New Holland

• Deer Creek LakeBuilt 1968 · 1,277 acres

How New Holland began

New Holland began as Flemingsburgh, platted September 2, 1818, on the North Fork of Paint Creek at a spot already known as Four Corners, where an east-west stagecoach road crossed a north-south trail; the first house was built by a man named Fleming, the settler the original name honored. Sometime before 1835, by a later and unconfirmed tradition, Dutch settlers among the pioneers renamed it New Holland for their homeland, and the legislature incorporated it that year within the newly organized Perry Township, part of the territory the 1818 plat had described as Deer Creek Township. The village straddles the Pickaway-Fayette county line, with its historic center and the larger share of its people on the Pickaway side. A head-on train collision in the middle of town in 1899 and a long-admired covered bridge, torn down in 1943, are its best-remembered nineteenth-century stories.

Settled 1802 (John Fleming, per local tradition), platted September 2, 1818, as "Flemingsburgh", incorporated March 9, 1835, as "New Holland", by plat acknowledged before Alexander Rowen, justice of the peace; proprietor not further named in the sources consulted.

Where the name comes from

The village's original 1818 plat, recorded in Pickaway County deed book B, names it 'Flemingsburgh,' and the 1880 county history reports that the first house in the village was built by a man named Fleming. Wikipedia's article on the village states that Dutch settlers, who along with Pennsylvania Dutch and German immigrants made up much of the early population, renamed the settlement New Holland for their ancestral homeland at some point before its 1835 incorporation; the 1880 county history, by contrast, states plainly that 'what induced the changing of the name...or the date when it took place, is not now known,' so the Dutch-homeland explanation should be read as a later, unconfirmed tradition rather than a documented fact.

Before the town

No source consulted records a Native village, camp, mound, or trail specific to the ground New Holland occupies. The original 1818 plat does describe the site as standing at the crossing of an east-west road and a north-south trail, which local tradition (reflected in some secondary sources) holds followed an older Indian foot trail, but no primary source consulted confirms this. The wider Paint Creek valley, on whose north fork the village sits, was Shawnee hunting and camping territory in the eighteenth century, and the land was opened to settlement by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville; Pickaway County itself is named for the Pekowi (Pickaway) division of the Shawnee. No source found ties a specific Shawnee town or leader to the New Holland site itself.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes the land to the United States.
2. 1802 — John Fleming relocates to the area that becomes New Holland, according to local tradition recorded on Wikipedia.
3. 1818 — The village is platted as 'Flemingsburgh' on September 2, described in the recorded plat as standing in Deer Creek township on the North Fork of Paint Creek at the crossing later called Four Corners; the first house is built by a man named Fleming.
4. 1835 — The Ohio legislature incorporates the village as New Holland on March 9, describing it as lying within the township of Perry, Pickaway County.
5. 1840 — A covered bridge is built over the North Fork of Paint Creek on the Zanesville-Cincinnati Trace (later U.S. Route 22).
6. 1858 — A business directory for the village is compiled, later preserved in a local scrapbook.
7. 1865 — A portion of General William T. Sherman's Union Army, marching after the Civil War, passes through New Holland by way of the covered bridge on the Zanesville-Cincinnati Trace.
8. 1887 — New Holland High School is established.
9. 1899 — On the evening of September 18, at 8 p.m., two trains collide head-on at the North Main Street railroad crossing in the middle of the village, causing about $10,000 in damage, including to the Gooley Brothers' implement store, but no injuries.
10. 1900 — The village's population peaks at 824 residents.
11. 1927 — A new school building is constructed in the village.
12. 1943 — The 1840 covered bridge on U.S. Route 22 is torn down; Henry Ford is said to have admired it, but the remnants become scrap wood rather than a museum piece.
13. 1959 — New Holland High School graduates its final class on May 27, before consolidation ends the village's own high school.

Stories

A Village Renamed for a Homeland

When the plat for Flemingsburgh was acknowledged before Justice of the Peace Alexander Rowen on September 2, 1818, nothing suggested the name would not last. The first house in the new village had been built by a settler named Fleming, and the plat description tied the town to the surveys of Reese Young, Levin Ross, and Wilkins Ogburn along the North Fork of Paint Creek. Yet within a generation the name was gone, replaced by New Holland, and by the time the 1880 county historian went looking for an explanation, nobody could give him one. 'What induced the changing of the name to the one the village now bears, or the date when it took place, is not now known,' he wrote, an honest admission that has stood for well over a century. A later, more confident tradition credits Dutch settlers among the early population with choosing New Holland to honor their old country, but no document from the period itself confirms it.

A Wreck in the Middle of Town

New Holland's status as a grain-shipping point cut both ways. On the evening of September 18, 1899, at eight o'clock, two trains met head-on at the North Main Street crossing in the heart of the village, wrecking both and doing an estimated $10,000 in damage, enough to seriously stagger the businesses nearby, including the Gooley Brothers' implement store. Remarkably, no one was killed or seriously hurt in the collision. A photograph of the wrecked cars, preserved from a local resident's scrapbook, survives as one of the village's most vivid nineteenth-century images.

The Bridge Henry Ford Wanted

For more than a century, travelers on the Zanesville-Cincinnati Trace crossed the North Fork of Paint Creek at New Holland on a covered bridge built in 1840, the same waterway named in the village's original 1818 plat. General Sherman's soldiers are said to have marched through it on their way home after the Civil War. By 1943 the bridge had outlived its usefulness to modern traffic and was torn down; the automaker and antiquities collector Henry Ford reportedly admired the old structure, but no arrangement was made to save it for his museum in Michigan, and its timbers were sold off as ordinary scrap wood instead.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• New Holland Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 4 of 16 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 9.

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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-11-06

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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