Rush Township, Champaign County

How Rush Township, Champaign County began

Rush Township, the northeast corner of Champaign County, was part of Wayne Township until 1828 and takes a name whose origin Beers's 1881 history calls shrouded in oblivion: some settlers said it came from the rush that grew in the swamps of the south, others from Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, a signer of the Declaration. William Pickerill, William Martin, William Elder, the Merryfield brothers and John Rogers came from Virginia in 1800 and Pickerill built the first grist mill in 1803 on the outlet of Rush Lake. The Spain, Reams and Crowder families came from Dinwiddie County, Virginia, in 1805, and New Englanders under John Cranston, who left Rice City, Rhode Island, in 1815, settled the south near Woodstock. The 1830 census counted 775 inhabitants; North Lewisburg was platted in 1826 and Woodstock laid out in the 1830s.

Settled 1800, platted 1826, incorporated 1828, by William Pickerill and others from Virginia in 1800; Spain family 1805.

Where the name comes from

Beers's 1881 county history says the origin of the name Rush is shrouded in oblivion. Willis Spain thought it came from the rushes in the township's swamps, while John B. Cranston thought it was named for Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) of Philadelphia, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Surgeon General of the army, and the author inclined to the latter belief.

Before the town

A firsthand account from the Spain family, who settled the North Lewisburg area around 1805, describes their neighbors on arrival as 'the Mingoes and Shawnees and Pianoes' (the source does not say which nation 'Pianoes' means). The same village history says that, as far as is known, no white man was killed by an Indian within Champaign County's boundaries, a claim contradicted by the 1881 county history, which records a settler named Bowyer shot and killed by Native men in the southwestern part of the county in 1807; it also says that Native people frequently camped on the settlers' farms near Spain's Creek. No mound, earthwork, or named town site has been found documented specifically within Rush Township; a genuine Adena burial mound, the Carl Potter Mound, is recorded nearby in the county but sits in Union Township, not this one.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Piankeshaw (Miami).

Timeline

1. 1800 — William Pickerill, William Martin, William Elder, James and Emanuel Merryfield and John Rogers come from Virginia and make a first, partly temporary, settlement; only Rogers remains permanently.
2. 1803 — William Pickerill builds the first grist mill in the township on the outlet of Rush Lake, with a single run of burrs and no bolt; he sells it about ten years later to John Richardson.
3. 1805 — The Spain family, from Dinwiddie County, Virginia, arrived and became among the first permanent settlers in the area that became Rush Township; Hezekiah Spain purchased 1,063 acres in 1806 at $2.00 an acre.
4. 1810 — Samuel Black and his son Peter arrive and settle in the north of the township near the later North Lewisburg, as do the Spain, Reams and Crowder families who came from Dinwiddie County in 1805 and 1807.
5. 1815 — John Cranston leads a party of twenty-four, mostly Connecticut natives gathered at Rice City, Rhode Island, six weeks by wagon to Rush Township, where they settle on Pleasant Run near Woodstock; his son John B. Cranston, then seventeen, supplied much of Beers's early history.
6. 1817 — Andrew Kimball comes from Virginia; settlers from New England such as Thomas Erwin, the Fairchilds, Erastus Burnham, the Howards and Sylvanus Smith locate near Woodstock in these years.
7. 1826 — Gray Gary platted North Lewisburg on September 6, on high ground near Spain's Creek, after buying land from Hezekiah Spain; the first town lot sold at auction for $18.00.
8. 1828 — Rush Township was set off from Wayne Township as its own township.
9. 1828 — The Shakers gain a brief foothold in the Cranston district on Pleasant Run, holding meetings on Joseph Johnson's farm; Rush Township is made a separate township about the same year.
10. 1830 — The census counts 775 inhabitants in Rush Township, with 18,610 acres of taxable land, according to the Ohio Gazetteer of 1837.
11. 1842 — The Friends' meeting-house, the first church in North Lewisburg, is built.
12. 1844 — North Lewisburg was incorporated as a village by act of the state legislature.
13. 1871 — The Bank of North Lewisburg is organized in June by Hudson Haines; in 1877 the Bank of Woodstock is organized, and North Lewisburg has 936 residents in 1880.
14. 2001 — North Lewisburg marked its 175th anniversary.

Stories

Seven weeks to Spain's Creek

The Spain family left Dinwiddie County, Virginia around 1805 for land Hezekiah Spain would soon buy in what became Rush Township, and a family account of the trip survives in the village's own history: seven weeks on the road, camping wherever they could find water, 'no house within four miles, no mill, no store short of twenty-eight miles.' About nine other Virginia families made the same move at roughly the same time, followed later by settlers from New England. Their neighbors, by the family's own account, were 'the Mingoes and Shawnees and Pianoes, the wolves and the panther.' Two decades after the Spains arrived, Gray Gary, who had bought land from Hezekiah Spain, platted a town near Spain's Creek and sold the first lot at auction for eighteen dollars; it grew into North Lewisburg, incorporated in 1844 and still the larger of Rush Township's two villages.

The first church in North Lewisburg

Beers's 1881 county history says the first church in North Lewisburg was the Friends' meeting-house, built in 1842. The village's Friends church and cemetery are the subject of an Ohio historical marker, listed as Friends Church / Friends Cemetery, which is photographed on Wikimedia Commons.

A township named by guesswork

Beers's 1881 history, in a chapter by M. C. Gowey, admits that the origin of the name Rush is lost. Gowey interviewed many of the old settlers and 'signally failed' to get an intelligible solution except from two: Willis Spain, who thought it came from the swamps covered with rush in the south of the township, now tiled and among the richest farms, and John B. Cranston, who thought the title came from a man of prominence in Pennsylvania. Gowey inclined to Cranston's side, pointing out that Benjamin Rush, born near Philadelphia in 1745 and dead in 1813, had signed the Declaration, served in the Continental Congress, been Surgeon General of the army and treasurer of the Mint. The township had been part of Wayne Township until 1828 and, by the Ohio Gazetteer of 1837, held two towns, Lewisburg with a post office and Woodstock; its settlers from Virginia in the north and New England in the south long kept a different character, the southerners being, in Gowey's words, wild and reckless, fond of dancing, and given to settling a quarrel with a fist-fight and forgetting it the next day at a barn-raising.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• North Lewisburg Village95% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Milford Center Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 1 of 1 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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-12

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