Ross Township, Greene County

How Ross Township, Greene County began

Ross Township, in the northeast corner of Greene County, was organized in 1811 and named, the 1881 county history says, for an early settler named Ross who died long ago without descendants. Settlers from Virginia and Maryland, among them John Harper (about 1804), Zara Insley, William Harpole and Joseph Butcher, farmed its flat clay land and the wet prairie called the Barrens; Grape Grove, named for an 1830 vineyard, grew into the township's only hamlet. The township shrank when Cedarville Township was formed in 1850, holds the county's highest point (1,135 feet) and is the only Greene County township that touches Madison County. It had 1,335 residents in 1880 and 818 in 2020.

Settled about 1804 (John Harper); the county history says the first settler cannot be determined, incorporated 1811 (township organized), by John Harper, Zara Insley, William Harpole, Joseph Butcher and other Virginia and Maryland settlers.

Where the name comes from

The 1881 county history says the township 'received its name from an early settler, who died long years ago, leaving no descendants,' known only by tradition that a man named Ross once lived there; Wikipedia and the township's own website repeat that Ross was the name of a pioneer settler.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or treaty line specific to Ross Township is recorded in the sources checked. The 1881 county history says the township was not settled to any great extent until after the War of 1812 and that friendly Indians remained in the community 'probably as late as 1815,' harmless people who wished to stay where they had spent their childhood; it adds that no descendant of an early settler ever had to mourn a death through Native violence here. Caesar's Creek rises near the center of the township. The land is in the cession of the Treaty of Greenville (1795); for the Shawnee at Old Chillicothe, the Adena and Hopewell sites and the Virginia Military District.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1804 — John Harper, a native of Harper's Ferry, Maryland, is supposed to have located in the north of the township about this year, buying 1,200 acres and building the first round-log cabin in that neighborhood; Zara Insley of Maryland also arrives about 1804.
2. 1805 — Peter Huffman of Hardy County, Virginia, settles with six children on 128 heavily timbered acres; in 1825 he builds the first hewed-log house in this part of the township.
3. 1806 — William Harpole of Virginia, Joseph Butcher and David Larkin settle about this year; Harpole buys about 2,000 acres, part in Madison County.
4. 1808 — Robinson Fletcher, agent for the owner of the Monroe Survey, settles near the center of the township; Peter Woodring and Richard Beeson follow the same year.
5. 1811 — Ross Township is organized in the northeastern corner of Greene County.
6. 1815 — The first schoolhouse, a round-log building at 'Paddy's Crossing' on Mr. Harper's land, is built; Jerry O'Leary, an Irishman who also preached from house to house, is the first teacher. Friendly Indians remain in the community until about this year.
7. 1817 — Jacob Little, of Frederick County, Virginia, settles and builds the township's first blacksmith shop; David Little arrives in 1820 with twelve and a half cents to his name.
8. 1820 — George Junkins builds the first sawmill on the north fork of Massie's Creek about this year.
9. 1822 — Josephus Atkinson moves to 300 acres of the wet prairie called the Barrens, at about $3 an acre; he later drives cattle and hogs to Philadelphia and Baltimore and becomes the largest landholder.
10. 1827 — David Larkin builds the township's first brick house; the first brick chimney in the county is said to have been built in this neighborhood by Ephraim Simpson, who came from Pennsylvania as early as 1808.
11. 1830 — Andrew Fogg and William Lewis plant an eight-acre vineyard, which gives Grape Grove its name; Fogg is the township's first postmaster, about 1850.
12. 1850 — Cedarville Township is organized from the northern townships and takes part of Ross.
13. 1870 — The Federal pike is completed through the township (cost $1,500 to $2,000 a mile); population is 1,076, rising to 1,335 in 1880.
14. 1880 — A tile factory, founded by Messrs. Strause and Reiber in the north of the township, is the only manufacturing industry; the survey for a Cincinnati and Columbus railroad has been graded through the center.
15. 2004 — Since about this year the Tecumseh Land Trust has protected more than 3,000 acres of farmland in the township with permanent easements.
16. 2020 — The census counts 818 residents over 36.1 square miles.

Stories

Josephus Atkinson and the Barrens

In 1822 Josephus Atkinson, a York County, Pennsylvania, man married to a Tennessee woman, moved from Caesar's Creek Township onto 300 acres in Ross Township known as the Barrens: about a hundred acres of prairie, the rest heavily timbered, at roughly three dollars an acre. He moved into one of the log huts earlier temporary dwellers had left, and the family there grew to eleven children. The land was so wet that grass grew seven or eight feet high, and eight or ten acres was a big corn crop that no one could sell. Atkinson turned to stock instead, driving cattle and hogs overland to Philadelphia and Baltimore with six or seven hands in a round trip of about seventy days. The trips paid, and he became the township's largest landholder, with 1,248 acres in 1880, of which he kept 800. His son Levi made the drives too, and by 1881 Levi was probably the only man in the township who knew from experience what the road through the wilderness was like.

Grape Grove: a vineyard that left only its name

About 1830 Andrew Fogg and William Lewis bought some ground in the middle of the township and planted a vineyard of about eight acres, expecting the vine to repay them. A couple of small houses went up beside it and the spot was known as Grape Grove. The vineyard passed away long since; the name survived because a post office was opened under it, with Fogg as first postmaster, followed by Maria Bitenour and, by 1880, John Burtch, who also kept the one store. The village was never platted: buyers took little patches of ground and built what they pleased. In 1880 it had Burtch's store, a blacksmith shop, a carpenter who was also township clerk, and a doctor's office nearly finished, and the mail still came from Jamestown twice a week by carrier. A Cincinnati and Columbus railroad graded through the center of the township was expected to put a depot there.

The county's high point, and its only Madison County line

Ross Township carries two small distinctions among Greene County's twelve townships. It is the only one that shares a border with Madison County, sitting at the county's far northeastern corner, and it contains Greene County's highest ground, 1,135 feet above sea level, about two miles west of that northeastern corner. Neither fact made Ross Township a town-building place; it stayed farmland through the 19th and 20th centuries, its main built settlement being the sliver of Jamestown, mostly seated in neighboring Silvercreek Township, that crosses into its southern edge.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Jamestown Village53% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Cedarville University40% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)
• South Charleston Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• South Solon Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Harmony Estates Mobile Home Park1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Western Water Company0% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

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. The county's results on file run through 2025-05-06; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-11

Statewide question: State Issue 3: Voter ID

Local questions for Ross Township, Greene County, Greene County and its school district:

• Ross Township: Renews a 1.5-mill property tax levy for the fire protection & EMS of Ross Township for 5 years, beginning in 2027.
• Greene County: Renews a 0.25-mill property tax levy for the bridges of Greene County for 5 years, beginning in 2026.

Races, candidates and every question for an address: your ballot. County offices and judges are on your county board's sample ballot.

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