New Lebanon

How New Lebanon began

New Lebanon is a small village lying partly in Perry Township and partly in Jackson Township, Montgomery County, in the Dayton area of southwest Ohio. The site was platted in 1843; a post office opened there in 1847 under the name Medill (by Wikipedia's account; the 1882 county history dates the post office to 1842) and was renamed New Lebanon in 1849, and the village incorporated in 1878, with its formal municipal charter not taking effect until January 1, 1979. The village remains a small residential community today, with population essentially flat from a 1980 peak of about 4,500 to 3,796 at the 2020 census.

Settled 1810 (a hotel/stage-stop already stood on the site, per the 1882 county history, when only two or three houses were there), platted 1843 (June 3, by Jacob Grice; an addition was platted the same day in the adjoining part of Jackson Township, and a further addition was made by John Weaver in 1854), incorporated 1878, by Jacob Grice.

Where the name comes from

The settlement's post office opened in 1847 as Medill; the office (and, in effect, the town) was renamed New Lebanon in 1849. The origin of neither name is recorded. The 1882 History of Montgomery County never uses the name 'Medill' and says the post office was established in 1842, so the two accounts differ.

Before the town

No source found states a Native village, camp, trail, mound or treaty line specific to the New Lebanon site itself. New Lebanon sits in Perry and Jackson townships, Montgomery County, land that lay within the Great Miami River valley used by the Shawnee and Myaamia (Miami) in the eighteenth century and that was opened to U.S. settlement by the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ceded most of the future state of Ohio, including this area, to the United States. Montgomery County as a whole (formed 1803) has documented Adena and Hopewell mound-builder activity and historic Shawnee and Miami presence along the Great Miami and Mad rivers, but the sources reviewed for this village record only the county-wide picture, not a site tied to New Lebanon specifically.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1810 — A hotel already stood on the New Lebanon site when there were only two or three houses in the settlement; the first landlord was a man named Goode. The 1882 county history describes New Lebanon in this early period as a station on the Dayton and Eaton Pike, one of the great stagecoach thoroughfares of the county, where teams were changed and relays of horses kept for an express line of mounted messengers carrying mail and small packages at high speed, day and night.
2. 1838 — Samuel Ludy built New Lebanon's first house, a log building in which he kept a store; the logs were hewed and the work done by Aaron and Jacob Diehl.
3. 1842 — A post office was established at New Lebanon, per the 1882 county history (compare the 1847 'Medill' date given by Wikipedia, below).
4. 1843 — The town site of New Lebanon was platted June 3 by Jacob Grice, with a same-day addition in the adjoining part of Jackson Township.
5. 1844 — Lorenzo Vence became New Lebanon's first blacksmith.
6. 1847 — A post office named Medill opened at the site (per Wikipedia; the 1882 county history instead dates the post office to 1842 and does not use the name Medill -- see above).
7. 1849 — The post office (and town) was renamed New Lebanon.
8. 1854 — John Weaver made a further addition to the town plat.
9. 1878 — New Lebanon incorporated as a village, with N. S. Price elected its first mayor.
10. 1880 — The village's recorded census population was 76.
11. 1979 — New Lebanon's village charter took effect January 1, formally establishing its municipal government structure.
12. 1980 — The village reached its recorded population peak of 4,501.
13. 2020 — The village's population was recorded as 3,796 at the census.

Stories

A relic of coaching days

Before the railroad reached this corner of Montgomery County, New Lebanon owed its small importance to the Dayton and Eaton Pike, one of the great stagecoach roads of the region. The 1882 county history recalls the era vividly: horses were changed at New Lebanon while the driver, high on his seat, looked down on the bystanders who gathered to watch, 'the lion of the day,' since he alone had seen the outside world they knew only through his telling. Relays of horses were also kept there for 'the express,' a line of mounted messengers who rode at breakneck speed day and night carrying urgent mail and small packages between towns. By the time the county history was written, the stage had stopped coming, replaced by a daily wagon from Dayton to Eaton that no longer troubled to stop at the quiet town unless a passenger asked to get off. New Lebanon's hotel, standing since about 1810 when the settlement held only two or three houses, was in 1882 kept by John Andrew Gebhart, described by the historian as 'a relic of coaching days,' having spent long years himself driving one of the old stagecoaches -- 'those lumbering land ships' -- before settling down as the town's innkeeper.

Photographs

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

Groundwater wells (3 wells) The water here

• New Lebanon Village98% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Voyager Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Jefferson Regional Water Authority0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Private schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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 2026-05-28

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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