Monroe Township, Madison County

• Deer Creek LakeBuilt 1968 · 1,277 acres

How Monroe Township, Madison County began

Monroe Township lies in the north-central part of Madison County, flat Darby Plains prairie and oak openings drained by Spring Fork and the Little Darby. The Bradley family from Virginia settled here about 1804-05, James Marks and others by 1808, and the county commissioners created the township on 16 March 1819. In its southeast corner stood the largest mound in the county, a prehistoric earthwork beside a favorite Native camping ground where a man named Nicholas Monhem was shot in 1810. The township has no incorporated village; its trading points are Plumwood, platted in 1895 as Sanford, and the unplatted crossroads of Resaca. It had 1,581 residents in 2020.

Settled About 1804-1805 (the Bradley family from Virginia), incorporated Township created 16 March 1819, by Jonah Bradley and family.

Where the name comes from

The commissioners called the township Monroe in their order of 16 March 1819; neither the 1883 nor the 1915 county history says why. Ohio has about two dozen Monroe townships.

Before the town

Monroe Township holds the most important Native site in Madison County. The 1883 county history describes the largest mound in the county on a ridge in the southeast corner of the township, on John Dun's estate, overlooking the junction of Spring Fork and the Little Darby: an oval 'temple mound' 600 feet around the base and about 25 feet high with signs of steps or inclined planes. Its builders are unidentified; the nineteenth-century 'temple mound' label is not an archaeological finding, and the mound's actual culture is not established in the sources consulted. In the pioneer era the vicinity was a favorite Indian camping ground, said to use the mound for burial, with a camping ground close by; the Native people returned there after settlement, and in 1810 Tobias Bright killed a Native man named Nicholas Monhem there. Jonathan Alder, a white captive adopted by a Mingo family, also hunted and camped in this part of central Ohio in the 1780s-90s. The land was hunted by Shawnee and Wyandot until the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

• Large oval mound ('temple mound') on the John Dun estate (mound) — Ridge in the southeast corner of Monroe Township, above the junction of Spring Fork and the Little Darby, Prehistoric (culture unspecified); camping ground and killing of Nicholas Monhem, 1810 (archive.org)
• Native camping ground beside the mound (camp) — Southeast corner of Monroe Township, pioneer era, c. 1800-1810 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. About 1804-1805 — The Bradley family from Virginia, Jonah, David, James, Susan and Nancy, settle on Spring Fork in the township, probably the first white family; Peter Paugh and Robert Powers settle about the same time.
2. 1807-1808 — James Marks, born in Kentucky, buys land east of the Little Darby and starts in a log cabin with no floor, door or chimney; he becomes owner of nearly 1,000 acres.
3. 1810 — Tobias Bright shoots a man named Nicholas Monhem in cold blood near the large mound in the southeast corner of the township, creating great excitement among the Indians and almost leading to a collision with the whites.
4. About 1815 — Jonas, James and Joseph Heath settle at the forks of the Little Darby and Spring Fork; Jonah Bradley builds a water-powered grist mill on Spring Fork a few years after settling.
5. 16 March 1819 — The county commissioners, Burton Blizzard, Ira Finch and Patrick McLene, create Monroe Township; its bounds are changed when Phelps (Canaan) Township is formed in June and Pike Township is enlarged.
6. About 1825 — John Aylor builds a sawmill and David Link a gristmill on the Little Darby.
7. 1873 — Wilson Chapel, a Methodist Episcopal church, is built on land donated by Washington Wilson east of the Little Darby and dedicated debt-free in the fall.
8. 13 December 1875 — Fair Plain Christian Church is organized with thirteen members after a Sunday school started at the Finley Schoolhouse in 1872.
9. 1895-12-23 — Charles F. Sanford laid out the village of Sanford, later renamed Plumwood, which became the township's principal trading center.
10. 1915 — Plumwood was recorded as one of the largest trade posts in Madison County, with three general stores, a blacksmith, six threshing outfits, three hay-baling outfits, and a population of about 200.
11. 1915 — The county history lists two small villages in the township: Resaca, a few stores in the northeast corner where four townships meet and never platted, and Plumwood, in the south central part.
12. 2020 — Census recorded 1,581 residents in the township.

Stories

From Sanford to Plumwood

On December 23, 1895, Charles F. Sanford platted a new village in the middle of Monroe Township and, unsurprisingly, named it after himself: Sanford. The name did not stick, and the settlement became known as Plumwood instead. By 1915 the little crossroads had outgrown its size, functioning as one of the busiest trading points in Madison County: three general stores did business alongside a blacksmith shop, six threshing crews, and three hay-baling outfits serving the surrounding grain and livestock farms, with a population of roughly 200. The township hall still sits at Plumwood today.

The temple mound and the killing of Nicholas Monhem

The largest mound in Madison County, and one of the largest in Ohio, stood on a ridge in the southeast corner of Monroe Township on John Dun's estate, overlooking the junction of Spring Fork and the Little Darby. The 1883 county history called it a temple mound: oval, 600 feet around the base and about 25 feet high, with signs of steps or ramps to the top, and thought to have once carried a wooden structure. In pioneer days its neighborhood was a favorite camping ground of the Indians, who were said to use the mound for burial, and long after the whites had settled the land, they came back to a spot they held sacred as the resting place of their dead. There, in 1810, Tobias Bright shot a man named Nicholas Monhem in cold blood. The killing caused such excitement among the Indians that it nearly led to a collision with the settlers. The historian drew the moral that a mound built by one race long before had become a place sacred to its successors.

A mill on Spring Fork

Before Jonah Bradley built his gristmill on Spring Fork a few years after his arrival around 1804, settlers of Monroe Township had to go to Chillicothe to grind their corn and buy groceries. Bradley was a carpenter by trade who made his own wagons and farm tools, and built the water-powered mill with his own hands. The 1883 history calls it 'one of the great improvements' of its day. Later mills on the Little Darby, John Aylor's sawmill and David Link's gristmill of about 1825, did a large business for several years and had decayed by 1883. James Guy, a Vermonter who came about 1826, bought cattle from the whole neighborhood and drove them on foot to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia; when the herds stampeded, the drovers had to run for their lives.

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

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