Mcconnelsville

• Frances Dana Gage1808-1884McConnelsville reformer who presided over the 1851 Akron women's rights conventi...

• Frederick S. DellenbaughPerson · 1853-1935
• Howard Chandler ChristyPerson · 1872-1952
• James J. GibsonPerson · 1904-1979
• Lelia N. MorrisPerson · 1862-1929

• Big Muskie: The Biggest Machine That Ever Walked Ohio (and What Killed It)

How Mcconnelsville began

McConnelsville was laid out in 1817 on the east bank of the Muskingum River by General Robert McConnel, who donated the town lots, with Jacob Kahler recorded as the first settler. It became the county seat when Morgan County was organized on March 1, 1819, and grew through the mid-1800s on river trade after locks and dams were built on the Muskingum between 1836 and 1841. The Greek Revival Morgan County Courthouse, built in 1858, still anchors the town. Population peaked at 2,257 in 1960 and stood at 1,667 at the 2020 census.

Settled fall 1817 (Jacob Kahler), platted 1817, by William Montgomery, surveyor, for General Robert McConnel; the original plat had ninety-two lots.

Where the name comes from

Named for Robert McConnel (also spelled McConnell), who owned and platted the town site in 1817.

Before the town

No Native American sites specific to the McConnelsville town plat itself are recorded. The 1886 county history notes the Lenape (Delaware) occupied the Muskingum and Tuscarawas valleys before white settlement, and the Big Bottom massacre of January 1791 -- an attack by Lenape and Wyandot warriors on a new settlement of squatters -- took place a few miles downriver in what is now Windsor Township.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1805 — General Robert McConnel buys the town site from the government at $1.75 an acre, apparently with a future county seat in view since the location lay about equidistant from Athens, Cambridge, Zanesville and Marietta.
2. 1817 — The town is laid out on the east bank of the Muskingum River on land owned by Robert McConnell.
3. 1817 — In spring William Montgomery plats the village for McConnel as a forest of poplar, hickory, beech and elm; Jacob Kahler, a carpenter, builds a double log cabin on Jefferson Street that fall, the first settler, and later the first frame house, on lot 7.
4. 1819 — Morgan County is organized on March 1 and McConnelsville is named county seat.
5. 1819-04-01 — About seventy-five people, two thirds of them children, live in the village; Dr. Samuel A. Barker is its only physician, first county clerk, first schoolmaster and first postmaster; McConnel has donated lots for public buildings, a parade ground (now the village green and grove) and churches.
6. 1819-07-05 — James Larrison, who carries the weekly mail on horseback from Zanesville to Marietta, is licensed at the second regular term of court to keep tavern for a $7 fee, the first tavern keeper; Jacob Adams, the first merchant, arrives the same year with his store's frame and builds the first brick house, the Adams House, which opens as a hotel in 1820.
7. 1820-07-04 — The town's first Fourth of July is greeted with thirteen salutes fired from an anvil at Price's blacksmith shop, and about 200 guests eat a dinner by James Young under a bower on the lot where the town hall later stands.
8. 1824-03-31 — The First Presbyterian Church of McConnelsville is organized by Rev. William Hunt with Samuel Stanbery as ruling elder.
9. 1826 — The town has about thirty-five buildings, of which only the Adams House, the old courthouse and two or three brick houses are brick.
10. 1836-1841 — A system of locks and dams is built on the Muskingum River, opening McConnelsville and neighboring Malta to steady river trade.
11. 1840 — The census counts 1,018 residents, up from 267 in 1830 and 151 in 1820; the foundry on the river bank is built about 1839.
12. 1850-11-23 — The Zanesville and McConnelsville Telegraph Company, organized in October, puts its line in operation to McConnelsville on November 23; it is extended to Beverly and Marietta in 1851.
13. 1858 — The Morgan County Courthouse, a Greek Revival building, is erected in McConnelsville.
14. 1869-09-10 — The village council passes the McConnelsville Ordinance, a liquor ordinance drafted by a committee of Mayor Watkins, Recorder Murry and Councilman Stanbery; repealed in 1871 and re-enacted in 1874, it is upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in Burckholter v. The State and copied by many Ohio towns.
15. 1960 — The census counts 2,257 residents, the highest of the century; the village has 1,667 in 2020.

Stories

A courthouse and its ghost

The Morgan County Courthouse was built in 1858 in the Greek Revival style. It has served as the seat of county government since the town's founding years, and local lore attaches a ghost story to a former county attorney who worked within its walls. The building remains the visual anchor of McConnelsville's small downtown, overlooking the courthouse square where Main Street meets the Muskingum River bluff.

Two river towns, one crossing

McConnelsville and its neighbor Malta sit across the Muskingum River from each other, and their fortunes rose together once locks and dams were built on the river between 1836 and 1841. The waterway carried freight and passengers past both towns for decades, tying the county seat to river commerce long before railroads reached Morgan County. A historical marker on the riverbank, "Two River Towns: McConnelsville and Malta," records the shared story of the crossing.

The McConnelsville Ordinance

In April 1869, with F. W. Wood as mayor, McConnelsville passed an ordinance to restrain the liquor traffic, and it proved unsatisfactory. On September 10, 1869 a committee of Mayor Watkins, Recorder Murry and Councilman Stanbery was appointed to draft a stricter one; it was introduced and passed the same evening, every member of council voting for it. It was repealed on July 15, 1871, and re-enacted on March 14, 1874 under Mayor Hanna. Robertson's 1886 county history says the ordinance became quite noted: it was adopted in many cities and villages in Ohio and elsewhere, went to the state Supreme Court in the case of Burckholter v. The State and was declared constitutional, and some of its features were later incorporated in the Scott law. Its main feature was the power of a village corporation to 'restrain and prohibit' places selling ale, beer and porter, which remained in force until a change in the statutes took that power from incorporated villages. The county seat's temperance men had begun in earnest at the first temperance convention in McConnelsville on the Fourth of July, 1834.

Salt and butter

The 1886 history tells of Jacob R. Price, McConnelsville's village blacksmith and later county treasurer, an estimable man but quick-tempered. In a political argument one day with a man named Clymer, who had just bought a small quantity of butter and was carrying it home on a plate, the lie was passed and Price dashed the plate, butter and all, in Clymer's face. Price was arrested and tried; the testimony made it a clear case of assault and battery, but Price said in his shrill piping voice, 'No, no, just a case of salt and butter.' The justice evidently held the same opinion, for he decided the case in Price's favor. Price's shop was also the place where an anvil was fired off thirteen times to open the town's Fourth of July in 1820.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mcconnelsville Village79% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville - Sr 37612% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Malta Village8% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville Rural1% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (2)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-09-01
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-07-30

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.

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