Rushcreek Township, Logan County

How Rushcreek Township, Logan County began

Rushcreek Township, in the hilly northeast of Logan County, was the county's largest township in 1880, about twelve miles by ten, and straddles the watershed between the Scioto and the Great Miami. Its first settler, the Quaker Thomas Stanfield, came from Tennessee in 1805 with ten children; the township was struck off from Jefferson Township in 1825 and organized by 1827 or 1832, and at first also took in the later Bokes Creek Township and part of Hardin County. The central village, Rushsylvania, was laid out in 1834 by James Clagg and nicknamed Claggtown before its post office gave it its present name; the Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad, finished through the township in 1853, brought the villages of Harper, Big Springs and Walnut Grove. The township is named for Rush Creek, which flows north out of Rush Creek Lake on its southern line; it remains a farming community of 2,153 residents at the 2020 census.

Settled 1805 (Thomas Stanfield), platted 1834 (Rushsylvania, as Claggstown, by James Clagg), incorporated 1827 (township organized, per Wikipedia and the 1880 county table); the 1880 chapter says struck off in 1825 and made a legal township in 1832, by Thomas Stanfield, first settler; James Clagg, proprietor of Rushsylvania.

Where the name comes from

The 1903 county history says the township was named from the stream that runs from its southern line northward through it and, after passing through Bokes Creek Township and Union County, empties into the Scioto. Rushsylvania, its central village, echoes the same creek name; it was nicknamed Clagg Town for its founder, James Clagg.

Before the town

The Greenville Treaty line of 1795 crosses the township about a mile north of its southern boundary. Rush Creek Lake, on the line with Jefferson Township, was remembered as a place where Native people fished and paddled canoes, and a tradition held that two hunters chasing a deer sank into the mire at its edge. An Indian trail ran from Lewistown by way of Brugler Springs to Upper Sandusky. Thomas Stanfield, the Quaker first settler, was on friendly terms with his Native neighbors, but the 1880 history tells of one night during the War of 1812 when a party gathered to kill his family and a neighbor's ruse saved them. The same history records that a noted chief called Big Lewis, father of the Shawnee chief Little Lewis, was buried in 1810, and that when the Shawnee left the Lewistown reservation they had some 700 ponies, which three local blacksmiths shod. Joel Thomas Jr. recalled the Wyandot missionary Dr. Grayeyes preaching in his own language at the camp of Ebenezer Zane on Mill Creek, followed by a dinner of bear meat and wild honey.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.

• Greenville Treaty line (treaty) — crosses Rushcreek Township about one mile north of its southern boundary, 1795 (archive.org)
• Lewistown-Upper Sandusky trail (trail) — from Lewistown by way of Brugler Springs through the township toward Upper Sandusky, early 1800s (archive.org)
• Ebenezer Zane's camp (camp) — on Mill Creek, Rushcreek Township, early 1800s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1805 — Thomas Stanfield, a Quaker, came from Tennessee with his wife and ten children (nine daughters and a son) and built the first cabin in the township; William Reams soon followed from North Carolina with ten children, nine of them sons.
2. 1814 — Thomas Stanfield Jr. married the only daughter of William Reams on May 30; about the same time Aaron Reams built the first cabin on the later Sutherland farm, where Thomas Sutherland settled in 1816.
3. 1820 — Before this year the Quakers built the township's first church, of logs, near the Sandusky road four and a half miles northeast of Bellefontaine, beside its first graveyard; a log schoolhouse stood near it.
4. 1824 — Thomas Stanfield Sr. died in May, aged 76, and was buried in the Quaker graveyard he had laid out; the Sandusky road was opened about the same year.
5. 1825 — A tornado about half a mile wide crossed the township from southwest to northeast, passing over the south end of Rush Creek Lake; its track was long known as the fallen timber.
6. 1825 — Rushcreek Township was struck off from Jefferson Township, taking in the later Bokes Creek Township and Taylor Creek Township in Hardin County.
7. 1827 — Rushcreek Township was organized within Logan County.
8. 1827 — The Baptists built the Rush Creek Baptist Church of hewed logs half a mile north of the Quaker church, with a graveyard given by Solomon Cover.
9. 1828 — About 1827-28 milk sickness broke out near White Town in the north of the township, killing people and livestock; John Dearwester, who laid out the Miami Graveyard in 1832, was the first person buried in it.
10. 1830 — About this year Rodaker built the township's first saw mill and Billy Hubart its first grist mill beside it.
11. 1832 — William White laid out North Alexandria, or White Town, in the northwest corner; by 1880 only a schoolhouse marked the site.
12. 1834 — James Clagg laid out Rushsylvania and opened the first tannery in the township there.
13. 1834 — The village that became Rushsylvania was platted under the name Claggstown.
14. 1836 — A post office named Rushsylvania opened, and the village took that name.
15. 1848 — The Reformed Presbyterians built the second church in Rushsylvania, with Rev. J. B. Johnston of Northwood as their first minister; Dr. I. A. Doran became postmaster the same year and still held the office in 1880.
16. 1851 — John Q. Williams laid out the village of Harper, about three miles southwest of Rushsylvania, before the railroad was finished.
17. 1852 — Big Springs was laid out, named for a spring near the original town site; its post office opened in 1864 and closed in 1935.
18. 1853 — The Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad (later the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis) was completed through the township.
19. 1854 — Walnut Grove was laid out, named for a grove of black walnut trees near the town site.
20. 1857 — Fire destroyed most of the business part of Rushsylvania; the 1880 history says the town never fully recovered.
21. 1862 — The Pymn brothers built the stone mill in Rushsylvania, later run by steam with a capacity of seventy-five barrels of flour a day.
22. 1888 — Henry Howe described Rushsylvania, nine miles northeast of Bellefontaine on the railroad, as having a newspaper, the Times, a Citizens' bank, 445 residents in 1880 and a school census of 184 in 1888.
23. 1903 — The Buckeye and Acme cement companies were making Portland cement from marl dug in and around Rush Creek Lake, employing more than a hundred hands.
24. 1980 — Rushsylvania's population peaked at 610 residents before a gradual decline to 491 by the 2020 census.

