Richwood

How Richwood began

Richwood was platted in August 1832 by Philip Plummer, who had come from Mount Vernon, Knox County, with his brother Thomas and a physician, Dr. John P. Brookins, and named it for the rich soil and heavy timber of the tract he bought in Claibourne Township. It stayed tiny (99 people in 1840), was incorporated by the county commissioners in March 1855 (Wikipedia and the library's history say 1835) in expectation of a railroad, and grew in the 1870s on lumber, planing and woolen mills until it counted 1,317 people in 1880, making it Union County's second town. It paved its streets in brick from 1907. The 2020 census counted 2,222 residents.

Settled 1832, platted 1832-08-20, incorporated 1855-03-06 (per the 1915 county history; Wikipedia gives 1835), by Philip Plummer, proprietor; platted by Thomas O. Plummer, deputy county surveyor, on the William Pelham survey.

Where the name comes from

Philip Plummer named the settlement Richwood for the richness of the soil and the size of the forest on the tract of land he had purchased in Claibourne Township.

Before the town

The county history says Claibourne Township, which holds Richwood, lay next to the Greenville Treaty line of 1795, north of which land was reserved to the Indians, and that the rise on which Richwood stands was a favourite hunting ground where Native people often camped: knives, saddle fragments, brooches and tomahawks were turned up by the plough, and skeletons were exposed in a gravel pit just north of the village. Settlers and hunters of both peoples ranged the forest in the 1820s, and the account says Native hunters withdrew from the region soon afterwards. No named village, mound or trail is recorded at Richwood itself.

Timeline

1. 1832 — Philip Plummer, Thomas Plummer, and John Flemming (named by the library's history; the county history names Elisha Merriot instead) travel from Mount Vernon and found the settlement in Claibourne Township; Dr. John P. Brookins builds the first cabin and becomes the village's first postmaster.
2. 1832-08-20 — Thomas O. Plummer, deputy county surveyor, plats about 45 acres for Philip Plummer on the Pelham survey; the plat is acknowledged on August 20 and Philip Plummer and Dr. John P. Brookins return from Mount Vernon to settle.
3. 1833 — Hezekiah Burdick, a local Methodist Episcopal minister, and John Calloway open the first store in a log building on lot 102 in August (Wikipedia gives 1834); stock was wagoned from Marysville and the store did not last long.
4. 1833 — William Phillips, a potter from Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, settles on lot 48 and works his trade at Richwood for at least a quarter century; his diary records prices from 1834 to 1838.
5. 1835 — The Methodist Episcopal Church is formally established in Richwood (Wikipedia, which also says the village was incorporated in March 1835; the county history instead gives the incorporation as March 6, 1855).
6. 1840 — The village has a population of 99.
7. 1847 — Dr. John P. Brookins, the first postmaster, leaves town; he held the office from its establishment and, the county history says, never let the mail bag go out empty.
8. 1855-03-06 — County commissioners incorporate the town on a petition of forty citizens, made because the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad was expected; the road was not built as planned and the corporation lapsed for years, with Charles W. Rosette the first mayor.
9. 1873 — Beem & Biddle set a portable sawmill on the site of their later planing mill, which by 1882 was Richwood's largest establishment and supplied hardwood lumber to the Barney & Smith car shops in Dayton.
10. 1876 — The Bank of Richwood is established.
11. 1877 — By this date the village supports two banks, three churches, a brick schoolhouse, and several stores and factories.
12. 1880 — The census counts 1,317 residents, up from 436 in 1870 and 246 in 1860.
13. 1906 — The Bank of Richwood is reincorporated as the Richwood Banking Company with $35,000 in capital.
14. 1907 — The village begins paving its streets with brick, a program that by 1914 had cost more than $150,000 and given it over three miles of brick streets.
15. 1914 — Richwood has Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Protestant, Church of Christ, Baptist, African Baptist and Presbyterian churches, three banks, the Gazette newspaper, a roller flouring mill and Odd Fellows, Masons and Knights of Pythias lodges; the 1910 census had counted 1,728 people.
16. 1960 — The census counts 2,137 residents, up from 1,573 in 1930 and 1,866 in 1950.
17. 2020 — The census counts 2,222 residents.

Stories

Named for the land itself

Most Union County towns took their names from a founder's family member, an eastern hometown, or a water feature. Richwood is one of the few named for the land's own character: Philip Plummer, who arrived from Mount Vernon in 1832 with his surveyor brother and a nephew, was struck by how rich the soil was and how large the standing timber grew on the tract he bought in Claibourne Township, and he called the place Richwood for it. The first building was a one-room cabin belonging to Dr. John P. Brookins, who combined medicine, the post office, and pioneer life the way many small-town doctors of the period did. Within a generation the village had two banks and three churches, a fast rise for a place that started as a single log cabin in the woods.

A temperance town and its first doctor

Philip Plummer, the proprietor of Richwood, was remembered by pioneer William Phillips as a man of taste and refinement who loved good company, kind and ready to help newcomers, and a thorough temperance man. In selling lots he would sell to no one who intended to sell whisky, believing it would hurt the property of the town, and most early settlers backed him, so log-rollings and house-raisings in Richwood were held on temperance principles. The county history credits that with an orderly community whose influence was still felt in 1914. The first physician, Dr. John P. Brookins, who also served as postmaster until he left in 1847, kept the office in his cabin; in his day mails were scant and irregular, but he would not let the bags leave empty, and if there was no mail he wrote a letter to a friend to put in them.

The lumber town

Richwood's growth from 436 people in 1870 to 1,317 in 1880 came with the timber business. In 1873 Beem & Biddle set a portable sawmill on the site where they soon built a two-story frame plant, with a carpenter shop upstairs. A fire in June 1876 cost them $3,000 with no insurance, and they rebuilt bigger, adding a planing mill in 1877 and supplying lumber to the Barney & Smith car works in Dayton and hickory to a Mansfield thresher maker. By 1880, with hardwood scarce, they were taking timber from the stump and had put a mill in Jackson Township; about thirty men worked the year round. Richwood also had a woolen mill built in 1869, planing mills started in 1871, and a flax mill costing $7,000 built in 1871 that ran until flax stopped being a good crop.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Richwood Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 2 of 3 passed.

Ballot issues

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-05-08

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page