Marion Township, Hocking County

How Marion Township, Hocking County began

Marion Township lies in the northern part of Hocking County, formed in 1832 out of parts of Good Hope and Falls townships and settled mainly by German-descended farm families beginning around 1808. It is a six-mile-square farming and stock-raising township with no incorporated town, drained by Rush Creek and, at its southwest corner, the Hocking River. Its population grew only slowly after 1840, to 1,561 in 1870, and then fell to 1,426 by 1880, a pattern the 1883 county history blamed on the township never developing mineral resources the way its coal- and iron-rich neighbors did. Today it is best known for Hide-A-Way Hills, a private gated community developed starting in 1961 that occupies roughly two-thirds of the township's northern section.

Settled c. 1808, by Christian Beery on Rush Creek, section 7, incorporated December 29, 1832 (township organized by county commissioners' order as No. 11, out of parts of Good Hope and Falls townships; first election held at the house of Frederick Cowick), by Petitioning inhabitants of Good Hope and Falls townships (congressional township 15, range 17); first settler Christian Beery.

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history does not explain why the township was named Marion when it was organized in 1832; it is one of twelve Marion Townships in Ohio, a name pattern common statewide honoring Revolutionary War general Francis Marion. No source found gives a township-specific naming story.

Before the town

No site-specific Native American history (named villages, trails, mounds, or treaty ground) is recorded for Marion Township in the sources checked, including the 1883 county history's township chapter, which begins its account with the arrival of Christian Beery around 1808 and says nothing about earlier occupation. Hocking County generally lay within the historic range of the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), and Mingo before the Treaty of Greenville (1795) and later cessions opened the region to Euro-American settlement, and the county's name is usually traced to a Delaware-language word for the Hocking River. Known Adena/Hopewell mound sites documented in the 1883 history and in NRHP records lie elsewhere in the county (Salt Creek Township) and in adjoining Athens County (Wolf's Plains), not in Marion Township.

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

Timeline

1. c. 1808 — Christian Beery, from Fairfield County, becomes the first white settler in what is now Marion Township, settling on Rush Creek in section 7.
2. 1811 — Abraham Beery, George Beery, and Jacob Miller settle near Rush Creek, followed about two years later by Jacob Good and another Christian Beery.
3. 1825 — Rudolph Scherchel, a Prussian immigrant, settles in the township with a colony of countrymen and becomes a leading citizen for half a century.
4. December 29, 1832 — Hocking County commissioners organize Marion Township (No. 11) from parts of Good Hope and Falls townships, with the first election at Frederick Cowick's house.
5. 1831 — Amos Davis builds the township's first grist mill on Rush Creek, at the site later known as Kite's mill.
6. 1840 — Township population is 1,370, according to the county history.
7. 1880 — Population has fallen to 1,426 after peaking near 1,561 in 1870, a decline the county history attributes to the township's lack of mineral development compared with neighboring townships.
8. 1961 — Development of Hide-A-Way Hills, a private gated community, begins; roughly two-thirds of it ends up within Marion Township's northern section.
9. 2020 — Township population recorded at 2,493 in the U.S. Census.

Stories

A church divided on Rush Creek

The first church built in Marion Township was raised by the Lutheran settlers on Rush Creek, near Christian Beery's cabin, with a pastor remembered only as Rev. Reefman. It flourished for years as the spiritual anchor of the German-descended Rush Creek settlement that had grown up around Beery, the Hansells, the Engles, and the Beery family's many branches. Eventually a dispute split the congregation, and part of the members broke away to found a second society, building a new church near the first one on the same section of ground. By 1883 the township counted nine churches in all, spread across Lutheran, Methodist Episcopal, United Brethren, and Dunkard congregations, but the two original Rush Creek churches, standing within sight of each other, were the direct legacy of that first schism.

A gated community grows over a farm township

For more than a century after its founding, Marion Township remained what the 1883 county history called it: a place settled exclusively by farmers and stock-raisers, with no town or village of its own. Its population actually declined through the late 1800s as young people left hill farming for city work. In 1961, developers laid out Hide-A-Way Hills, a gated retreat community of roughly 1,730 wooded acres, on land straddling the Marion Township-Fairfield County line. About two-thirds of the development sits in Marion Township. The community grew into a private, member-owned club with its own governance, and by the 2020 census it alone accounted for nearly 1,000 of the township's residents, reshaping the population profile of a place that had been purely agricultural for a hundred and thirty years.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Logan, City Of81% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)
• Sugar Grove Village15% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Bremen Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 3 of 3 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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-01-09

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