Muskingum Township, Muskingum County

How Muskingum Township, Muskingum County began

Muskingum Township lies along the west bank of the Muskingum River just north of Zanesville, and was organized September 3, 1817 from land formerly split between West Zanesville and Falls Township. The first settlers, David Devore, James Beach and James Black, arrived in 1797, while the acquisition of the land from its Native inhabitants was still not fully settled, and an 1800 revenge killing of two Native men by aggrieved settlers marks the last recorded friction with Native people in the township. It grew into a farming township with small crossroads communities such as Shannon and, after a long population decline from its 1850 peak, has grown rapidly again since 1980 as a Zanesville suburb.

Settled 1797 (David Devore, James Beach, James Black), incorporated township organized September 3, 1817, by organized by Muskingum County from parts of West Zanesville and Falls Township.

Where the name comes from

Named for the Muskingum River, which forms its eastern boundary. The river's name is usually traced to Shawnee mshkikwam ('swampy ground') or Lenape machkigen (referring to thorns/a thornbush species); a folk etymology gives 'elk's eye' (mus + wəshkinkw), a reading the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger recorded, saying the river was so called for the elk that once fed on its banks. No source found gives a township-specific naming story beyond the river itself.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or treaty line has been documented as sitting inside present Muskingum Township's boundaries in the sources reviewed. What the 1882 county history does record for this specific ground is conflict at the very end of the Native presence in the area: when David Devore, James Beach and James Black arrived in 1797, the county history states plainly that title to the land had not yet been fully acquired from its Native inhabitants, who were reluctant to leave hunting grounds and ancestral graves and continued, in the historian's words, to occasionally run off livestock and, on provocation, kill settlers. In April 1800 Native raiders took horses belonging to two settlers named Hughes and Ratliff; the two men, joined by a third settler, John Bland, tracked the raiders about thirty miles into Knox County, killed one man, and let the second go only after he pleaded for his life -- a killing the county history frames approvingly as the reason 'the red man began to forsake this region' afterward. No source names the nation or nations involved, and the incident is recorded from the settlers' side only, with no Native voice preserved. The wider name-origin discussion above concerns the Muskingum River as a whole, not a site in this township specifically.

Timeline

1. 1797 — David Devore, James Beach and James Black become the first settlers, arriving while title to the land was still contested with its Native inhabitants.
2. 1798 — David Devore builds the first hewed-log house in the township; John Bland, Elijah Stradley and Ebenezer Ryan also settle this year.
3. 1800 — Settlers Hughes and Ratliff, joined by John Bland, track Native raiders who had taken their horses about thirty miles into Knox County and kill one of two men found there in an act of revenge.
4. 1808 — Township organized as part of West Zanesville under a reorganization dated June 7.
5. 1817 — Muskingum Township, as now bounded, is organized September 3, out of what had been West Zanesville and Falls Township; the first township election is held at Captain James Taylor's house the last Saturday of that month, and Henry Butler is elected the first Justice of the Peace.
6. 1820 — Col. George Jackson erects the township's first salt works near the Muskingum River; salt sold for three to four dollars a bushel at the time.
7. 1825 — Firman Spencer builds the first brick house in the township, near the village of Shannon, which he platted on his own land in 1830.
8. 1834 — St. Mary's Catholic Church is founded at the home of William Mattingly, with the Dominican Fathers of Zanesville saying Mass there monthly; a permanent 70-by-35-foot brick church follows in 1856 on land Mattingly donated.
9. 1850 — The township's population peaks at 1,509 before nearly a century of decline.
10. 1920 — Population bottoms out at 647, the low point of a decline that began after 1850.
11. 1980-2020 — Population climbs from 2,712 to 4,861 as the township grows as a Zanesville-area suburb.

Stories

Puncheon floors and a name for revenge

The 1882 county history gives Muskingum Township's chapter the blunt subtitle 'Revenge Upon the Indians,' and tells it as a settler morality tale. David Devore, James Beach and James Black staked claims here in 1797 even though, the historian admits, the United States did not yet hold clear title to the land -- the Native people who hunted and lived on it were reluctant to leave. Tension came to a head in April 1800 when raiders took horses from two settlers, Hughes and Ratliff. A fresh snowfall let the two men and a neighbor, John Bland, track the raiders thirty miles into Knox County; finding only two men, they drew lots for who would act, shot one dead, and let the second go after he begged for his life. The 1882 historian records this approvingly as the turning point after which 'the red man began to forsake this region.' No Native name or nation is recorded for either man, and no Native account of the episode survives in the sources reviewed -- a reminder that the surviving record of this ground's last years as contested territory comes entirely from the people who took it.

The Pierson schoolhouse's puncheon floor

The township's first school, taught by a Mr. Shutliff around 1815 in the 'Pierson School House,' was built the way most early Ohio schools were: split logs, or puncheons, for the floor, the seats and the writing desks, with a fireplace at one end. The 1882 county history preserves a bit of doggerel local children apparently recited about it -- 'Puncheon the scholar sat upon, / Puncheon the scholar wrote upon' -- and credits the school with launching several notable careers: Hon. C. S. Hamilton, later a U.S. Representative; Dr. John Hamilton, a Columbus physician; ministers Israel and Joel Thrapp; and state legislator Elias Ellis, whose father had carried the family's household goods into the township on pack horses from Belmont County in 1806.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Muskingum County Water - Se63% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• Zanesville25% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (wells)
• Dresden7% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• South Zanesville2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Maysville Regional Water2% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• Frazeysburg1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Greenlawn Estates MHP0% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• Country Hills MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2017: 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-07

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