New Bavaria

How New Bavaria began

New Bavaria began as a post office on the Ridge road in Pleasant Township around 1844-45, serving a community of German-speaking immigrants from Bavaria and Baden who had begun settling the area in 1836; the village itself was surveyed and platted in 1882 a short distance from the original post office site, where the Ridge road crossed the new Toledo, St. Louis and Kansas City Railroad. Postmaster Charles Hornung and his sons Jacob and John H. kept a general store there, and Jacob Hornung ran a steam works.

Settled 1836 (first German settlers in the surrounding township), platted 1882, by not recorded; the village grew around the Ridge road/railroad crossing.

Where the name comes from

The village takes its name from Bavaria, Germany, reflecting the origin of most of its earliest settlers, who arrived in the surrounding township from Bavaria and Baden beginning in 1836.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or treaty site specific to New Bavaria is recorded here. Pleasant Township's earliest written account, contributed to the 1888 county history by former local teacher James E. Scofield, describes the area in the 1830s and 1840s as an unbroken, roadless wilderness of water and wild game, with no reference to any earlier or contemporary Native settlement within the township.

Timeline

1. 1836 — German-speaking settlers from Bavaria and Baden, including George A. Hofricker, Henry Saur and Peter Grimm, begin settling the surrounding area, then part of Flat Rock Township.
2. 1844 to 1845 — A post office named New Bavaria is recalled in the 1888 county history as opening on the Ridge road in 1844-45, with Charles Hornung as postmaster; federal postal records list its establishment in 1848.
3. 1860 — Charles Hornung loses the postmastership for a year over his support of the Lincoln-Hamlin Republican ticket; Henry Schall is appointed in his place.
4. 1861 — Hornung is reinstated as postmaster immediately after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration.
5. 1882 — New Bavaria is surveyed and platted a short distance from the old post-office site, at the crossing of the Ridge road and the Toledo, St. Louis and Kansas City Railroad.
6. 1887 — New Bavaria has about 100 people; Charles Hornung and Sons keep a general store and warehouse, Jacob Hornung runs a steam works making heading, hoops, lumber and staves, and J. Hammerer makes and repairs boots and shoes.
7. 1950 — New Bavaria's census count is 132, the first in its published series.
8. 1960 — New Bavaria reaches its census peak of 153 residents.
9. 1990 — New Bavaria's population falls to 92.
10. 2000 — The census counts 78 people in New Bavaria, its lowest figure.
11. 2020 — The census counts 86 people in New Bavaria, the smallest village in Henry County.

Stories

The postmaster who lost his office over Lincoln

Charles Hornung held the New Bavaria post office from the 1840s, but not without interruption. In 1860 he acted with the Republicans in the Lincoln and Hamlin campaign, and for that the county history says he was 'beheaded' and Henry Schall was appointed to the vacancy. Immediately after Lincoln's inauguration Hornung was reinstated, and he was continued afterward. By 1887 his sons Jacob and John H. had taken over the merchandising while he attended to his farm and stock; New Bavaria, platted in 1882 at the new railroad crossing, had about a hundred people, and the railroad gave it an outlet for the products of the surrounding farm country.

Bavarians who kept their language

The first settlers of Pleasant Township, who arrived in 1836, were mostly from Bavaria in Germany, with some from Baden and later France, and the post office on the Ridge road took the name New Bavaria. The 1888 county history, written when the settlers' children were grown, says they spoke English as well as any American but kept German, which was taught in their churches and Sunday-schools and used in all religious worship. The same book describes a brick German Reformed church a mile west of the village with a large bell in its belfry, a German Methodist church to the north and a Catholic church of brick going up at an estimated twenty-four thousand dollars to replace one lost to fire. Charles Hornung, the postmaster, also served as township clerk and justice of the peace for thirty-nine years running. The village platted in 1882 beside the railroad grew little, and by 2020 had 86 residents.

Photographs

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

No water-system data is linked to New Bavaria's ZIP codes yet.

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-17: county board of elections.

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• Fiscal emergency: declared 2010-05-06, released 2015-04-02. source
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-02

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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