Marion Township, Fayette County

How Marion Township, Fayette County began

Marion Township, in eastern Fayette County, was formally organized on July 18, 1840 out of territory taken from Madison Township, though settlers had been farming the ground since about 1804. It shares the village of New Holland with Pickaway County along its eastern edge. The 1881 county history records its first mill, its earliest churches, and its first schoolhouse in unusual detail for a Fayette township.

Settled 1804, incorporated 1840, by organized from Madison Township.

Where the name comes from

Marion Township is one of twelve townships of that name in Ohio; no source gives a specific naming account for this township.

Before the town

No named Native village, mound, or treaty boundary specific to Marion Township is documented in the sources checked; the 1881 county history's township chapter, which is otherwise detailed about early settlers, does not mention Native inhabitants or encounters here. The township's ground lay within the shared Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), and Miami territory of south-central Ohio before cession under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

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

Timeline

1. 1804 — John Uriah Blue arrived from Virginia among the township's first settlers.
2. 1810 — Jonathan Shepherd settled in the township in the spring.
3. 1812 — James Webster taught the township's first school, in a log cabin, over the winter.
4. 1813 — A permanent log schoolhouse was built, replacing the winter cabin school.
5. 1814 — The township's first Methodist Episcopal congregation organized at George Newman's house.
6. 1818 — Adam Turner built the township's first and only water-powered saw and grist mill, on Compton (Creek), on his own land; Salem Chapel was also built this year on land Fleming Twiford donated.
7. 1831 — A United Brethren congregation organized at David Turnipseed's dwelling.
8. 1840 — Marion Township was formally created from Madison Township territory, July 18.
9. 1850 — The United Brethren congregation built Otterbein Chapel.
10. 1862 — A Christian (Disciples) congregation near New Holland became the township's principal denomination after this date, per the 1881 history.

Stories

One mill for a whole township

In 1818 Adam Turner dammed Compton on his own land and put up a combined saw and grist mill - the only water-powered mill Marion Township ever had. Turner ran it perhaps twenty years, and no other water mill was ever built in the township. That single mill says something about how thin settlement still was: a township organized in 1840 out of Madison Township had, a generation earlier, only enough traffic to support a single milling operation, run first by its builder and later by other operators once Turner moved on.

A counterfeiter among the pioneers

The 1881 county history names William Curry as one of the earliest settlers, arriving about 1804-1805, and records him plainly as a counterfeiter - one of the few pioneer biographies in the township's chapter that comes with a criminal note attached rather than a list of civic virtues. It adds that he belonged to an organized band of counterfeiters and horse thieves, the Funk family among them, that for a time made his house its headquarters, and that he was finally arrested and sent to the Ohio Penitentiary for fifteen years. The detail survives as a reminder that early Ohio township rolls held more than farmers and churchgoers.

Local history sources: ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• New Holland Village64% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Washington Court House35% of residentsPaint Creek (Washington C.H. Reservoirs) + wells
• Ross County Water Co. Inc0% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (buried valley groundwater)
• Fayette County - culpepper Subdivision0% of residentsPaint Creek (Washington C.H. Reservoirs) + wells

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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