Richland Township, Fairfield County

How Richland Township, Fairfield County began

Richland Township, in the eastern part of Fairfield County, was named for the richness of its soil and was reduced to its present four-by-six-mile size in 1817, when two tiers of its eastern sections were struck off to Perry County. Edward Murphy, a Marylander, settled permanently in 1800 near the site that became East Rushville, one of two villages a mile apart on Rush Creek; East Rushville (first called Clinton) was laid out by Joseph Turner in 1808 and West Rushville by John Gams about 1815, both on Zane's Trace, Ohio's first public road, completed in 1797. For several years after settlement began, an Indian encampment with a log fort stood near the site of West Rushville, its residents trading venison and bear meat to the newcomers for cornmeal. Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay are both remembered as having stopped at Edward Murphy's hotel on the Trace while traveling to Washington. The two Rushvilles remain the township's villages today.

Settled 1798-1800 (Edward Murphy, wintering 1798-99, permanently from 1800).

Where the name comes from

Richland Township was so named, according to the 1883 and 1912 county histories, because of the richness and fertility of its soil.

Before the town

For several years after Richland Township's first settlement, an Indian encampment stood near the present village of West Rushville, where the residents had built a rude log fort around which their habitations clustered. The 1883 county history describes them as peaceable and friendly, rarely troubling the settlers and frequently visiting pioneer homes to trade venison and bear meat for cornmeal and hominy. No source consulted names the nation of this encampment specifically, though the county as a whole was Wyandot and Lenape (Delaware) territory in this period; the mixed 'Wyandot and Delaware' framing used elsewhere in the same county history for similar encampments suggests either or both peoples may be meant here. County historian A. A. Graham also counted Richland among the roughly twenty Fairfield County townships holding ancient mound-builder works, alongside Bloom, Clear Creek, Greenfield, Hocking, Berne, Walnut and Rush Creek, though he gives no specific location or description for a Richland Township mound. Zane's Trace, completed in 1797, ran directly through both Rushville villages and served for decades as one of the heaviest-traveled roads out of the Ohio country.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Adena culture, Hopewell culture.

• West Rushville encampment (camp) — near the present village of West Rushville, occupied into the early 1800s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of what becomes Ohio, including the future Richland Township, to the United States.
2. 1797 — Zane's Trace, the first public highway in Ohio, is completed from Wheeling to Limestone (Maysville), Kentucky, passing through the future villages of East and West Rushville.
3. 1798-1800 — Edward Murphy, from Maryland, winters in the township in 1798-99, returns home, and settles permanently on Section 17 in 1800.
4. 1802 — Edward Murphy marries his cousin Sarah Murphy in the township's first recorded marriage; Mary Turner is the first child born in Richland.
5. 1803 — Judge William McClung, who later serves in the Ohio Legislature and as an Associate Judge, settles in Richland Township.
6. 1806-1807 — A Methodist camp meeting is held in the Stevenson settlement, claimed as the first camp meeting in Ohio.
7. 1808 — Joseph Turner lays out East Rushville, first named Clinton, on Zane's Trace.
8. 1810 — The first church in the township, a small Methodist log building, is erected on Section 28.
9. c. 1815 — John Gams lays out West Rushville, about a mile from East Rushville on the opposite bank of Rush Creek.
10. 1817 — Two tiers of sections are struck off Richland Township's eastern side and attached to Perry County, reducing it to its present four-by-six-mile size, the smallest township in Fairfield County.
11. 1840 — Zane's Trace through the township is converted into the Zanesville and Maysville turnpike.
12. 1880 — The Ohio Central Railroad is completed through the township, running between the two Rushville villages.

Stories

Trading Across the Fence Line

For years after Richland Township's first white settlers arrived, an encampment of Indians remained nearby, its people living around a rude log fort near the site that later became West Rushville. The county historian describes them as peaceable and rarely troublesome, and their visits to pioneer cabins as almost routine: they came bringing venison and bear meat, trading for cornmeal and hominy in a pattern of exchange that seems to have continued for years without serious incident. It is one of the few surviving accounts from Fairfield County of ordinary, sustained contact between settlers and Native residents that was neither violence nor removal, just neighbors trading what each side had for what the other needed.

Andrew Jackson's Overnight Stop

Zane's Trace, cut through the wilderness in 1797 as Ohio's first public road, ran directly between East and West Rushville, and for decades carried an immense volume of travel toward Washington and the settled East. Edward Murphy, the township's first permanent settler, kept a hotel near the road not far from West Rushville, and according to the county history it hosted two of the era's most famous political travelers: General Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, both said to have stopped there en route to the capital. The old hotel building, the historian noted in 1883, was still standing, though by then rather dilapidated, and occupied by a grandson of Murphy himself.

Two Villages, One Creek

East and West Rushville sit a mile apart on opposite banks of Rush Creek, and their early histories ran on similar but separate tracks. Joseph Turner laid out East Rushville in 1808, first naming it Clinton before the name changed; John Gams laid out West Rushville about 1815. Both profited for decades from the tobacco trade — Joseph Ijams of West Rushville and William Coulson of East Rushville were the principal dealers — and both sat directly on Zane's Trace, drawing steady traffic until the railroad arrived in 1880, running its track midway between the two villages as if determined not to favor either one.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Fairfield County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Pleasantville Village23% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Thornville, Village Of20% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Northern Perry Co.water #119% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Rushville Village19% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Buckeye Lake, Village Of13% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Licking County Harbor Hills6% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Roberts Trailer Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

High-hazard dams (2)

Public schools (2)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-07-28

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