there were more than a hundred voters. Settlers built a stockade at Thomas Kenton's cabins in 1807 that was never needed. Its villages are Westville, laid out on Archibald McGrew's land in 1815, and Terre Haute on Storms Creek, laid out in 1838; Thackery lies on its southwestern edge. The rest is farmland in the Mad River valley and the uplands along Nettle Creek.

Settled 1797, incorporated April 20, 1805 (created by the county's associate judges); first election May 3, 1805, by first settler William Owens of Virginia.

Where the name comes from

Named for the Mad River, which crosses the township from north to south along its eastern side; the 1805 township was far larger, a fourteen-mile strip down the west side of present Champaign, Clark and Logan counties.

Before the town

Settlers' accounts in the county histories describe Native people living and traveling in the township well into the settlement years. William Owens, the first settler, was on friendly terms with them, and they called him Kosko Elene, 'Hogman', because he brought the first hogs to the area. In 1807 the families in the northern valley built a quarter-acre stockade around Thomas Kenton's cabins in section 12, though it was never needed. Kenton later sold a Native buyer a horse for 'seven hands and a half', seventy-five dollars, and the man came back to pay the last dollar he owed. Until about 1820, families from the Native settlement at Lewistown came to the Mad River valley each summer, camped in bark shelters along the streams, hunted, and sold baskets to the settlers; one man remembered by name was Coldwater. The 1881 history also repeats a tradition of a fight in 1812 between Native warriors and Kentuckians on a mound on the John Kiser farm in section 7; it gives no evidence, and the story is not confirmed elsewhere. The sources read here do not name the nations involved.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Kenton stockade (other) — Thomas Kenton's residence, southwest quarter of section 12, township 4, range 11, near Westville, built 1807 (archive.org)
• Seasonal Lewistown camps (camp) — along the Mad River and its tributaries in the township, summers, until about 1820 (archive.org)
• Mound on the Kiser farm (traditional battle site) (battle) — John Kiser farm, section 7, said to be 1812; unconfirmed (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1797 — William Owens of Virginia drove a wagon up the Mad River and Nettle Creek and squatted about two miles south of the later Westville, the first white settler of the township and of Champaign County.
2. 1801 — Thomas Kenton, a nephew of Simon Kenton, settled in the Mad River valley; Ezekiel Arrowsmith and his family arrived from Mason County, Kentucky, in December.
3. 1801 — Rev. James Davidson preached the first sermon in the township under a sugar tree on Ezekiel Arrowsmith's land; the society that followed became the Westville Methodist church.
4. 1805 — Mad River Township was created by the county's associate judges on April 20, and its first election was held May 3 at Thomas Kenton's house, with 105 voters.
5. 1805 — Basil West settled near the site of Westville.
6. 1806 — A Baptist church was organized at the house of Henry Pence by members dismissed from King's Creek Church; its log meetinghouse south of Westville was built in 1819.
7. 1807 — Settlers in the northern valley built a stockade around Thomas Kenton's cabins as protection against a feared Native attack; it was never used.
8. 1807 — Adam Kite, one of the Shenandoah Valley Virginians settling up Nettle Creek, entered 200 acres at the Cincinnati land office.
9. 1814 — The Methodists built a log meetinghouse on William Ross's land in the south of the township, later the Terre Haute church.
10. 1815 — Westville's history as a town dates from February 14, on land Archibald McGrew had entered; the first house went up in 1818.
11. 1818 — Abraham Stephens built the first house in Westville, and a log schoolhouse opened there with William Allen as teacher.
12. 1818 — William Owens, the county's first settler, died of a fever caught while moving a family to Indianapolis.
13. 1823 — Charles Rector built the first brick house in the township.
14. 1826 — The township was divided into eight school districts containing 283 families, ending the subscription schools.
15. 1830 — The Myrtle-Tree Baptist Church was organized on April 24 by Elder William Fuson; about a thousand people attended the first meeting, and the church took its name from a dream of Mrs. Fuson.
16. 1838 — Squire George Craig had Terre Haute surveyed into lots on Storms Creek.
17. 1845 — Walter E. Lockard had a 36-lot village called Lochardsville platted in section 8; it never grew beyond the recorded plat.
18. 1873 — Nettle Creek Grange No. 244 was organized at Westville on December 12.
19. 1880 — The township counted 1,997 people, up from 1,894 in 1840.
20. 1894 — A post office called Thackery opened at the hamlet on the township's southwestern edge; it closed in 1965.

Stories

Hogman, the first settler

William Owens was a poor man from Virginia who owned four horses, a wagon, a few hogs and a little furniture when he drove up the Mad River and Nettle Creek in 1797. He squatted near a spring about two miles south of where Westville later stood, and afterward bought 240 acres from William Ward for a dollar an acre. For years he was the only white man in the neighborhood; the Native people he lived among called him Kosko Elene, 'Hogman', because he brought the first hogs into the country. He professed religion one day and swore the next, but joined the Nettle Creek Baptist church when it formed and gradually mended his ways. He died in 1818 of a fever he caught while moving a family to Indianapolis.

The walk to Cincinnati

Abraham Shocky, a Kentuckian on Nettle Creek, was known as the best walker in the settlement. He had been hauling poplar logs to his mill from a tract that was still government land when Judge Runkle told him one evening that Joe Sims had left that morning for Cincinnati to enter it. Shocky borrowed the money and set out on foot that night. On the morning of the second day Sims, riding to Cincinnati, met Shocky walking home with the land already entered in his name, and the two went back together, one on foot and one on horseback. Shocky later walked from Urbana to Cincinnati in a single day and beat the Xenia and Urbana stage on foot.

Photographs

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

Groundwater from wells (described locally as two well fields) feeding two treatment plants -- one near Old Troy Pike (GAC filtration) and one near State Route 29 (pressure filtration for iron/manganese) -- both drawing from the same high-yield buried-valley aquifer… The water here

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Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (8)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 2 of 2 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 2025-08-07

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