Norwich

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How Norwich began

Norwich is a small village in Union Township, Muskingum County. William Harper, an Englishman, bought the land from John Crawford and laid out the town in 1827, naming it for his native Norwich, England. By 1833 it already had four stores, two churches, and two taverns, and the village incorporated in 1833 with James Launders as its first mayor. Union Township itself was crossed in 1797 by Ebenezer Zane's survey for the road from Wheeling to Limestone, Kentucky -- the Zane Trace -- and the first white settlers found an existing Native encampment nearby. Like many small county villages, Norwich's population peaked in the mid-nineteenth century (324 residents in 1850) and has declined since, standing at 87 by the 2020 census.

Platted 1827, incorporated 1833, by William Harper, an Englishman, who bought the section from John Crawford and laid out the town.

Where the name comes from

William Harper, an Englishman who bought the land from John Crawford, laid out the town of Norwich in 1827 and named it for his native town of Norwich, England.

Before the town

No source found describes a Native American village, trail, mound, or specific encounter at Norwich itself. The 1882 county history does record, for Union Township as a whole (in which Norwich sits), that when white settlers first arrived there was a Native encampment on section five, on land later owned by Isaiah Carr, and another camp on 'White Eyes' Creek, named for the Lenape (Delaware) chief White Eyes; and that Ebenezer Zane surveyed the road from Wheeling to Limestone, Kentucky (the Zane Trace) through the township's territory in 1797. Those are township-wide details, not documented at the village site itself.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Union Township Indian camp (section five) (camp) — Union Township, Muskingum County, on land later owned by Isaiah Carr, pre-1803 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1797 — Ebenezer Zane surveys the road from Wheeling to Limestone, Kentucky -- the Zane Trace -- through the territory that becomes Union Township.
2. 1803 — Union Township, town one of range five of the United States Military District, is surveyed, with the southeast quarter reserved for school lands.
3. 1811 — Benjamin Wortman locates on the southwest quarter of section seven, land partly occupied by the later village of Norwich.
4. 1811 — John Crawford buys the northeast quarter of section seven from George Richie; the southwest quarter had been entered by Benjamin Wortman and the northwest by Frederick Yarian, and the three quarters later form the town site.
5. 1827 — William Harper, having bought the section from John Crawford, lays out the town of Norwich, naming it for his home town in England; the first house is built by Samuel McCloud, who keeps a boarding house.
6. 1827 — Harper & Keitly build a sawmill just south of lot twelve in the new town, later converted into a brewery and then a tannery.
7. 1827 — Samuel and James Lorimer, brothers, build in the new town and practice medicine there (Samuel dies 1833, James 1834); the first Sunday school, a 'Union' school, is organized by A. S. Ran; Reuben Whitaker keeps the first regular hotel and Thomas Maxfield opens the first store.
8. 1828 — A post office opens in the village.
9. 1828 — The Norwich Presbyterian church is organized October 27 by the Rev. James Arbuthnot under Lancaster Presbytery, mostly from members of the Pleasant Hill church, with Robert Miller, John Jamison, John Wycoff and William McLoughlin as the first elders.
10. 1833 — Norwich is incorporated, with James Launders as first mayor; by this date it has four stores, two churches, and two taverns.
11. 1850 — The village's population reaches its recorded peak of 324.
12. 1880 — Charles C. Taylor is appointed postmaster April 23; the village has three stores, a grist mill, a graded school, three churches (Presbyterian, United Presbyterian and Methodist Episcopal), two physicians and a railroad depot on the Central Ohio Division of the Baltimore and Ohio.
13. 1978 — The West Union School is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30.
14. 1980 — The Ralph Hardesty Stone House -- built by the same Ralph Hardesty who built the first stone house in the new town -- is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 11; the James Hunter Stone House had been listed January 3 of that same year.
15. 2020 — The village's population is recorded at 87.

Stories

The road that moved the post office

Until the National Road drew the traffic away, the main route through Union Township was Ebenezer Zane's old Wheeling road of 1797, and the first post office in the township was kept at Col. John Reynolds's house on it. When the stage route shifted to the National Road, the postmaster John McDonald, 'familiarly known as Fox McDonald,' moved to Norwich and kept the first office there, on lot nineteen, where Charles Taylor's store stood in 1880. Later the Central Ohio Division of the Baltimore and Ohio was built nearly parallel with the National Pike, and the 1882 historian says the 'autocratic' four-horse stage coach 'found itself left far in the rear by the all conquering iron horse.' Norwich, laid out in 1827 with a boarding house as its first building, thus lived by three successive roads: the Zane Trace, the National Road and the railroad, whose depot nearby also gave its name to a post office at Sundale in 1880.

An Englishman's namesake town

William Harper, an Englishman, bought the northeast quarter of section seven from John Crawford, who had bought it from George Richie in 1811, and in 1827 laid out a town on it that he named Norwich for his native town in England. The 1882 county history gives the first-ness of each thing in the new village: the first house, by Samuel McCloud, who kept a boarding house; the first regular hotel, by Reuben Whitaker; the first store, by Thomas Maxfield; the first brick house, by Harper himself; and the first stone house, by Ralph Hardesty. The town was incorporated in 1833 with James Launders as first mayor, and the Lorimer brothers, Samuel and James, were among its first physicians, dying in 1833 and 1834. The Norwich Presbyterian church was organized on October 27, 1828, from members of the Pleasant Hill congregation, a year after the town was platted.

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

Every historic place in Muskingum County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Muskingum County Water - Se100% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2019: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2018: 0 of 2 passed.

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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-05-08

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