Newton Township, Pike County

How Newton Township, Pike County began

Newton Township, organized about 1825 (the exact date lost with the early records), holds the canal village of Jasper, laid out in 1833 by Robert Lucas, later governor of Ohio, and named for Sergeant William Jasper of the Revolution. Most of the township is hilly, cut by Sunfish Creek and No Name Creek and marked by Panther Knob, said to be named for the last panther killed in the area; its timber, tan-bark and railroad ties went out by canal from Jasper. On July 16, 1863, John Hunt Morgan's Confederate raiders ransacked Jasper on their way to the Scioto crossing at Piketon, and a resident was killed. The Jones-Cutler House in Jasper is on the National Register; the township had 1,810 residents in 2020.

Platted 1833 (Jasper village, by Robert Lucas), incorporated about 1825 (township organization; exact date unknown, records lost).

Where the name comes from

Not established from the sources consulted for the township itself. Its village, Jasper, was laid out by Governor Robert Lucas in 1833 and named after Sergeant William Jasper, a hero of the American Revolution.

Before the town

No village, mound, trail or encounter is recorded for Newton Township in the sources read. What the record supports is the land's status: Pike County lies south and east of the Greenville line, and the Treaty of Greenville (signed August 3, 1795) ceded roughly two-thirds of Ohio to the United States. The first settlers in this part of the county came within a few years after it, in 1796 and later. The township lies west of the Scioto River, in the part of Pike County that belonged to the Virginia Military District, which Virginia reserved in 1784 to pay its Revolutionary War veterans and which was surveyed by metes and bounds. The 1884 county history names Panther Knob, Jasper Knob and Yankee Hill as the township's high points but records no earthwork or village.

Timeline

1. about 1825 — Newton Township is organized, though the exact date is unknown because its early records were lost.
2. 1831 — The Pleasant Valley Methodist Protestant class is organized by a few of the old pioneers; it builds a $300 church in 1858.
3. 1833 — Jasper Village is laid out by Governor Robert Lucas and the plat recorded; it is named after Sergeant Jasper of Revolutionary fame.
4. 1837 — Jasper's post office is established, with John G. Alexander as first postmaster.
5. 1838 — Township officers include trustees Nathan Hitman, John Alexander and Joshua Adams, with J. G. Alexander as clerk.
6. 1840 — The township has 337 residents, of whom sixty-nine live in Jasper; by 1850 it has 461.
7. 1845 — The Methodist Episcopal Church of Jasper is organized, with Rev. John Booten, Joseph McDougal, Thomas Shropshire and C. B. Smith among its founders.
8. 1858 — The Methodist Episcopal congregation buys and finishes the unfinished church begun in 1857 by the Methodist Protestants.
9. 1860 — The hamlet of Bethel, in the southern and western part of the township, is laid out by Rev. Hampton, who names it; the township has 956 residents.
10. July 16, 1863 — Morgan's raiders ransack Jasper and Piketon on the day they reach the Scioto River; Jasper loses nearly everything portable, and a citizen, Mr. McDougal, is killed on his return from Piketon.
11. 1870 — The township has 1,138 residents and Jasper 181.
12. 1876 — The Pike post office is established at Bethel, with John Entler as first postmaster.
13. 1880 — The township, now 1,369 strong, raises a special tax and builds a $1,200 graded school at Jasper.
14. 1883 — Jasper, with about 200 people, ships timber, railroad ties and hoop-poles, and two or three canal boats load there almost daily in season.
15. April 26, 1976 — The Jones-Cutler House on Bridge Street in Jasper is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
16. 2020 — The census counts 1,810 residents in the township.

Stories

Morgan's raiders in Jasper

Jasper lay on the line of march of John Hunt Morgan's Confederate cavalry in July 1863. A library web timeline of the raid (carnegie.lib.oh.us) says the raiders reached the Scioto River on July 16 and ransacked Jasper and Piketon, and that they kept mainly to businesses and left private homes, property and farmland alone. The 1884 county history, written twenty years later, says Jasper suffered 'to the extent of pretty much all of portable value.' One of its citizens, a Mr. McDougal, was killed on his way back from Piketon. Jasper's earliest businesses had been Phelps & Alexander and Cutler & Curry, and merchants of the Cutler name were still there in 1883. Morgan rode on and entered Jackson on July 17, after riding forty-five miles through the night.

Panther Knob and Yankee Hill

Three hills mark the township in the 1884 county history. Panther Knob, just below Jasper, rises 663 feet, rough and ragged in outline and conical at the top; it is said to have taken its name from the last panther killed in that part of the country, which had her lair near the top and was hunted down there with her brood. Jasper Knob, named for the village, comes next in height by only a few feet. Yankee Hill was named for a colony of New England settlers. The slopes around them are covered with oak, hickory, maple, chestnut, walnut, locust and pine, which fed a trade in tan-bark, railroad ties, fence posts, hoop poles and staves, and the historian suggested that the hills and gulches, with the valley of the Scioto, made the township good stock country.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · carnegie.lib.oh.us · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Every historic place in Pike County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Piketon Village62% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Pike Water, Inc.-plant37% of residentsTeays Valley Buried Valley Aquifer (wells near Jasper)
• Dawsons Mobile Home Park1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-27

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