Neave Township, Darke County

How Neave Township, Darke County began

Neave Township was organized on December 5, 1821 and named, according to a story told in both the 1880 and 1914 county histories, for T. C. Neave, who bought the privilege of naming it at a card game. It is the site of Fort Jefferson, built by St. Clair's army in October 1791, which the 1880 history calls the first structure erected by white people in the county, and which was attacked by a band of about a hundred Indians in June 1792. Andrew Noftsinger, who came in 1810, built a block house and in 1817 the third grist mill in the county on Mud Creek; the villages are Fort Jefferson, laid out in 1818, Sampson, and Weaver's Station. The township had 2,198 residents in 2020 and includes the village of Wayne Lakes.

Settled 1791 (Fort Jefferson garrison); 1810 (Andrew Noftsinger, first settler), incorporated December 5, 1821, by Andrew Noftsinger, first civilian settler; T. C. Neave named the township.

Where the name comes from

Both county histories tell the same story: when the township was formed, H. D. Williams and John Douglass played cards against Eaton (Easton) Morris and T. C. Neave to decide who should name it; Williams and Douglass won, then played each other and Williams won, but Neave was so anxious to name the township that he paid Williams $10 for the privilege and named it after himself (Beers 1880; Wilson 1914).

Before the town

Neave Township holds the site of Fort Jefferson (see the sites below). The 1914 county history says an ancient, well-marked Indian trail entered the south of the township along what is now the Ithaca pike, was joined by the old Whitewater trail from Miami County along Greenville Creek and Mud Creek, and later became the Fort Black trail of the War of 1812; it places the meeting of the trails just north of the junction of the Ithaca and New Madison pikes, and says St. Clair and Wayne both used these routes, with a Wayne army camp traditionally at a spring on the Schlecty farm. The same history describes the gravel knolls west of Fort Jefferson, once called the Hills of Judea, as glacial features. On June 25, 1792 a band of about a hundred Indians attacked a party cutting hay near the fort; the 1914 history says sixteen soldiers were killed or missing and that Simon Girty was 'positively asserted' to have been present, though who commanded the Indians is unknown. The land passed by the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami, Wyandot.

• Fort Jefferson (site) — on State Route 121, Neave Township, 1791-1796 (en.wikipedia.org)
• Trail junction near Fort Jefferson (Whitewater trail and Ithaca-pike trail) (trail) — a few rods north of the junction of the Ithaca and New Madison pikes, sections 27 and 34, Neave Township, before 1791 to War of 1812 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1791-10 — General Arthur St. Clair's army builds Fort Jefferson (initially Fort Deposit) in what becomes Neave Township.
2. 1791-11-04 — St. Clair's defeated army reaches Fort Jefferson that evening; the fort proves too small for any but the most severely wounded, who are left there while the rest continue to Fort Washington.
3. 1792-06-25 — A Native raiding party attacks the fort's garrison, killing or capturing sixteen soldiers.
4. 1792-01-30 — Captain Shaylor is named in command of Fort Jefferson in records of this date.
5. 1793 — Anthony Wayne's Legion draws on Fort Jefferson's supplies during the campaign that leads to the Treaty of Greenville.
6. 1810 — Andrew Noftsinger comes to Darke County and settles in what is now Neave Township, building a block house on the west side of the Mud Creek prairie.
7. c. 1816 — John Ryerson, Moses Arnold, George W. Hight, William Townsend, Hezekiah Veitz, John Puterbaugh and Christian Schlechty settle in the township over the next three years.
8. 1817 — Noftsinger builds a grist mill on Mud Creek, the third mill built in Darke County.
9. 1818 — The village of Fort Jefferson is laid out near the old post.
10. 1819 — Peter Weaver, from Butler County, buys land and builds the first house at what becomes Weaver's Station; John Puterbaugh builds an ox-powered mill on Mud Creek.
11. 1820 — Neighbors build a log schoolhouse on the Greenville and Eaton road; Dennis Hart teaches there in the winter of 1820-21.
12. 1821 — Neave Township is established, the only township of that name in Ohio.
13. 1821-12-05 — Neave Township is organized, eight miles east and west by four north and south, with eight sections in what later becomes Van Buren Township.
14. 1838 — Van Buren Township is organized in June and takes the Range 3 part of Neave, leaving the present boundaries.
15. 1870 — Neave Township has 1,093 inhabitants.
16. 1907-10 — The Greenville Historical Society unveils a memorial on the site of Fort Jefferson.
17. 1970-11-10 — The Fort Jefferson site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
18. 2020 — Neave Township has 2,198 residents in the 2020 census.

Stories

The fort that outlasted a disaster

Fort Jefferson was built in October 1791 as a forward supply post for Arthur St. Clair's campaign against a Native confederacy in the Ohio Country -- and within weeks it became something closer to a refuge. St. Clair's main army marched north from the fort and was catastrophically defeated near present-day Fort Recovery, one of the worst losses the U.S. Army has ever suffered against Native forces. The survivors straggled back to Fort Jefferson, where St. Clair left a small garrison under Captain Joseph Shaylor to guard the wounded while he withdrew the rest of his shattered force. For the next three years that garrison held on under intermittent siege, including a June 1792 raid that killed or captured sixteen soldiers, until Anthony Wayne's rebuilt army arrived in 1793-94 and used the fort as a supply link on the way to victory at Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville the following year. The roughly six-and-a-half-acre site, now a county-maintained historic park in Neave Township, is one of the few tangible reminders left of the war's darkest chapter for the United States.

A township named for ten dollars

When the commissioners organized the new township in 1821, four men sat down to decide who would give it a name: H. D. Williams and John Douglass played cards against Eaton Morris and T. C. Neave. Williams and Douglass won, and then played each other for the honor, and Williams won again. Neave, however, wanted the township named for him so badly that he paid Williams ten dollars for the privilege, and so Neave Township it became. The story is told in nearly the same words in the county histories of 1880 and 1914, and the 1914 writer introduces it as a 'singular story', not as record.

Hay cutters at Fort Jefferson

On June 25, 1792, a band of about a hundred Indians, some in white shirts and one in a scarlet coat, and bringing three horses, attacked a party of soldiers cutting hay near Fort Jefferson, the outpost St. Clair's army had built in October 1791. Sixteen soldiers were killed or missing. The county historian of 1914 says it is 'positively asserted' that Simon Girty was present, and notes that General Wilkinson, who carried the news, probably took command in the fight; Rufus Putnam, writing on July 5, thought the aim had been to capture him, since he was expected at the fort that day. A second tale in the same history says Indians imitated the call of wild turkeys to draw the hunting-minded Major Shaylor and his son out of the fort; the son was killed and the major got back inside after a hot pursuit. The historian adds that he cannot say how much of this is true.

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

Every historic place in Darke County on the full map

Greenville Creek (primary, approximately two-thirds of water treated) blended with eight wells east and south of the plant; wells used during periods of high stream turbidity The water here

• Greenville City94% of residentsGreenville Creek (primary, ~78%) blended with 8 wells
• New Madison Village4% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Sherwood Forest MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Northtowne Communities Llc0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 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 2024-09-10

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