Salem Township, Meigs County

How Salem Township, Meigs County began

Salem Township sits in the southwest corner of Meigs County, bordering Gallia and Vinton counties, and was organized in 1814 as a township of Gallia County. Its first families included Captain James Merrill, an East India sea captain who took a Salem farm in 1801, and William Parker, a Massachusetts cabinetmaker who moved his family here about 1800; their descendants and in-laws filled the township's offices and included Judge Ephraim Cutler. The 1820 census list of its heads of family names 15 households. It has no incorporated village; the 2020 census counted 939 people, and the Leading Creek Conservancy District, formed in the late 1960s, supplies rural water in the area.

Settled c. 1800-1801 (William Parker and Captain James Merrill), incorporated 1814 (organized as a township of Gallia County), by William Parker, Captain James Merrill and the Aleshire brothers among early settlers.

Where the name comes from

No source found explains the name Salem (one of fourteen Salem Townships in Ohio). Many of the first settlers came from Massachusetts, where Salem is a famous name, but the sources do not say so.

Before the town

No Native village, trail or burial has been documented within Salem Township in the sources checked. The National Register listings once attached to its ZIP code are false leads (the Evans House and Ewington Academy are in Huntington Township, Gallia County, and the Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge was in Vinton County). At the county level the land lay in the Ohio Company's 1787 purchase and was claimed by the United States from the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware) and other nations through the Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789) and the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. c. 1800 — William Parker Sr., a Malden, Massachusetts cabinetmaker who had exported furniture to the West Indies and held a share in the Ohio Company purchase, moves his family from the forks of the Youghiogheny to his farm in Salem Township.
2. 1801 — Captain James Merrill, an East India captain, settles on a Salem farm given him by the shipowner Dexter; he builds the first frame house in what is now Meigs County, with wild-cherry weatherboards sawed by whipsaw.
3. 1808-04-13 — Sally Parker of Salem marries Judge Ephraim Cutler, who sat in the 1802 Ohio constitutional convention.
4. 1814 — Salem Township is organized as a township of Gallia County.
5. 1816 — Alexander Von Schritz, a War of 1812 soldier, settles in Salem Township and raises a large family.
6. 1819 — Meigs County is formed from Gallia, Athens and Washington county territory, and Salem is one of its townships.
7. 1820 — Larkin prints the Salem heads-of-family list for this year, 15 names including Parker, Aleshire, Giles, Shaw, Strong, Swett, Vonschritz and Knowlton.
8. 1825-11-26 — William Parker Sr. dies, aged 80; of his eleven children several, including Polly (Mrs. Cushing Shaw) and Nancy (Mrs. Stephen Strong), lived and died in Salem.
9. 1826-10-29 — A windstorm, the severest in Rutland's history, sweeps east from Salem Township across Rutland on a Sunday afternoon, tearing the upper story off a Rutland school house and leveling a woods.
10. 1960s — The Leading Creek Conservancy District is formed under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 6101 to clean small streams and develop a potable water system for rural residents.
11. 2020 — The census counts 939 people in the township.

Stories

The cabinetmaker's farm

William Parker Sr. was born at Malden, Massachusetts, on June 5, 1745, and made furniture that he exported to the West Indies. He bought a share in the Ohio Company's purchase and left the East in 1789, got as far as the forks of the Youghiogheny and stayed there until about 1800. Then he moved his family, which included eleven children, to his farm in Salem Township. His children made the township's families: Polly married Judge Cushing Shaw and they raised a numerous family in Salem; Nancy married Stephen Strong, an early advocate of temperance who served a term in the legislature, surveyed and held county offices, and lived and died in Salem; Sally married Judge Ephraim Cutler, who had sat in the 1802 constitutional convention at Chillicothe; and Ebenezer kept the old homestead for many years before moving to Cincinnati. William Parker died on November 26, 1825; Mary, his wife, had died on February 25, 1811. Both were Presbyterians.

The wind from Salem

On Sunday afternoon, October 29, 1826, the severest windstorm the settlers of Rutland had known came out of Salem Township, running a quarter mile wide a little south of east. It did little damage until it reached Felix Benedict's brick house, whose upper part blew down, then blew a frame house in Rutland village to pieces just after the family had gone out, felled a half mile of heavy timber and leveled the cabin of Royal Hysell, with nine people inside, to a log or two, without injuring anyone. It took the upper story off the schoolhouse that served as the neighborhood's church, polling place, spelling school and debating hall. Captain James Merrill, who had built the first frame house in the county on his Salem farm in 1801, died the same day in Rutland.

Local history sources: lccdwater.com · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · lccdwater.com · lccdwater.com · meigs.ohgenweb.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here

• Leading Creek Conservancy District100% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 4 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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 2026-02-12

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