Pike Township, Perry County

How Pike Township, Perry County began

Pike Township was organized around 1814 and named for Zebulon Pike, the Army officer and explorer killed in the War of 1812. Robert McClellan, who came in over the route from present Rushville and Bremen up Rush Creek toward the future site of New Lexington, is named in the 1883 county history as the township's second settler. The county seat of New Lexington sits in the township's north end, and the township's southern half was reshaped after 1872 when the coal town of Shawnee was platted nearby on the former Israel Gordon farm, drawing miners into a district that had been farmland.

Settled 1811 (John Fowler, first permanent settler), incorporated c. 1814 (organized by Fairfield County authorities), by John Fowler built the first cabin near the big spring in Fowler's meadow, three-fourths of a mile east of the present New Lexington square; Robert McClellan and Robert Humes followed.

Where the name comes from

Named for Zebulon Pike, the U.S. Army captain (later general) and explorer of the Pike's Peak expedition, killed at the Battle of York in 1813; one of eight townships of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

No site within Pike Township itself is documented as a named Native village, mound or treaty ground. The 1883 Perry County history states that the Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware) and Wyandot were 'the principal occupants of the county,' ranging the country between the Muskingum and Scioto rivers, and that Indians 'often encamped temporarily,' especially along Sunday and Monday creeks and near the Great Swamp, rather than living in fixed towns within the county by the time of settlement. The village of Shawnee, platted in 1872 just south of the township, took its name directly from the Shawnee.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1811 — John Fowler, a native of Baltimore County, Maryland, rides to Ohio on horseback, stops with his relative James Thrall in Clayton Township and builds a cabin near the big spring in what is still called Fowler's meadow, the township's first permanent settlement; he blazes 'Fowler's path' through the forest, whose traces remained for more than twenty years.
2. 1812 — Robert McClellan and Robert Humes with their families come soon after Fowler and all live one summer in and about his cabin, seventeen persons in all, until cabins go up on an adjoining tract; Jonathan Carroll settles on the west bank of Yerger's Run probably this year.
3. 1813 — Ira Carroll is born on Yerger's Run, the first white child born in the township; Thomas Wright moves to the place where Jackson Wright later lives.
4. c. 1814 — Pike Township is organized and named for Zebulon Pike.
5. 1815 — The first school is taught within the later New Lexington by Jonathan Sturgeon, an Irishman, in an old dwelling cabin with a puncheon floor near the spring now enclosed in Andrew Stocklein's yard; a log schoolhouse follows about 1820.
6. 1816 — Nathaniel Rush builds a small corn-cracker mill on Fowler's Run, the first mill of authentic record, where elections were sometimes held while Pike was part of Fairfield County; Samuel Clayton builds a larger one on Rush Creek, later bought by James Comly.
7. 1817 — New Lexington, in the township's north end, is laid out by James Comly, who sold 64 lots for $25 to $50 apiece.
8. 1820 — The first Baptist society is organized about 1820 under Rev. James Skinner, ordained about 1821; a log church is built in 1825 or 1826 and meetings had been held in homes and in a large barn.
9. 1830 — The township is districted for schools about 1830 with the Selby, New Lexington and Vansickle districts; the New Lexington district builds its second schoolhouse, a frame building holding seventy-five or eighty pupils, used for over twenty years.
10. 1857 — New Lexington wins the Perry County seat after a bitter contest with Somerset and Rehoboth.
11. 1858 — The new brick Union School at New Lexington is completed and the schools are graded; it is enlarged in 1876 and a Franciscan sisters' academy opens in 1876, its first wing built in 1874.
12. 1872 — The railroad reaches the area just south of the township and investor T.J. Davis plats the town of Shawnee on the former Israel Gordon farm, opening a coal, clay and oil boom.
13. 1874 — Shawnee is incorporated as a village.
14. 2020 — The census counts 6,688 people in the township.

Stories

The second settler's road in

The 1883 Perry County history preserves one of the few named accounts of how the township's earliest arrivals actually traveled. Robert McClellan is recorded coming in by way of where Rushville now stands, down toward Bremen, then following Rush Creek up to the spot that would become New Lexington; the history calls him the township's second settler. The route mattered because it followed the drainage rather than a surveyed road — Rush Creek was the practical highway before roads existed, and towns from Bremen to New Lexington grew up along it in the order settlers walked its banks.

Seventeen in Fowler's cabin

John Fowler made the first permanent settlement in Pike Township. A native of Baltimore County, Maryland, he came to Ohio on horseback in 1811 and stayed with a relative, James Thrall, who had settled a year or two earlier in Clayton Township about half a mile south of where Rehoboth was later built. He blazed a way through the forest to a spring three-quarters of a mile east of what is now the public square in New Lexington and built his cabin in what is still called Fowler's meadow. For some time he kept going back to Thrall's for Saturday night and Sunday, and traces of 'Fowler's path' could be seen for more than twenty years. Robert McClellan and Robert Humes and their families came soon after, and for one whole summer seventeen people lived in and around Fowler's cabin until cabins could be raised on the adjoining tract, which the McClellans still held in 1883. Jonathan Carroll, Thomas Wright, Samuel Clayton, Eli Babb, William Lashley, Nathaniel Rush and Reuben Skinner came soon after; Ira Carroll, born in 1813, was the first white child. The county history gives a list of more than eighty pioneers who arrived before 1818.

Photographs

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

New Lexington Reservoir(s) (Old & New Reservoir) The water here

• New Lexington93% of residentsNew Lexington Reservoir(s) (Old & New Reservoir)
• Junction City3% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Southern Perry Co-mainesville3% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Shawnee, Village Of1% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Northern Perry Co.water #21% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (4)

Spills reported since 2021 (11)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-01-09

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