Morgan Township, Morgan County

How Morgan Township, Morgan County began

Morgan Township was set off on August 10, 1818, from the original survey Township 11 of Range 12, before it had been part of Deerfield Township under Washington County. At 11.5 sections it is the smallest township in the county by area, its irregular triangular shape following the Muskingum River along its southwestern border. Much of the township is occupied by McConnelsville, the county seat, and coal from the Cumberland seam has been mined north of town for more than a century. The 2020 census recorded 2,287 people.

Incorporated 1818, by set off by county order, August 10, 1818, from the original survey Township 11, Range 12.

Where the name comes from

Named, like the county itself, for Daniel Morgan, a Revolutionary War general and Virginia congressman.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail or mound site specific to Morgan Township is recorded. The township follows the Muskingum River, a corridor used by the Lenape (Delaware) and Wyandot before and during Ohio Company settlement, as recorded at the county level.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1785 — The territory northwest of the Ohio River, including the future township, is surveyed by Congress under the Land Ordinance of 1785 into ranges, townships, and sections.
2. 1818 — Morgan Township is set off on August 10 from the original survey Township 11 of Range 12, previously part of Deerfield Township.
3. 1818 — James Young is commissioned the township's first justice of the peace on November 17; he resigns February 11, 1820.
4. 1819 — The township's first political election is held July 31, recording thirty-eight pioneer voters, including Lewis Ramey, Gilbert Olney, Nathaniel Sprague, Amasa Piper, John Bell, and Alexander McConnel.
5. 1819 — When Penn Township is organized the county commissioners strike a row of sections from the south side of Morgan and attach a like number to Morgan from the south side of Bloom, equalizing the three townships.
6. 1820-09-02 — Commissioners settle the accounts of Morgan and Deerfield townships: $79.21 was due both when Morgan was set off, of which Morgan's share is $25.40; the trustees had named Jacob R. Price to adjust them on April 20.
7. 1820-10 — At the October general election the township's judges certify 69 votes for Jeremiah Morrow for governor, and for state representative Alexander McConnel receives 53 and Timothy Buell 44.
8. 1821-09-01 — The trustees call a meeting at the McConnelsville schoolhouse on September 1 to elect two delegates to the first county political convention; at the October 9 election 95 votes are cast on the first tickets of what became the Brimstone and Junto contests.
9. 1823 — By October the pioneer roster has grown to 144 names; on October 14 Alexander McConnel defeats Timothy Gaylord for justice of the peace, 48 votes to 40, the decisive contest between the rival 'Junto' and 'Brimstone' factions.
10. 1839 — Malta Township is formed and the river made the line; Morgan gains half of sections 6 and 19 and the part of section 30 east of the river to Meigsville, leaving it an irregular triangle with the smallest area in the county.
11. 1886 — Cumberland-seam coal, about three feet thick in two strata, has been mined two miles north of McConnelsville for over fifty years, and coal and kidney iron ore lie a mile east of town; the township covers 11.5 sections, 7,520 acres.

Stories

Juntos and Brimstones

In its first years, Morgan Township's politics split into two rival factions with colorful names: the 'Juntos' and the 'Brimstones.' Elections were contested hard between them at the township schoolhouse in McConnelsville, and the rivalry came to a head on October 14, 1823, when Alexander McConnel, running as a Junto, defeated Brimstone candidate Timothy Gaylord for justice of the peace by a vote of 48 to 40. The factions did not survive the 1824 presidential election, when former rivals found themselves united behind candidates like Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson, and the old Junto-Brimstone line faded from local memory almost as quickly as it had formed.

Old Joe's tavern with no sign

Among the township's early pioneers, an 1886 county history remembered a backwoodsman known only as 'Old Joe,' a celebrated hunter who took his lodging wherever he found it. When the taverns of McConnelsville were full, Old Joe would sleep at a log-heap on the edge of town, and he joked that it was 'the tavern with the sign of God help us' -- a line that stuck in local memory long after his own name had been mostly forgotten.

Squire Young's Saturday court

Before Morgan County was organized in 1819, Morgan Township was part of Deerfield, and the only acting justice of the peace was James Young, commissioned on November 17, 1818. Judge Gaylord recalled that Young held his court in an old dilapidated shed attached to his dwelling on lot 64 at Main and Union streets in McConnelsville. Young was a brickmaker and mason who built the Adams House, the first brick dwelling in the county, and made the brick and put up the first courthouse; he also kept a tavern, so, almost constantly busy at his trades, he made Saturday his court day and disposed of a good deal of legal business, in Gaylord's words, in a way peculiar to the times. When legal business piled up, the trustees ordered an election for an additional justice on July 31, 1819, the first political demonstration the settlers are known to have held. Thirty-eight men voted, eleven of them living in McConnelsville and most of the rest on the Malta side, and Timothy M. Gates was elected with fifteen of thirty-six votes.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mcconnelsville Village79% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville - Sr 37612% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Malta Village8% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville Rural1% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Public schools (3)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2024: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

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 2026-06-09

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