Stories

From Claggstown to Rushsylvania

James Clagg, a Virginian, first settled on the Miami River, then sold that farm to Enos Pickering and bought the land where Rushsylvania stands. In 1834 he laid out the town and the same season opened a tannery, the first in the township, and the place was nicknamed Clagg Town for him. Its first hotels were kept by Thompson Hughes, James Elam, Robert Stephenson and Jacob Niglebarger, and Hughes and Niglebarger also kept the first post office. Dr. I. A. Doran became postmaster in 1848 and by 1880 had handled more than a million letters. In 1857 a fire that began in a grocery burned nearly all the business houses, and some merchants left for good. By 1880 Rushsylvania had rebuilt into a village of two dry goods stores, a steam flour mill, a bank, four churches and a union school, with no saloon.

Daniel McCoy's ride

Thomas Stanfield, the township's first settler, was a Quaker who kept on such good terms with his Native neighbors that they often ate at his cabin, and he was left alone through most of the War of 1812. At one point, however, a party became angry with him and hid in the brush around his cabin, waiting for dark to kill the family. Daniel McCoy, a settler near Zanesfield, learned of the plan and, unable to get troops, rode alone at dusk toward the cabin. A quarter mile away he began shouting as if commanding a large force, riding back and forth and calling to his men to come on, then galloped to the cabin and took the Stanfields back to Zanesfield. When they returned they found the cabin untouched, and after the peace, the 1880 county history says, the Native men told them that McCoy's daring had saved their lives.

The fallen timber

About nine o'clock one morning in 1825, after distant thunder at sunrise, a greenish cloud rose in the southwest and a storm swept across Logan County in a straight line, its track about half a mile wide. Joel Thomas Sr. described trees in the center of the path falling backward and those at the edges falling forward. It entered Rushcreek Township, passed over the south end of Rush Creek Lake toward the later Walnut Grove, and went on into Bokes Creek Township. Enoch Lundy's cabin lay in the middle of the path; a tree fell on its corner, and it took him three days to cut his way out, carrying his goods on his back, though he, his wife and four children were unhurt. Thomas's cattle were ringed in by fallen timber without one being injured, and mud from the lake bottom was said to have been thrown against trees a quarter mile away. The track was long known as the fallen timber, and Walnut Grove later took its name from a grove on its edge.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Bellefontaine City53% of residentslocal wells (shallow carbonate aquifer)
• Rushsylvania Village39% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Belle Center Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• West Mansfield Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tammis Mobile Village Ltd.0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Public schools (3)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-05

Cite this page