Monroe Township, Pickaway County

• Deer Creek LakeBuilt 1968 · 1,277 acres

How Monroe Township, Pickaway County began

Peter Van Buskirk, a Marylander who had spent a year at Chillicothe, is remembered as Monroe Township's first permanent settler, arriving on the bank of Deer Creek about 1800 to build a grist-mill and distillery. The township was organized as a civil township sometime after Pickaway County's own creation in 1810, though neither 19th-century county history could pin down the exact date, and it never grew a real village of its own beyond the crossroads hamlet of Five Points, which got its first store in 1849 and a post office in 1851. Its best-known landmark dates from 1918, when Harry M. Daugherty, later U.S. Attorney General, built a log cabin retreat here that President Warren Harding is said to have visited; the cabin and an adjoining ancient mound group on Tick Ridge now sit inside Deer Creek State Park, formed when the Army Corps of Engineers dammed Deer Creek in 1968. Today Monroe remains one of the county's least populated townships, an open farming landscape along the Fayette County line.

Settled c. 1799-1800.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted explains why the township was named for James Monroe (or possibly Monroe County, Virginia, home to some early settler families) rather than giving a specific reason. Ohio has twenty-two townships named Monroe. Neither the 1880 nor the 1906 Pickaway County history addresses the naming.

Before the town

Neither 19th-century Pickaway County history names a Native village, camp, or leader specific to Monroe Township's own ground, and the township's land, like the rest of the county, was opened to settlement by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. The one documented trace of much older occupation lies on Tick Ridge, a peninsula on Deer Creek Lake now inside Deer Creek State Park: the Tick Ridge Mound District, a group of Native American mounds, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. A general history of the park published by a tourism site (not a scholarly excavation report) states that hunter-gatherers camped on a ridge overlooking Deer Creek and its valley around 2000 BC, working the site periodically and leaving burial evidence behind; this is consistent with, but not confirmed to be, the same location as the Tick Ridge mounds, and no source consulted gives the mounds' builders a specific cultural name (Adena, Hopewell, or otherwise) or an excavation date. Pickaway County as a whole is named for the Pekowi (Pickaway) division of the Shawnee, who had a town well to the east on the Pickaway Plains near Circleville.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.

• Tick Ridge Mound District (mound) — Tick Ridge Peninsula, Deer Creek State Park, Monroe Township, unspecified prehistoric (culture not identified in sources consulted) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of what becomes Ohio, including the future Monroe Township, to the United States.
2. c. 1799-1800 — Peter Van Buskirk, from Maryland by way of a year in Ross County, settles on the bank of Deer Creek and builds a grist-mill and distillery; he is regarded by some as the township's pioneer settler.
3. 1800 — Charles Longberry arrives from Pennsylvania, one of the township's other earliest documented settlers.
4. 1810 — Pickaway County is organized; Monroe becomes a separate civil township at some point afterward, though no surviving record fixes the exact date.
5. 1849 — William Leach opens the township's first store, at Five Points.
6. 1851 — The township's first post office opens at Five Points, with John Long as postmaster.
7. 1918 — Harry M. Daugherty, later U.S. Attorney General, builds a log cabin, later known as 'The Shack,' in the township; President Warren G. Harding is said to have visited.
8. 1968 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes a dam on Deer Creek, creating Deer Creek Lake.
9. 1974 — The Shack (Harding Cabin) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, May 23; the Ohio Department of Natural Resources also establishes Deer Creek State Park this year.
10. 1975 — The Tick Ridge Mound District, on a peninsula in the new state park, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, June 11.
11. 1978 — A marina opens at Deer Creek State Park.
12. 1981 — A resort lodge opens at Deer Creek State Park.

Stories

Five Points and Nothing Else

Monroe Township never produced a real village, only the crossroads called Five Points, and the 1880 county history is almost droll about it: the place 'has not been blessed with hotels, mills, manufactories, physicians or lawyers, and the dwellers therein should assuredly be healthful and peaceful, as they doubtless are.' William Leach opened the first store there in 1849; a post office followed in 1851 with John Long as postmaster. Saw and grist-mills went up nearby on Van Buskirk's Run in the earliest years of settlement, but by 1880 every trace of them had vanished. It was, and largely remains, a farming township defined by the absence of a town center rather than the presence of one.

A Cabin for the Ohio Gang

In 1918, while serving as Warren Harding's campaign manager and soon to be his attorney general, Harry M. Daugherty built a log retreat in the Monroe Township woods that came to be known simply as 'The Shack.' Local memory holds that Harding visited more than once, and that Daugherty's circle of political associates and cronies, later notorious as the 'Ohio Gang' during the corruption scandals of Harding's presidency, conducted business there as well as pleasure. The cabin outlasted the scandal: it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the same year Deer Creek State Park was created around it, and today visitors can walk up to a presidential curiosity standing quietly inside a public campground.

A Ridge Older Than the Township

Long before Deer Creek was dammed in 1968 to make its reservoir, a ridge above the creek's valley was already old ground. A general history of the park describes hunter-gatherers camping there periodically around 2000 BC, drawn back again and again to hunt and gather until the local food supply gave out, then moving on and returning later, leaving burial evidence of a people who used the same high ground across many seasons. The National Register now protects a group of ancient mounds on that same Tick Ridge peninsula, listed in 1975, a reminder that the reservoir's fishing coves and campgrounds sit atop a landscape people had already been using for thousands of years.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Madison County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mount Sterling Village70% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Williamsport Village24% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Darbyville Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Sunset Mobile Home Park3% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

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 2026-07-30
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-24

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