Marshallville

How Marshallville began

Marshallville was originally called Bristol and laid out under that name in 1817, in what became Baughman and Chippewa townships, before later taking the Marshallville name. The village ran its own three-year high school until 1938, when state regulation forced its closure; students moved to Dalton and, from 1955, Smithville. Marshallville is the birthplace of Joseph Banks Rhine, the botanist who became a founding figure of parapsychology as a research discipline, and of Daniel Sidney Warner, who co-founded the Church of God movement centered in Anderson, Indiana. The Ezekiel B. Zimmerman Octagon House, built 1883, stands nearby and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Platted 1817-02-07, incorporated 1866-02-10, by James Marshall.

Where the name comes from

The 1878 county history states directly that the town was surveyed by and for James Marshall and named Marshallville "(not Bristol)" -- the author explicitly disputes any claim that the village was once called Bristol, which the source treats as a misconception already circulating by 1878. It describes Marshallville as, by tradition, the first town laid out in the county after Wooster itself.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, mound or treaty event specific to Marshallville was found in the sources checked.

Timeline

1. 1817 — The town site is laid out under the name Bristol.
2. 1883 — Ezekiel B. Zimmerman builds the octagonal Zimmerman House nearby, later listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
3. 1938 — State regulation forces the closure of Marshallville's own three-year high school; students are redirected to Dalton.
4. 1955 — Marshallville's school district merges with Smithville's.
5. 2020 — Village population recorded at 789.
6. 1817 — James Marshall has Marshallville surveyed, February 7; the plat and certificate are recorded February 27, 1817, in Volume 1, page 184, of the county records -- by the county history's own account, probably the first town laid out in Wayne County after Wooster.
7. 1834 — When Martin Weimer arrives in the village, only ten houses stand there, occupied by Elijah Dancer, Calvin Brewster, James and Joseph Hogan, Enoch Moffit, James Marshall, John Rech, a Mr. Ellingham and a Mr. Scotton (the last two shoemakers); Dr. Comstock is the first physician.
8. 1866 — Marshallville is incorporated, February 10.

Stories

A botanist who went looking for the mind's limits

Joseph Banks Rhine was born in Marshallville and trained originally as a botanist, earning his doctorate in plant physiology at the University of Chicago in the 1920s. Rather than staying in conventional botany, Rhine turned his scientific training toward a far stranger question: whether the human mind could perceive or influence events beyond the reach of the ordinary senses. At Duke University he founded what became the field of parapsychology, developing statistical methods to test claims of extrasensory perception and coining the term 'ESP' itself. Whatever one makes of his conclusions, Rhine's insistence on applying rigorous experimental method to an unconventional subject made him a genuinely influential and controversial figure in twentieth-century psychology, and it began with a boy growing up in a small Wayne County village that also, coincidentally, produced Daniel Sidney Warner, later a co-founder of the Church of God movement headquartered in Anderson, Indiana.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Marshallville Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-02-10

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page