Ohio Township, Clermont County

How Ohio Township, Clermont County began

Ohio Township, along the river in the county's south, was one of Clermont County's five original townships, established in February 1801, its first permanent settler Isaac Ferguson having arrived in 1796. Its defining figure was Jacob Light, a Pennsylvania-born pioneer who survived a Native ambush on the Ohio River in July 1792 -- an attack in which he was shot through the shoulder and an eleven-year-old boy in his party, Oliver M. Spencer, was carried into a captivity that lasted years -- before returning to the region, purchasing land, and erecting the first cabin on the site of New Richmond in 1797, the village he went on to found. The township holds the Ferris Site, a National Register-listed prehistoric archaeological site near New Richmond, and a prehistoric hilltop enclosure on the farm of Jonathan Shaw above Twelve-Mile Creek.

Settled 1796, incorporated 1801-02, by Isaac Ferguson, first permanent settler (1796); one of the five original Clermont County townships, established February 1801.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for the Ohio River, which forms its southern boundary; no source consulted here gives further detail beyond this straightforward geographic naming.

Before the town

The clearest Native-related record in Ohio Township is the 1792 ambush that shaped the life of the township's founding figure. In July of that year, Jacob Light -- who later founded New Richmond -- was returning up the Ohio River by canoe from Fort Washington (Cincinnati) with a small party that included Mrs. Coleman, a sixty-year-old woman, two other men, and an eleven-year-old boy named Oliver M. Spencer. Concealed Native attackers ambushed the party from a willow thicket on the riverbank, killing one man instantly and shooting Light through the left shoulder; Light and Mrs. Coleman escaped by swimming to shore, but the attackers seized the boy Spencer and carried him into captivity, holding him for years before he was eventually ransomed and returned to Columbia (present Cincinnati). Light's own brother Daniel, who settled on Twelve-Mile Creek in Ohio Township, was separately shot through the body in another encounter with Native attackers, surviving after having a silk handkerchief drawn through the wound to clean it. The same 1880 county history separately notes that scout Cornelius Washburn killed a Native man on Twelve-Mile Creek in Ohio Township in 1791, on ground later farmed by Christian Laub. The county history also records a prehistoric triangular hilltop enclosure, probably a fort, on the farm of Jonathan Shaw above Twelve-Mile Creek, with walls originally five feet high and a water-filled moat; the township also holds the Ferris Site, a National Register-listed prehistoric archaeological site near New Richmond. None of these prehistoric works is tied to a named historic nation.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Ferris Site (other) — Ohio Township, near New Richmond, prehistoric, unspecified (en.wikipedia.org)
• Shaw hilltop enclosure (earthwork) — Ohio Township, on Jonathan Shaw's farm above Twelve-Mile Creek, prehistoric, Mound-Builder, probable fortification (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1791 — Scout Cornelius Washburn kills a Native man on Twelve-Mile Creek, on ground that later becomes Christian Laub's farm.
2. 1792 — July: returning up the Ohio River from Fort Washington, Jacob Light's canoe party is ambushed; Light is shot through the shoulder and eleven-year-old Oliver M. Spencer is taken captive.
3. 1796 — Isaac Ferguson becomes the first permanent settler in Ohio Township.
4. 1797 — Jacob Light, having purchased the Jackson survey, crosses into Ohio and erects the first cabin on the site of the future New Richmond.
5. 1801 — February: Ohio Township is established as one of Clermont County's five original townships.
6. 1813 — Jacob Light builds a large brick house on the riverbank above the New Richmond lumber mills, where he lives until his death.
7. 1814 — Jacob Light formally lays out the village of New Richmond.

Stories

An ambush on the river

In July 1792, Jacob Light poled a canoe up the Ohio River from Fort Washington toward Columbia, carrying a small party that included an older woman, Mrs. Coleman, two other men, and an eleven-year-old boy named Oliver M. Spencer. When one of the men, drunk, began rocking the boat dangerously, Light put him ashore to walk the riverbank; young Spencer, restless, asked to join him on foot. Concealed Native attackers, hidden in a willow thicket along the bank, opened fire on the walking pair and on the canoe alike, killing the drunk man instantly and shooting Light through the left shoulder. Light and Mrs. Coleman both went into the river rather than face the guns directly, swimming for the shore despite Light's ruined arm; both survived, though badly weakened by blood loss. The attackers, strangely, let the wounded drunk man's companion pass unharmed and instead turned their full effort to capturing the boy, who tried and failed to outrun them. Spencer was carried off into a captivity that lasted years before he was finally ransomed and returned to Columbia -- an ordeal he later recounted in his own published memoir, one of the best-known Native captivity narratives to come out of the early Ohio frontier. Light himself recovered from his wound, eventually crossed back into Ohio in 1797, and built the first cabin on the site of what became New Richmond, a village he spent the rest of his life building up on ground not far from where he had nearly died five years earlier.

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

Eleven vertical wells and one collector well in the Ohio River valley aquifer at Clermontville and Moscow The water here

• Tate-monroe Water Association63% of residentsOhio River valley aquifer (collector/vertical wells)
• New Richmond Village21% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Clermont Public Water System15% of residentsWilliam H. Harsha Lake plus wells in the Little Miami River and Ohio River aquifers
• Robin Grays0% of residentsWilliam H. Harsha Lake plus wells in the Little Miami River and Ohio River aquifers

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 0 of 1 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-19

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