Monroe Township, Darke County

How Monroe Township, Darke County began

Monroe Township occupies the southeast corner of Darke County. It was laid off in June 1836 from the east end of Twin Township. The ground was a swampy forest of ash drained by Ludlow Creek, and Asa Jones and Henry Addington built the first cabins on Section 8 about 1819; Jones also taught the first school. Settlers were slow to come until the swamps were ditched and tiled, after which the soil proved among the most fertile in the county. The German Baptist Brethren (Ludlow and Painter Creek congregation) numbered about 400 members in 1880. The one village, Pitsburg, grew up after a railroad crossed the township.

Settled c. 1819 (Asa Jones and Henry Addington), incorporated 1836-06, by carved from the east end of Twin Township.

Where the name comes from

Neither county history says why the township is called Monroe.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound or trail specific to Monroe Township is recorded in the sources checked. The township lies south of the Greenville treaty line, in land ceded in 1795. The 1880 county history's evocation of 'the whoop of the red man or the whiz of his arrow' in the pre-settlement swamp is rhetoric, not a record of an event.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1819 — Asa Jones and Henry Addington build the first cabins in what becomes Monroe Township, on Section 8.
2. 1820 — A family named Mote, the third to settle, arrives; Mr. Mote dies within the year, the township's first death among the settlers, and is buried at Milton, Miami County.
3. 1823 — Thomas Jones, Asa's brother, settles in the north and George Gabel in the south.
4. 1836 — The township's first election is held in the fall; John Oakes casts the first ballot and Ezekiel Mote the second, and the first school district is laid out.
5. 1836-06 — Monroe Township is laid off from the east end of Twin Township.
6. 1837 — The partly finished schoolhouse is moved to Section 28 and completed; Asa Jones, the first settler, becomes the first teacher.
7. 1880 — The township has seven school buildings costing about $6,000 and 548 children of school age; the German Baptist Brethren congregation numbers about 400 across Monroe and Franklin townships.
8. 1880 — The county historian reports that Monroe has no village, only a place called Pittsburg that 'lives only in name and story.'
9. 1909 — The village, known for some years as Arnettsville, takes the name Pitsburg.
10. 1910 — The township's population is 1,539, one of the few in the county to have grown since 1900; Pitsburg has 240.
11. 1913 — The township is assessed at $1,880,700 in real estate and $746,290 in chattels.
12. 2020 — Census population is 1,647.

Stories

Pittsburg: a village that lived only in name, for a time

Monroe Township's one attempt at a village never became more than an ambition. The 1880 county history records that a place bearing the name Pittsburg once existed within the township's bounds, born of what it calls 'an idle dream of future greatness' on the part of its founders. By 1880, that dream had faded entirely: 'the ravages of time, the destroyer of all things, have lain in the dust the ambitions of its founders, and Pittsburg lives only in name and story.' The settlement later revived: the 1914 county history says it was known for some years as Arnettsville until the name was changed in 1909, and calls the Pitsburg of that day probably the best built and most prosperous village of its size in the county. Pitsburg is treated in its own unit.

The German Baptist Brethren of Ludlow and Painter Creek

The most visible religious body in 1880s Monroe Township was the German Baptist Brethren, who had two meeting houses, one in Monroe and one in Franklin, forming the Ludlow and Painter Creek congregation of about 400 members, led by Rev. Jesse Stutsman, Elder William Cassell and Rev. Tobias Kreider. Their first minister in the township, Philip Younce, preached its first sermon. The county historian, writing of the denomination, traces it to a group that left Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1719 for Germantown, Pennsylvania, fleeing persecution, and says it then counted over 100,000 members in twenty states. He tells too how Jacob Miller, who settled near Dayton in 1800, visited Native people in their wigwams, singing and praying with them, so that they said he was the good man the Great Spirit sent from the East. The Lutherans (about forty members) were the township's other organized church in 1880.

Swamp ash wilderness to the garden of the county

Settlement came slowly to Monroe because the land was so wet. The 1880 county history calls the early township 'very low and wet,' and the 1914 history, describing Asa Jones and Henry Addington's cabins of about 1819, speaks of a 'howling swamp ash wilderness.' The children who went to school in Jones's log cabin followed blazed paths, since the woods were so tangled that a child could lose the way. Farmers later dug ditches and laid underground tile along Ludlow Creek and its tributaries, and the drained swamp turned out to hold a deep vegetable loam. By 1914 the county history was calling Monroe one of the most fertile tracts in the county, with much tobacco and grain going out through Pitsburg's elevators.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Arcanum Village80% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Laura Village13% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Verona, Village Of7% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Public schools (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-18
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-27

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