Salem Township, Tuscarawas County

How Salem Township, Tuscarawas County began

Salem Township, in southwest Tuscarawas County, was one of the county's four original townships in 1808 and is named for the Moravian mission of Salem, a village of Christian Delawares on Lot 12 of the Salem tract, a mile southwest of Port Washington. The Salem tract was leased to Moravian families until 1824; Port Washington (Salisbury) was laid out in 1827 on the Ohio Canal. The Scottish-financed Glasgow iron furnaces ran from 1874 to 1880. The township is rural, with Port Washington and the hamlet of Wolf's Station.

Settled 1800-1804 (Moravian lessees and Virginia families on the Salem tract), incorporated 1808 (one of four original townships), by first lessees on the Salem Moravian tract, including Jesse Hill (1800) and Isaac and Peter Good (1804).

Where the name comes from

The township is named for Salem, the Moravian Christian Indian mission town that stood about a mile southwest of Port Washington near the west bank of the later canal; the mission itself took the biblical place name Salem.

Before the town

The 1884 county history says the ancient Moravian village of Salem, occupied more than a century earlier by Christian Delawares, stood on Lot 12 of the Salem tract about a mile southwest of Port Washington near the west bank of the canal. Joanna Heckewelder was born there in 1781. After the tract was returned to the United States it was leased and then sold in lots in 1824.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

• Salem Moravian mission village (village) — Lot 12 of the Salem tract, about one mile southwest of Port Washington, 1780s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1781 — Joanna Maria Heckewelder, daughter of the missionary John Heckewelder, is born at the Salem mission on April 6; some once ranked her as the first white person born in Ohio, a claim the county history discusses and doubts.
2. 1800 — Jesse Hill, a Virginian, leases land in the southern part of the Salem tract east of the river, and Thomas and John Carr appear in David Peter's Gnadenhutten ledger; Godfrey Haga enters a 3,662-acre quarter in the north.
3. 1802 — Conrad Bremer, a former Hessian soldier who later served under Washington, settles on the Haga quarter half a mile north of Port Washington.
4. 1808 — Salem is one of the four first townships of the new Tuscarawas County, then taking in the north halves of Townships 6 and 7 in Ranges 1 to 4.
5. 1809 — The Salem Township tax duplicate lists early settlers including several members of the Carr family; Aquilla Carr, an early pioneer, later serves as one of the county's first associate judges.
6. 1824 — The Salem Moravian tract, held by lessees, is surveyed into lots; Judge Patrick sells some at public sale.
7. 1827 — John Knight lays out Salisbury, later Port Washington, on Lot 21 of the Salem tract, with 52 lots on both sides of the canal.
8. 1836 — Peter Everhart lays out the plat of Rockingham, twenty lots in Section 6, an unsuccessful attempt at a village.
9. 1868 — Port Washington is incorporated as a village; Centenary Methodist Church is built in the southeast of the township.
10. 1874 — The Glasgow and Port Washington Iron and Coal Company opens its two blast furnaces on August 14 and begins blowing on September 2; Enoch G. Wolf lays out Wolf's Station on the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad.
11. 1878-1879 — Port Washington builds a three-story brick town hall, finished in 1878-79 at a cost of about $3,500.
12. 1880 — The Glasgow furnaces close for good that winter and are sold to Pittsburgh iron men for $67,000 and removed.
13. 1979 — The Port Washington Town Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (listed 02/22/79).

Stories

The village town hall

Port Washington, laid out as Salisbury in 1827, built its town hall in 1878-79. The 1881 county history says the village erected it at a cost of about $3,500, a brick building 32 by 60 feet and three stories high. The hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 22, 1979.

The Scottish furnaces at Glasgow

In 1871-72 Glasgow investors bought 550 acres of coal land at Port Washington from Dr. Hugh Nelson for 22,000 pounds and organized the Glasgow and Port Washington Iron and Coal Company. Two blast furnaces, 70 feet high, with a canal bridge and a mile and a quarter of railroad, cost $750,000 and opened on August 14, 1874, with great eclat. One furnace produced 25,000 tons of iron in about two years, and the iron won a Centennial Exposition premium as the best made in Ohio, but the market was poor, the land price too high and the management distant, and the works were suspended after about two years. Twice restarted, they closed in winter 1880, and the Scottish investors took the loss. Robert Hill's village of Glasgow, laid out in 1873 beside the works, once held 450 people and two stores and later shrank to nothing.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Newcomerstown Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-18

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