Monday Creek Township, Perry County

How Monday Creek Township, Perry County began

Monday Creek Township, twenty-four sections cut from Fairfield County's territory and organized in 1823, takes its name from Big and Little Monday creeks, which drain it toward the Hocking River; it lies in southwestern Perry County, south of Jackson Township, and is part of the Hocking Valley coal field along with Salt Lick, Coal and Monroe townships. Timothy Terrell, a Virginian, is recorded as its first permanent settler in 1815. Its one platted village is Maxville, laid out in 1850 by William McCormick and known for the Maxville Limestone burned there for plasterer's lime; from 1874 the Baird Furnace in the east of the township smelted local ore into pig iron. The village of New Straitsville, closely tied to the Monday Creek valley, is its own incorporated unit and covered separately. The 1902 county history records three earth mounds and a village site in the township, and remembers Native people returning to plant and harvest corn in Whiskey Hollow after white settlement began.

Settled 1815, platted 1850 (Maxville), incorporated 1823 (township organized), by Timothy Terrell (first permanent settler); William McCormick (Maxville).

Where the name comes from

Named after Big and Little Monday creeks, which flow through and drain the township.

Before the town

The 1902 county history records three earth mounds and one village site of pre-contact mound-building peoples within Monday Creek Township, and separately preserves a settler memory that Native people continued to come to a place called Whiskey Hollow, within the township, to plant and harvest corn even after the arrival of white settlers. The same source traces a branch of the Shawnee Run Trail from the saltlick at McCuneville across the ridge to Salt Run in Monday Creek Township, where a second saltlick drew game; near the head of one of its tributaries was a camping place among rocks, with a large rock hollowed into an inverted cone where corn was cracked with stone pestles, which the author calls an Indian hominy mill and says could still be seen in 1902. The trail then followed Little Monday Creek to a camp below the site of Maxville, on the D. Hardy farm, before crossing to Whiskey Hollow and on toward Lancaster. The 1902 author attributes the Shawnee Run trail system to Shawnee travel, but no source names which nation used these particular camps.

• Whiskey Hollow (camp) — Monday Creek Township, Perry County, historic, continuing into early settlement era (archive.org)
• Salt Run camping place (camp) — Salt Run, Monday Creek Township, Perry County, near a saltlick, historic (pre-1800s) (archive.org)
• Salt Run hominy-mill rock (other) — at the Salt Run camping place, Monday Creek Township: a large rock with a cone-shaped hollow used for cracking corn, historic (pre-1800s) (archive.org)
• Camp below Maxville (D. Hardy farm) (camp) — on Little Monday Creek below the site of Maxville, historic (pre-1800s) (archive.org)
• Monday Creek Township mound group and village site (mound|village) — Monday Creek Township, Perry County (unspecified location), pre-contact (unspecified) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1815 — Timothy Terrell, from Virginia, settles with his family as the township's first permanent settler; his brother-in-law Robert Nixon and Charles Manning soon follow.
2. 1823 — Monday Creek Township organized within Perry County.
3. 1832 — Baptists build Ebenezer church, a log building, one mile west of the later Maxville, about this year.
4. 1840 — Methodists organize at Mount Carmel, two and a half miles east of Maxville, about this year and build a frame church.
5. 1850 — William McCormick lays out Maxville on Little Monday Creek; the 1902 history derives the name from 'Mc's ville.'
6. 1852 — The Maxville Methodists, organized about 1845, build a new frame church on a new lot.
7. 1855 — A post office is established at Maxville; it operates until 1904.
8. 1874 — Baird's Furnace, built by Frank Baird and partners on several hundred acres of ore, coal and limestone land in the east of the township, goes into blast.
9. 1880 — The township has 1,636 inhabitants; Maxville has two or three hundred and the unplatted furnace village at Baird's about one hundred.

Stories

The bear that chased Timothy Terrell

Monday Creek was among the wildest parts of the county when Timothy Terrell arrived from Virginia in 1815, with bears, wolves and panthers still common. The 1883 county history records two bear chases. Robert Nixon, Terrell's brother-in-law, wounded a bear while hunting without a dog and ran for his life shouting for help; Terrell and his sons, who were rolling logs nearby, dropped a log half way up the skid and came running, and the bear retreated. Later Terrell himself wounded a large bear that turned on him, and he threw away his gun, pouch and everything but his knife to run. He said he gained going uphill and the bear gained going down, snorting at every jump, until it finally gave up. On another Sunday, while their parents were at church, the Terrell children and two large dogs killed a cub in the meadow, dressed it the way they had seen their father do, and had it cooking in the dinner pot when their parents came home.

Iron at Baird's Furnace

Landowners in Monday Creek had long dug iron ore and hauled it to the furnace at Logan in Hocking County. Frank Baird, who ran that furnace for a time, came to know the township's ore, and about 1872 he and partners bought several hundred acres in the eastern part of the township that held ore, coal and limestone together. Their furnace went into blast in 1874, and the 1883 history claims it made pig iron there more cheaply than anywhere else in the world. Ore from across the township was sold to Baird's and to the Gore, Winona and Logan furnaces, the first two only a few rods over the Hocking County line. A small unplatted village of about one hundred people, with a company store and a physician, grew up around the furnace.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Logan, City Of53% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)
• New Straitsville, Village Of39% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Old Straitsville Water Association4% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Junction City3% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

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