Richland Township, Darke County

How Richland Township, Darke County began

Richland Township, in central Darke County, was organized September 8, 1820, mostly from Wayne Township with sixteen sections from Greenville and four from Adams. 'Richland is no misnomer,' the 1880 county history says, though the Stillwater River's winding course through it is hilly. Jacob Hartell was the first settler in 1817, followed in 1818 by David Riffle's family; it then waited some ten years for more people because of ague and milk sickness. The township gave up land to Brown (1833) and York (1837) townships. Its villages are Beamsville (platted 1837), Nevada or Dawn (1854) and Stelvideo (1851), once the utopian 'Bloomer Town.'

Settled 1817 (Jacob Hartell), incorporated 1820-09-08, by organized mainly from Wayne Township, with sections from Greenville and Adams Townships.

Where the name comes from

Named for the area's rich, productive farmland; one of twelve Richland Townships in Ohio. The 1880 county history remarks that 'the name -- Richland -- is no misnomer,' noting the land's general fertility outside the hillier ground along the Stillwater.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound or trail specific to Richland Township is recorded in the sources checked. Its early settlers sheltered at Fort Briar, a refuge built on the Stillwater in Section 27 during the War of 1812, according to the 1914 county history. The township lies south of the Greenville treaty line along the Stillwater River in land ceded in 1795.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee.

• Fort Briar (other) — Section 27, south bank of the Stillwater, Richland Township, War of 1812 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1812 — Fort Briar is built on the south side of the Stillwater in Section 27 during the war with Britain, and serves as a refuge for early pioneers (per the 1914 history).
2. 1817 — Jacob Hartell becomes Richland's first settler; David Riffle, his sons Jacob and Solomon, and George Ward arrive in March 1818.
3. 1819 — James Stephenson and George Plessinger settle; for some ten years the little group receives no newcomers because of the ague and milk sickness.
4. 1820-09-08 — Richland Township is organized, mostly from Wayne Township, with sixteen sections from Greenville and four from Adams.
5. 1824 — Adam Coppess builds the township's first forge, John Coppess Sr. arrives, and a log schoolhouse is built about this time on John Coppess's farm in Section 24.
6. 1833-12 — Brown Township is erected from the northern part of Richland.
7. 1837 — John Beam plats Beamsville on the Stillwater; York Township is formed from the rest of Richland's north, leaving the township its present shape.
8. 1842 — The United Brethren build a log church in Beamsville on land given by Fred Beam, the township's next church after a converted schoolhouse used by the Methodists.
9. 1851 — Solomon Farmer lays out Stelvideo, then known as Bloomer Town.
10. 1852 — John Patterson begins buying lots and building a steam sawmill and a tavern, the Pluribus Unum Hotel, drawing a colony of reformers to Bloomer Town.
11. 1854 — L. W. Johnson lays out Nevada (Dawn post office), formerly Johnson's Station and Eden, and builds a sawmill.
12. 1879 — Richland farmers own 12,426 acres, 7,478 tilled, and raise 36,891 bushels of wheat on 1,927 acres.
13. 1907 — The Christians build a church on the south side of Nevada (Dawn).
14. 2020 — Census population is 820.

Stories

Bloomer Town: a utopian colony driven out

In the early 1850s, around the time the '49ers were heading overland for California gold, a Richland Township landowner named John Patterson decided to pursue his own fortune closer to home. He bought up lots on an inherited farm near what was then called Bloomer Town, built a steam sawmill and a two-story tavern he called the Pluribus Unum Hotel, and, through correspondence with Fourierist Alfred Brisbane and other noted socialists of the day, turned the small settlement into what the 1880 county history calls 'a center for modern radicalism of all kinds, save and except free love.' At the same time, the dress-reform movement associated with Amelia Bloomer took hold among the village's women, who adopted the reform costume that gave the place its name. The experiment did not last: neighboring residents, hostile to the settlement's mix of isms and unconventional dress, made Patterson and his followers unwelcome. The hotel was vacated, several buildings left unfinished, and the sawmill sold at a loss as Patterson and his colony departed for Berlin Heights in Huron County, according to the 1880 history alone, where a larger community of like-minded reformers gathered and published its own weekly newspaper. Bloomer Town's memory survives only in the name Stelvideo, the more conventional farm village that replaced it.

A dozen families alone with the ague

Richland's first settlers -- Jacob Hartell, the Riffle and Ward families, then James Stephenson and George Plessinger in 1819, and a handful more through 1824 -- had, in the 1880 history's telling, 'no accessions' for years after their arrival, left to occupy the township's forests largely alone. They contended with the ague and with the dreaded milk sickness that periodically swept the clearings, surviving both ordeals to be remembered afterward as the township's pioneers. Only with the general westward migration of the 1830s did new settlers, such as Daniel Warvel from Warren County and E. Deming from Connecticut, begin arriving in meaningful numbers, more than fifteen years after Hartell had broken the first ground.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Greenville City45% of residentsGreenville Creek (primary, ~78%) blended with 8 wells
• Versailles Village39% of residentsGroundwater wells (14 wells)
• Ansonia Village15% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Northtowne Communities Llc1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Sherwood Forest MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-07-14

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