Mill Creek Township, Coshocton County

How Mill Creek Township, Coshocton County began

Mill Creek Township, organized in July 1817, sits in the far north of Coshocton County, bordering Holmes County, and is named for its principal stream. Richard Babcock, who had come from Vermont by way of Harrison County, settled alone on a quarter section in 1812; in the fall of 1815 a wandering band of Indians camped near his land and raided his ripening corn until he fetched twelve settlers from Coshocton, only to find the band gone for good. The township was carved from the larger original Mill Creek and has never had a surveyed town lot; its nearest approach to a village is a country store and post office called Mound, opened by Daniel Babcock in 1880. It is heavily Amish and Mennonite today, with a majority speaking Pennsylvania German or German at home as of the most recent census.

Settled 1812 (Richard Babcock), incorporated July 1817, by Richard Babcock, first recorded settler; first election of officers held at the house of John P. Wilson.

Where the name comes from

No source found gives a documented reason for the name beyond the obvious: the township is drained by a stream called Mill Creek, a common Ohio watercourse and township name tied to the early mills built along such streams. No township-specific naming account was found, including in the 1881 county history.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty event specific to Mill Creek Township is documented, but the 1881 county history records one direct encounter. In the fall of 1815, while Richard Babcock was still the township's only white occupant, a band of Indians camped a short distance southeast of his land and repeatedly raided his ripening corn despite his objections. Unable to confront them alone, Babcock sent word to the scattered settlers near Coshocton, and twelve men set out for his place to drive the intruders off; by the time they arrived the Indians, apparently forewarned, had already left the area for good. A trail up Mill Creek past Babcock's cabin to the Carpenter settlement on Doughty's Fork in Holmes County was, for a time, the only public way through the township.

Timeline

1. 1803 — Ebenezer Buckingham surveys the first, second and fourth quarters of the township as Congress land; the southwest quarter, a military section, is surveyed into thirty-four 100-acre lots by William Cutbush in 1808.
2. 1812 — Richard Babcock, formerly of Vermont and then Harrison County, settles with his family on a quarter section of land in what became Mill Creek Township, and for three years was the township's only settler.
3. 1815 — Solomon Vail, from Youngstown by way of Tuscarawas Township, enters the northeast quarter of section 23 and becomes the second settler.
4. 1815 — A band of Indians camps near Babcock's cornfield and raids it repeatedly; twelve men from near Coshocton set out to confront them, but the Indians have already left the area by the time they arrive.
5. 1816-03-27 — Moses Thompson, born in Ireland and last living in Jefferson County, becomes the third settler; he raises a cabin on the northwest quarter of section 22 with the help of settlers from far and near.
6. 1816 — David Grim, son of settler Henry Grim, teaches the township's first school in John Williams's newly built but not-yet-occupied cabin.
7. 1817 — Mill Creek Township is organized as a civil township of Coshocton County; the first election is held at the house of John P. Wilson.
8. 1817 — Pioneers enter the township more rapidly: Thomas Moore, Henry Grim, John P. Wilson, James Osborn and others settle, and Philip Fernsler, elected to a minor office, refuses on conscientious grounds to be sworn in and pays the $2 fine.
9. c. 1820 — Frederick Miser, a man of towering stature in a fox-skin cap, settles in section 1 and is known for carrying two deer home on a pole after a hunt.
10. 1823 — St. Mark's Parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church is organized at the dwelling of settler Moses Thompson, with Bishop Chase officiating.
11. 1824 — The members of St. Mark's Parish build a hewed-log church without cash, giving labor instead.
12. 1825-1826 — A Sunday school is organized with Samuel Elliott as superintendent and William Grim assistant.
13. 1830 — The township's population is 587; it reaches its peak of 907 in 1840 and falls to 586 by 1870.
14. 1848-1849 — The Disciples of Christ, preached to by Elders Norris and Snow for nearly fifty years, build a meeting-house near the Babcock farm; it declines as members move away and is later a dwelling.
15. 1859 — St. Mark's present church is built at a cost of $800 on land donated by Moses Thompson.
16. 1861-1862 — Elliott's Chapel, a Methodist Episcopal frame church costing about $500, is built by John Elliott and dedicated in April 1862.
17. 1880 — Daniel Babcock, grandson of the township's first settler, opens a country store in the southeastern part of the township; a post office named Mound is established there soon after, the township's only postal address.
18. 1880 — The census counts 620 residents, after a decline from 907 in 1840; no town lot has ever been surveyed in the township.

Stories

A Vermonter by way of Harrison County

Richard Babcock's path to Mill Creek Township traced much of the early Ohio migration pattern in miniature: born in Vermont, he first stopped for a time in Harrison County before pushing on to Coshocton County, where in 1812 he purchased and settled a quarter section with his family. That was five years before the township around him was even organized, in July 1817, which places him among the genuine first settlers of this corner of the county. For three years he was the township's only settler, and in the fall of 1815 he had to send for help from the river settlements near Coshocton when Indians camping nearby raided his cornfield. He was killed by a runaway team about 1823; his youngest son held the home farm until his own death in 1874, and his grandson Daniel Babcock still farmed the place, and ran the township's only store and post office, when the county history was written in 1881.

A sermon to an invisible congregation

One Sunday evening a preacher was to hold services in a Mill Creek schoolhouse. The time arrived, and with it the preacher and his congregation, but the man in charge of the building came late with fuel and candles and, by a strange oversight, without fire. There were no matches, it was getting late, the night was very dark and the nearest house was a long way off. The good brother decided to go on regardless. He bade the people be seated, found his way to the pulpit, climbed into it, and delivered a sermon, the county historian records, with great power and unction to his invisible hearers. Elliott's Chapel was built nearby in 1861-62 for $500, and the neighborhood's Episcopalians had built their log church of St. Mark's in 1824 without cash, the members and neighbours giving labor instead.

Wedding shoes for a millstone

The first corn ground in Mill Creek Township was cracked in a little hand mill that Solomon Vail was lucky to own. Not satisfied, he resolved to build a power mill with his brother-in-law Benjamin Firbee. It was a rude affair, capable of grinding only corn, and Thomas Elliott agreed to bring the millstones from Mansfield; as payment Vail, a jack of all trades, made him a pair of wedding shoes. The water soon washed around the dam, and Vail built a larger mill a little farther down Mill Creek that could grind wheat, though the flour had to be bolted by hand at a separate mill. It was later replaced by a short-lived sawmill.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Coshocton53% of residentsSand & gravel aquifer near Walhonding River/Mill Creek valley (wells)
• Millersburg Village33% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Berlin Water Company8% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Bloomfield Water Company5% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Walnut Creek Water Co.1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Bomac Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Nashville Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Private schools (7)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-05-20

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