Palestine

How Palestine began

Palestine was platted in 1833 by Samuel Loring in what was then German Township (later split, with Palestine ending up in Liberty Township), southwestern Darke County; a beautiful view from the site is thought to have suggested the name. The surrounding township was, per an 1880 county history, a favorite resort of Native people before white settlement, with two identified village sites and abundant recovered relics nearby. An earlier rival village, New London City, failed and vanished after Palestine's founding. The village's history also includes two unsolved vigilante murders in 1877-78, one of them targeting a Black resident, Stephen Wade, whose family had been ordered by masked riders to leave the county.

Platted 1833, by Samuel Loring.

Where the name comes from

A beautiful view from the village site is thought to have suggested the name Palestine, according to the 1880 county history, though no further explanation is given.

Before the town

The 1880 county history states that the surrounding township (then German, later split with Liberty Township) 'was a favorite resort for the aboriginal occupants,' with several Indian camps found by the first whites and a prairie near Palestine noted as a particular draw. It identifies indications of two Native village sites within the township, one on Section 10 and one on Section 3, both near springs; local collector C. M. Young assembled about 1,000 relics from the area between 1876 and 1880, and skeletal remains, presumed Native, were found in gravel banks, including one skull of remarkable size near the Jesse Woods residence. No nation or period is identified for these sites in the source checked. The village sits near the African American settlement of Tampico.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• German Township village site, Section 10 (village) — German/Liberty Township, near a spring, unrecorded (archive.org)
• German Township village site, Section 3 (village) — German/Liberty Township, near a spring, unrecorded (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1814 — James Cloyd, a War of 1812 veteran who had been stationed at Fort Greenville, settles on the prairie just south of the future site of Palestine, among the earliest claimants to being the township's first settler.
2. 1820 — The township's first school opens near the future site of Palestine.
3. 1826 — St. John's Lutheran Church, the first church built in the township, is erected of tree-trunk logs south of Palestine on land owned by John Ketring; replaced by a frame building in 1868.
4. 1833 — Samuel Loring plats the village of Palestine with ten lots in the southeast part of the present corporation; Kester, Samuel Gruger and Abraham Weaver, William Miller, and later Col. David Putnam add adjoining sections.
5. 1836 — The Palestine Christian Church organizes with a small membership under ministers Elijah Williamson and Richard Brandon.
6. 1868 — The Universalist Church at Palestine organizes June 18 under Rev. Elihu Moore and ten others, later building a $3,000 meeting house.
7. 1870 — Population peaks at 264 residents.
8. 1877-10-24 — A masked, armed mob shoots and kills resident Wesley Guger outside his Palestine home after dark; the killers' identity and motive (beyond an alleged charge of petty theft) are never established.
9. 1878 — After written threats ordering his family to leave Darke County, Stephen Wade, a Black resident, is shot and killed in his own home at midnight by a masked, mounted mob; a post-mortem finds sixteen shot in his brain, and no one is identified or charged.

Stories

A view that named a village, and a rival that vanished

Before Palestine existed, another platted village stood nearby: surveyed at the instance of Nathaniel Ross on the northwest quarter of Section 24, it briefly held a sawmill, a gristmill, a grocery and a store, with hopeful residents anticipating churches, schools and factories to come. Instead, a rival village sprang up across the prairie -- Palestine, platted in 1833 by Samuel Loring, reportedly named for the beautiful view visible from its site. The older village, called New London City, could not compete, and by 1880 the county historian could describe it only in a single passing sentence, noting it 'exists only in this brief allusion to it.' Palestine, meanwhile, grew into what the same history calls 'a very flourishing country village,' with a drug store, two groceries, a dry-goods store, a hotel, blacksmith and wagon shops, a gristmill, a sawmill, and three resident physicians.

Two unsolved killings, and a family ordered out

The 1880 county history, otherwise a chronicle of churches and mills, records two violent crimes near Palestine within a single year. On the night of October 24, 1877, an armed and masked group called Wesley Guger from his house and shot him dead over an unproven charge of petty theft; no one was ever identified. The following fall, Stephen Wade, a Black resident whose sons had been accused of a string of local thefts, received two written warnings -- one in red ink, one in black -- ordering his entire family to leave the county within thirty days 'or suffer the penalty.' When the family did not comply, a mounted, masked mob surrounded Wade's house at midnight, fired into it, and killed him with a shotgun blast through a back door as he tried to escape; a post-mortem found sixteen shot in his brain. The county history records both killings as unsolved and condemns them as a stain on an otherwise 'peaceful and law-abiding' community, without further explanation of who carried them out or why they went unpunished.

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

No water-system data is linked to Palestine's ZIP codes yet.

Fire and EMS stations (1)

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 2025-09-23

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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