Old Washington

How Old Washington began

Old Washington sits in Wills Township, Guernsey County -- according to both its Wikipedia article and its Census Bureau place profile. George and Henry Beymer platted the settlement in 1805 along Zane's Trace, first calling it Beymerstown and then New Washington; it was incorporated as Washington in 1829, soon after the National Road reached it, and later renamed Old Washington to end postal confusion with Washington Court House. As a one-time rival to Cambridge for county seat, it boomed with the National Road through the 1850s, saw a brush with Morgan's Raid in 1863, and then stagnated after the Civil War -- a stagnation that left its Main Street lined with an unusually intact run of early nineteenth-century buildings, listed as the Old Washington Historic District in 1975.

Platted 1805, incorporated as "Washington," 1829, by George and Henry Beymer.

Where the name comes from

The settlement was first called Beymerstown after its founders, then New Washington, then simply Washington at its 1829 incorporation. It became "Old Washington" after the post office asked for the change, to stop mail being misdirected to Washington Court House (Fayette County), which also went by "Washington."

Before the town

No Native American village or site specific to Old Washington or Wills Township was found in the sources checked. The general county-wide record -- Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware) and Mingo peoples using the Wills Creek watershed, which runs through Wills Township, chiefly as hunting ground rather than as a place of permanent towns -- applies here as elsewhere in the township. Named village sites and camps are recorded in other townships of the county.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

Timeline

1. 1805 — George and Henry Beymer platted the settlement along Zane's Trace.
2. 1810 — When Guernsey County organized, the rival town of Washington (this village) had a real claim to become the county seat instead of Cambridge; the dispute was settled in Cambridge's favor after two of its proprietors offered to donate land and fund the public buildings outright.
3. 1828 — The National Road reached the village, soon before its 1829 incorporation, on the same general course as the older Zane's Trace.
4. 1829 — The village was incorporated as "Washington."
5. 1850 — The village reached its peak population of 759 residents, at the height of the National Road era.
6. 1863-07 — Confederate cavalry from Morgan's Raid rode into the village, then still called Washington; three Confederate soldiers killed in the fighting were buried in the local cemetery, and an engraving of the scene ran in Harper's Weekly that August.
7. 1975-05-29 — The Old Washington Historic District, covering both sides of Main Street, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

A road, not a river, made the county seat -- and passed the town by

When Guernsey County organized in 1810, Washington -- platted five years earlier along Zane's Trace -- had a genuine claim to become the county seat instead of Cambridge. Cambridge won the argument only because two of its proprietors offered to donate the land for public buildings and pay to put them up. The decision proved durable: Cambridge has held the county seat for more than two centuries. When the National Road arrived in 1828 along much the same course as Zane's Trace, it briefly gave Washington a second act as a coaching and tavern town. After the Civil War, growth in the smaller town largely stopped -- which is exactly why an unusually complete run of early nineteenth-century buildings still lines its Main Street today, protected as the Old Washington Historic District since 1975.

Morgan's Raiders in Old Washington

In July 1863, during Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's long cavalry raid across southern Ohio, a detachment of his raiders rode into the village, then still called Washington. An 1863 Harper's Weekly engraving titled "Morgan's Raiders Enter Washington, Ohio" captured the scene for a national audience already following the raid's progress through the newspapers. Fighting in and around the village left casualties on the Confederate side; three of Morgan's men were buried in the town cemetery, a lasting trace of the raid's passage through what was, by then, a quiet National Road town past its boomtown years.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · bettyshinn.com · data.census.gov · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Guernsey Co. Water Dept.100% of residentsWills Creek via Cambridge Reservoir + Wills Creek direct intake

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 2 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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-07-24

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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