Palmer Township, Washington County

How Palmer Township, Washington County began

Palmer Township lies in western Washington County bordering Windsor Township, Morgan County, and is one of only two Palmer Townships in Ohio (the other in Putnam County); its roughly fourteen thousand acres have carried the name since 1851. Christopher Malster, arriving in 1796, was the district's first settler, and the pioneer Palmer family for whom the township is named -- Joseph Palmer, a Connecticut native and later a state legislator -- settled there in 1802 after a keelboat accident on the way from Marietta nearly drowned his young daughter. Along the township's old Indian trail near Brown's Mills, an ancient stone-walled burial vault opened in 1838 held a skeleton seven feet long alongside a tomahawk and arrowheads. Its landmark today is the Shinn Covered Bridge, a Burr arch-truss span local carpenter Charles T. Shinn built in 1886 over the western branch of Wolf Creek, northeast of the Wesley Township hamlet of Bartlett -- built, by local account, soon after the drowning of one of Shinn's own children. No incorporated village has ever stood in the township. The 2020 census recorded 547 residents.

Settled 1796 (Christopher Malster); 1802 (the Palmer family), incorporated 1851 (exact date not given in the source checked).

Where the name comes from

The township is named for its second pioneer family, the Palmers. Joseph Palmer, born in Windham, Connecticut, in 1761, led his family from Rutland County, Vermont, down the Ohio River by keelboat to the Wolf Creek mills settlement in the fall of 1801 and moved onto the township's land in March 1802. He became the settlement's first justice of the peace and, in 1807, represented Washington County in the state legislature.

Before the town

No historic-era Native village or treaty site specific to Palmer Township was found in the sources checked, but the 1881 county history describes an ancient burial mound west of Brown's Mills, on the farm of G. W. Murdock, opened in 1838 by Ludley Gard, D. W. Shinn, and others: inside was a stone-walled vault eight feet long and four feet deep containing a skeleton seven feet long, a tomahawk, arrowheads, and worked stones. The mound stood beside what the source calls an old Indian trail -- the township's first road, crossing the stream below Brown's Mills and running toward the Hocking River from the Ohio -- which the writers believed marked a line of communication between western Native villages and the frontier; many other Native relics were found along its course.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture, Hopewell culture, Fort Ancient culture.

• Brown's Mills mound and trail (burial) — west of Brown's Mills, on the G. W. Murdock farm, beside the old Indian trail, Palmer Township, prehistoric (undated in the source) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1796 — Christopher Malster, a native of Delaware, becomes the first settler of the district, choosing land along the dividing ridge between the west and south forks of Wolf Creek; his wife rides horseback from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, carrying their infant son to join him the following year.
2. 1802-03 — Joseph Palmer moves his family onto the township's land after wintering at the Wolf Creek mills settlement; the family had survived a keelboat accident in the river rapids on the way from Marietta, in which young Jerusha Palmer was rescued from the water by a companion, Mr. Howe.
3. 1807 — Joseph Palmer, sr., is sent to the Ohio legislature as a representative of Washington County.
4. 1808 — Joseph Palmer, jr., marries Sarah Martin in the settlement's first marriage ceremony; when the officiating minister fails to arrive, Joseph Palmer, sr. -- also a justice of the peace -- performs his own son's wedding himself.
5. 1838 — Ludley Gard, D. W. Shinn, and others open an ancient mound west of Brown's Mills, finding a stone-walled vault containing a seven-foot skeleton, a tomahawk, and arrowheads, beside the township's old Indian trail.
6. 1851 — The township's roughly fourteen thousand acres have, by this date, become known as Palmer Township.
7. 1886 — Local carpenter Charles T. Shinn builds the Shinn Covered Bridge over the western branch of Wolf Creek, reportedly soon after the drowning death of one of his own children.
8. 1976 — The Shinn Covered Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

The wedding the father had to perform himself

In 1808, Joseph Palmer, jr., the eldest son of the township's namesake family, was set to marry Sarah Martin in what would be the settlement's first wedding ceremony -- everything ready, guests gathered, the feast set, and a minister named Lindley expected from the Wolf Creek mills. But Lindley never came: unbeknownst to the wedding party, he had just accepted a new position in Athens and was busy moving there. As the wait grew embarrassing, old Joseph Palmer, sr. -- who happened to be a justice of the peace -- realized he could simply marry the couple himself, and did, closing out his own son's wedding day amid what the county history imagines as much laughter and good-natured comment from the assembled guests.

A giant in a stone vault

Near the township's oldest road -- itself an old Native American trail running from the Ohio River toward the Hocking, marked along its length by relics of earlier travelers -- stood a low mound on the farm of G. W. Murdock, west of Brown's Mills. In 1838, Ludley Gard, D. W. Shinn, and other settlers opened it and found a carefully built vault, eight feet long and four feet deep, walled entirely in stone. Inside lay a skeleton measuring a startling seven feet, along with a tomahawk, arrowheads, and stones worked into various shapes. Nothing else about the burial's age or the identity of the people who built it was recorded, but its position beside the old trail suggested to the 1881 writers that the route had long served as a line of communication between Native villages farther west and the Ohio River frontier.

A bridge built out of grief

Local memory in Palmer Township holds that Charles T. Shinn, a carpenter, built his namesake covered bridge over Wolf Creek in 1886 not long after one of his own children drowned -- a detail that, if accurate, casts the bridge's Burr arch truss, which combines a king-post frame with a curved wooden arch for extra strength, as something closer to a memorial than an ordinary road project. The 98-foot span is one of the last examples of the Burr king-post arch truss still standing in Ohio, and it earned National Register listing in 1976 on the strength of that rarity. It stands just northeast of Bartlett, the small crossroads community that is actually across the township line in Wesley Township, a reminder of how loosely Washington County's rural geography ties settlements to the townships that technically contain them.

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

Every historic place in Washington County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.61% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)
• Waterford Water/sewer Association16% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Stockport Village14% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Beverly Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Tri-county Rural W and S District2% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Morgan Meigsville - West Malta1% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Chesterhill Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Bridges rated poor (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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-30
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-01-23

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