Oxford Township, Coshocton County

How Oxford Township, Coshocton County began

Oxford Township, in the far eastern part of Coshocton County, was organized in the fall of 1811, making it one of the county's oldest civil townships and, by one 1881 account, possibly the site of the county's very first white settlement. Isaac Evans and a small group of Virginians raised the first crop of corn here around 1803-1804 on the level ground called White Eyes Plains, later platting the village of Evansburg, which thrived briefly as a canal port before the founding of neighboring Orange in 1839 drew away its trade and left it to fall to pieces. It is farm country today, crossed in the railroad era by the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway with a depot at Oxford near the township's center. Three lost place names survive in Ohio's federal place-name records for the township's ZIP-code area: Clio and Toledoville (both once tied to the 43749 ZIP) and Holly (in the 43824 ZIP shared with neighboring townships), none of which the 1881 county history mentions or explains.

Settled c. 1803-1804 (Isaac and Henry Evans, Charles and Esaias Baker), incorporated fall of 1811.

Where the name comes from

No source found gives a documented reason for the choice of 'Oxford,' including the 1881 county history, whose Oxford Township chapter opens directly with physical geography rather than a naming account. It is one of six Oxford Townships in Ohio, a name common enough across the state that no township-specific origin story could be confirmed here.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, or treaty event specific to Oxford Township is documented in the sources checked, but the 1881 county history records that the White Eyes Plains and the adjoining Tuscarawas River valley were favorite hunting grounds of the historic tribes, evidenced by tomahawks, bullets, stone mortars and pestles, silver ornaments and pieces of pottery that early settlers found scattered there. Small prehistoric mounds were also scattered along the river valley; one on Willis Richard's farm in the western part of the township was originally about thirty feet across and eight to ten feet high before cultivation wore it down. See the Coshocton county-level history file for the wider Lenape (Delaware) presence at Goschachgunk (Coshocton).

• Willis Richard farm mound (mound) — Willis Richard's farm, western part of Oxford Township, prehistoric (undetermined) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. c. 1803 — Charles Williams settles on the Walhonding prairie and, the same season, Isaac and Henry Evans and Charles and Esaias Baker raise a crop of corn on the Tuscarawas near the future Evansburg, in what a later local history calls possibly the first settlement in the county.
2. 1811 — Oxford Township is organized in the fall, soon after the county itself was formed.
3. 1812 — Isaac Evans raises and commands a company under General Harrison during the War of 1812; he later serves as an early associate justice of the county.
4. 1815 — John Mills lays out Millsville on a bend of the Tuscarawas River; the village never thrives and soon disappears from the record.
5. 1830 — Evansburg is surveyed on September 4 by proprietor Isaac Evans, who gives the village his own name.
6. 1839 — Orange is laid out half a mile west of Evansburg by William K. Johnson, G. A. Humerickhouse and Samuel Wolfe; its easier river ford draws away Evansburg's trade and the older village collapses.
7. 1853 — The White Eyes Plains post office, one of the earliest in the county, is moved from Evansburg to Orange, though it keeps its original name for years afterward.

Stories

A village killed by its own river crossing

Isaac Evans surveyed Evansburg in September 1830 and gave the new village his own name; for a few years it grew vigorously, with a dry goods store, a warehouse dealing in grain, a tannery and an inn. But the Tuscarawas River at Evansburg could be forded only with great difficulty if at all, so a ferry had to run there constantly, while the river at Orange, a new village laid out half a mile to the west in 1839, could be forded easily. Merchant Joseph Watkins moved his warehouse to the new village, and Evansburg, in the 1881 county history's words, 'speedily fell to pieces'; by the time that history was written, only a few dilapidated structures marked the site of what had briefly been a flourishing canal port.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Newcomerstown Village94% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Millers Acres Home Owner Association6% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Public EV charging (1)

Shale and injection wells (2)

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 2025-05-29

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