Port William

How Port William began

Port William sits in the northern part of Liberty Township. John Unthank began the village in 1816, west of Todd's Fork where he had built a gristmill in 1807, and called it West Liberty; it was platted on October 18, 1832 for Michael Jenkins, and a post office named Port William opened in 1834, a name that replaced West Liberty. Garland Johnson started its first store in 1829, a woolen factory was built in 1846, and the Dayton, Toledo and Ironton railroad arrived in 1878, making the village the chief town of the northern county and a grain market. Its population peaked at 360 in 1960 and was 229 in 2020.

Settled 1807 (John Unthank's mill); village begun 1816, platted 1832-10-18 (as West Liberty, for Michael Jenkins), by John Unthank began the village in 1816; Michael Jenkins was the proprietor at the 1832 plat.

Where the name comes from

The village was first platted in 1832 under the name West Liberty, matching Liberty Township, which had been organized in 1817. A post office called Port William began operating in 1834, and that name — its origin not established by any source consulted — came to be used for the village itself in place of West Liberty.

Before the town

Two archaeological mounds in Liberty Township, the Keiter Mound and the Hurley Mound, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1975 and 1978); no Native village or site at Port William itself is recorded in the sources checked. The 1915 county history says Stephen Mendenhall had only Indians for neighbors in Liberty Township in his first summer of 1803; see the Liberty Township file. The land lies in the Virginia Military District, opened after the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Myaamia (Miami), Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1807 — John Unthank builds a gristmill where Port William now stands, the first mill in that section; township elections are held at the mill for several years.
2. 1816 — John Unthank starts a village on the west side of Todd's Fork, first called West Liberty; few houses are built before 1829.
3. 1817 — Liberty Township, in which Port William sits, is organized.
4. 1825 — Steel Taylor builds a fulling mill below and across the creek from the later woolen factory.
5. 1828 — The first blacksmith shop is built in the hamlet.
6. 1829 — Garland Johnson builds a log house and starts the first store in the town.
7. 1832 — The village is platted as West Liberty.
8. 1832-10-18 — The town is platted for Michael Jenkins, proprietor, as parts of surveys Nos. 4,366 and 1,728.
9. 1833 — Liberty Township's industrial base is recorded as a flouring mill, two saw mills, a fulling mill, a distillery, and one store.
10. 1834 — A post office named Port William begins operating in the village; the name eventually supersedes West Liberty.
11. 1838 — Jonathan Perkins starts the first saloon.
12. 1846 — Lewis Clark builds a woolen factory, later owned by Moon & Crooper.
13. 1878 — The Dayton, Toledo and Ironton railroad opens to Port William.
14. 1880 — Port William has 181 residents in the 1880 census, in a township of 1,201.
15. 1915 — Port William has about 300 people, a bank, flour mill, elevator, garage, hardware store, hotel and general stores.
16. 1960 — Port William's population peaks at 360.
17. 2020 — The U.S. Census records Port William's population at 229, a 9.8 percent decline from 2010.

Stories

Two names for one village

When surveyors platted the village in 1832, they called it West Liberty, a plain echo of the township that held it. But two years later, when the federal government approved a post office for the settlement, it went into the record as Port William instead — a name with no obvious tie to the township, the county, or any local landmark that surviving sources explain. Small Ohio villages often carried two names for a stretch in the nineteenth century, one for the plat map and one for the mail; here, the post-office name won out, and West Liberty faded from use while Port William stuck. By 1833 the place had enough going on to justify the post office and more: a flouring mill grinding local grain, two sawmills cutting the timber being cleared off surrounding farms, a fulling mill finishing homespun wool cloth, a distillery, and a general store — a self-sufficient little industrial cluster typical of a Virginia Military District township filling in with settlers in its second generation.

Photographs

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

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

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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