New Jasper Township, Greene County

How New Jasper Township, Greene County began

New Jasper Township, in east-central Greene County, was empty of white settlement until 1812, when Kentuckian William G. Sutton became its first permanent resident; most who followed were Virginians and Kentuckians. The township's own village, also called New Jasper, was laid out around 1830 and served as a local trading point before railroads passed it by. The much larger neighboring village of Jamestown, platted in 1815-16 by Martin Mendenhall and Thomas Browder and named for Browder's native Jamestown, Virginia, grew up in adjoining Silver Creek Township. Limestone quarrying, a short-lived tile factory, small mills, and subscription schools defined the township's 19th-century economy; it remains rural and unincorporated today.

Settled 1812, by William G. Sutton of Kentucky, the township's first white settler, incorporated 1853 (township organization), per Wikipedia; the 1881 county history refers readers to the general county chapter for this date without repeating it, by William G. Sutton (first settler); the village of New Jasper was laid out by a proprietor named Slagle roughly fifty years before 1881 (about 1830).

Where the name comes from

No source found gives the origin of the name 'New Jasper' for the township or its namesake village. The larger neighboring village of Jamestown was named after Jamestown, Virginia, the native home of co-founder Thomas Browder.

Before the town

The 1881 county history states plainly that New Jasper Township 'was uninhabited, except by hunters and an occasional tribe of wandering Indians, until the year 1812' when the first wave of Virginia and Kentucky settlers arrived - no named village, camp, or trail specific to this township was found in any source consulted. The township sits in the Caesar Creek/Little Miami drainage in the same general area, a few miles southeast, as the Adena-era Williamson Mound near Cedarville, and lay within Shawnee and Wyandot hunting territory before the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Nothing more specific to New Jasper Township itself was located.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1812 — William G. Sutton, a Kentuckian, becomes the first white settler in the township.
2. 1812-1813 — Elijah Bales and his sons arrive from Tennessee, followed by John Shook and his brothers from Virginia, settling near the Suttons.
3. 1816 — The township's first subscription school opens in a log cabin on the Cooper farm, taught by a Mr. Shields.
4. c. 1820 — Methodists organize the township's first religious society at the house of a settler named Bone; a log meeting-house is later built at Philip Spahr's place.
5. c. 1830 — The village of New Jasper is laid out by a proprietor named Slagle as a local trading point.
6. 1852 — A 30x40-foot brick Methodist church is built in the village of New Jasper, still in use for alternate-Sabbath services as of 1881.
7. by 1908 — A railroad-spur limestone quarry and an associated tile factory near Caesar Creek, which had supplied agricultural lime, have shut down.
8. 1951 — The New Jasper Fire Department is organized as a volunteer department.

Stories

Two Virginians split a townsite and named it for home

In 1815 a survey crew laid out a new town on land owned by two men: Martin Mendenhall held the south side, about 150 acres, and Thomas Browder held roughly as much on the north. Browder had come from Jamestown, Virginia, and the new town took that name in his honor. Growth was slow at first - the Parker House tavern and a store built by Dr. Matthew Winans, the town's first physician, were among the earliest buildings, and a tannery had actually been started in 1810, five years before the official survey, by two men whose origins are now lost to the record. By 1826 a Kentuckian named William Baker had ridden up to visit his uncle Dr. Winans, liked what he saw, and moved his family there in 1831 to open a harness shop; at that point the whole village held about ten families running two taverns, two stores, a tannery, and a couple of bakeries and liquor shops. By 1880 Jamestown, chiefly within neighboring Silver Creek Township but drawing trade from New Jasper, Jefferson, and Ross townships alike, had grown to more than two thousand people and, per the county history, 'few peers as a business center' for its size.

A township bypassed by the railroad

The township's own namesake village, New Jasper, was laid out in the center of the township by a proprietor remembered only as Slagle, roughly around 1830, and for a time did brisk business as the trading point for the surrounding farms. By 1881 the county historian could only report that it had 'retrograded greatly on account of being off the railroad' - the rail lines that made Jamestown, a few miles away, into a genuine commercial hub had bypassed New Jasper entirely, leaving it a village of about fifty houses. The pattern repeats across rural Greene County: places tied to water-powered mills and wagon roads before 1850 often stagnated once the railroad picked different routes.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Greene County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Jamestown Village52% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Xenia City40% of residentsGreat Miami/Mad River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells near US-68/SR-235)
• Greene County - northwest Reg Water7% of residentsLittle Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (2 wellfields, Beavercreek area)
• Western Water Company0% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)
• Greene County - southwest Reg Water0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Greene County Eastern Regional0% of residentsLittle Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (2 wellfields, Beavercreek area)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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 2026-03-03

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