Nile Township, Scioto County

How Nile Township, Scioto County began

Nile Township, organized August 9, 1803, is the largest township in Scioto County by area and the only Nile Township in Ohio, its unusual name taken from Egypt's Nile River. Much of its western reach lies inside Shawnee State Forest, established in 1922 on cutover timberland and expanded through the 1930s by Civilian Conservation Corps camps, four of them segregated camps for African American enrollees. Friendship, on U.S. Route 52, is the township's main community. The 2020 census counted 2,350 people in the township.

Settled 1787-88 (first land survey in the county, James Culbertson's Survey 453); settlers along the Ohio Valley in the 1790s-1800s, incorporated 1803-08-09.

Where the name comes from

Named for the Nile River in Egypt; it is the only Nile Township in Ohio. No account explains why early settlers chose the name.

Before the town

No Native site or event specific to Nile Township is recorded.

Timeline

1. 1787 — James Culbertson enters Survey No. 453 on August 2, the first lands located in what becomes Scioto County, surveyed March 27, 1788; Nathaniel Massie locates river-front tracts in 1801.
2. 1803-08-09 — Nile Township is organized, one of Scioto County's earliest civil divisions.
3. 1814 — Judge Joseph Moore begins shipping Waverly freestone from the foot of the hills on rafts of deadened poplar to Cincinnati, a trade that has gone on every year since; later quarrying uses an incline railway near Buena Vista and decked barges.
4. 1814 — Washington Township is created, moving Nile's eastern boundary from Carey's Run to Stony Run; the first school in the township is taught about this year, and Judge Joseph Moore builds his famous stone house.
5. 1831 — John Loughry goes to Rockville with sixteen yoke of oxen and 60 or 70 men to quarry stone for ten locks of the Miami canal at Cincinnati.
6. 1840 — The township is laid out in nine school districts outside Buena Vista (Friendship, Pond Run, Leatherwood, Elm Tree and others).
7. 1848 — G. S. McCormick opens the first store at Buena Vista, platted by John McCall on September 3, 1850 with 79 lots; D. W. Murphy is its first postmaster.
8. 1857 — The Methodist Episcopal church at Buena Vista is organized, building a church the next year; the German Presbyterian church follows in 1856 (building 1871) and the Roman Catholics in 1859.
9. 1863 — John C. Loughry quarries the stone for the piers of John Mueller's suspension bridge at Cincinnati; Caden Brothers work the quarries on a large scale from 1865 to 1873.
10. 1875 — A modern frame school costing $1,500 is built at Buena Vista.
11. 1902 — The township's assessed real estate is $240,030; a drove of 300 Angora goats is turned loose in the rough hills as an experiment.
12. 1922 — The State of Ohio establishes Shawnee State Forest with an initial purchase of 5,000 acres of cutover timberland spanning western Nile and Washington townships; it grows to become Ohio's largest state forest at 63,747 acres.
13. 1930s — Seven Civilian Conservation Corps camps operate within Shawnee State Forest, four of them — Camp Adams, Camp Roosevelt, Camp Gordon and Shawnee No. 2 — segregated camps for African American enrollees; CCC crews build most of the forest's roads and five small lakes.

Stories

Segregated camps in Ohio's largest state forest

When Ohio began buying up cutover, quarried-out timberland in western Nile and Washington townships in 1922, it was reclaiming ground already stripped once for building stone shipped to Cincinnati. The land's second life came through the New Deal: seven Civilian Conservation Corps camps operated inside what became Shawnee State Forest during the 1930s, and four of them — Camp Adams on Churn Creek, Camp Roosevelt and Camp Gordon on Turkey Creek, and Shawnee No. 2 at Pond Creek — were racially segregated camps for African American enrollees, a detail that puts the forest's roads, trails and five small lakes, nearly all CCC-built, inside the broader and uncomfortable history of how the federal government administered even conservation work by race in the 1930s. What became Ohio's largest state forest, 63,747 acres today, grew out of that segregated labor as much as out of the land itself.

The City Ledge

Judge Joseph Moore, a stone cutter by trade, bought two river tracts from Nathaniel Massie, built a stone house in 1814, and floated freestone from the foot of the hills to Cincinnati on rafts of deadened poplar. In 1831 John Loughry arrived at Rockville with 16 yoke of oxen and 60 or 70 men to get out stone for ten locks of the Miami canal, and began quarrying at the top of the hill instead of gathering fallen blocks; the locks were still perfect sixty years later. One ledge, light drab and easy to work, he named the City Ledge, and Cincinnati's building fronts, steps and sills are made of it; another white ledge, used for the Trust Company bank at Third and Main, was named for that building. Loughry died in 1862 and three great blocks from three different ledges were stacked as his monument at Sandy Springs churchyard. Stone was dragged by ox teams, then run down chutes, then hauled on graded roads, and finally lowered on an incline railway to scows and barges.

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

Ohio River, drawn at the municipal river water intake on the right descending bank near Mile 350.7 The water here

• Portsmouth City48% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc. - Pond Run18% of residentsOhio River
• Northwest Regional Water District10% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)
• Adams County Regional Wd7% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Scioto Water Inc.-careys Run5% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc. - Zeigler Lane4% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-sr1253% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-hygean Run2% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-oakwood2% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-slab Run1% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc - Stony Run0% of residentsOhio River

Fire and EMS stations (3)

High-hazard dams (4)

Bridges rated poor (4)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

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