Scio

• Clendening LakeBuilt 1936 · 1800 acres
• Tappan LakeBuilt 1936 · 2350 acres

How Scio began

Scio began as New Market. A marker put up in 1965 by the Harrison County Historical Society says it was platted under that name in 1836, while Hanna's 1900 county history and the 1921 county history date the plat to March 30, 1852; the village was renamed Scio to match its post office. Scio College, a Methodist school whose one-study plan and School of Pharmacy were widely known, opened there in 1867 and merged into Mount Union College in 1911. Oil struck in June 1898 started a boom that drew thousands of oil workers, some 1,000 wells, eleven saloons and a tent town before the field faded by about 1901. Scio Pottery, founded in 1933, and the Conotton Creek Trail are its later landmarks; the 2020 census counted 673 people.

Settled 1807 (the Canaga brothers, first documented settlers in North Township), platted 1836 as New Market (1965 historical marker); March 30, 1852 (Hanna 1900 and the 1921 county history).

Where the name comes from

The 1965 historical marker says the village, platted as New Market, was renamed Scio to correspond with its postal designation. The origin of the post office name Scio is not recorded.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty boundary specific to Scio is documented; the land was included in the general Ohio cessions of the 1780s-1790s (Treaty of Fort McIntosh, 1785, and Treaty of Greenville, 1795) before organized American settlement began, and it lay within range of Mingo, Delaware (Lenape), and Shawnee hunting and travel along the Ohio River tributaries.

Nations recorded here: Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1836 — The 1965 marker dates the platting of the village, as New Market, to 1836.
2. 1852 — New Market (Scio) is platted on March 30 in section 31, according to Hanna's list of Harrison County plats and the 1921 county history.
3. 1866 — Scio College, a Methodist Episcopal school, is chartered in the village.
4. 1867 — Scio College, founded by A. D. Lee, opens in the village; it becomes known for its "one-study" curriculum and its School of Pharmacy under Prof. J. H. Beal.
5. 1872 — Derricks stand along the edge of Scio, among them a spring-pole well on the Spiker farm that took a summer to drill and failed for want of depth.
6. 1880 — Howe's 1888 gazetteer gives Scio a population of 509, a bank, a Presbyterian, a United Presbyterian and a Methodist church, and the newspapers Herald and Collegian; E. J. Marsh is president of Scio College.
7. 1892 — Scio College enrols 548 students from ten states and countries; by 1893 about 600 had graduated.
8. 1898 — In June H. A. Snyder strikes oil near Scio; the marker counts about 1,000 wells drilled in and near the village during the boom that lasted to 1901.
9. 1898 — The Scio Oil & Gas Company is incorporated in March with $10,000 capital; its first well, on Matthew Henry's land a quarter mile north of the village, is completed June 7 and, shot with eighty quarts of nitroglycerine, yields 18 barrels a day.
10. 1899 — During the boom tents, shanties and eleven saloons fill the village, rents rise from sixty cents to $5 to $10 a week, and Scio College attendance falls from about 300 to about 25 in eight weeks.
11. 1901 — The village population is put at between 1,200 and 1,300 after the boom, which had briefly brought four to five thousand people.
12. 1911 — Scio College merges with Mount Union College of Alliance (consolidation dated December 1911 in the 1921 county history).
13. 1920 — The Albright China Company begins building a china works at Scio, promising work for some 300 men; the 1921 history also lists a Herald newspaper, a flour mill, waterworks and a Scio Bank Company.
14. 1933 — The Scio Pottery Company is established by Lewis P. Reese.
15. 1940 — The census counts 1,181 residents, the highest census count on record.
16. 1965 — The Harrison County Historical Society erects marker number 5 on Route 646 telling Scio's college and oil-boom history.
17. 2020 — The census counts 673 residents; Scio is the midpoint of the 11.4-mile Conotton Creek Trail.

Stories

The 1898 oil boom

Scio was a quiet college town of about 900 people, many of them retired farmers and Methodist ministers, when H. A. Snyder's Scio Oil & Gas Company brought in its first well on June 7, 1898. A second well on William Donaldson's land flowed so hard that its gas caught fire and burned the derrick, and the widely published accident drew oilmen from far and near. Within months the village was full of drillers, teamsters and the people who lived off them; some lived in tents, boiler houses and converted stables, and hundreds took evening trains to nearby towns to sleep. Rooms that had rented for sixty cents a week brought $5 to $10, a team and driver could earn $40 a day, and the macadam streets turned into mud canals. There were eleven saloons, variety theatres and gamblers, which so appalled the old residents that many sold or rented their property and left. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran an extra Pittsburgh to Dennison train that locals called the Greaser. One well on the Spiker farm alone yielded about $540,000 of oil by 1903, but the field declined almost as fast as it had grown, and by 1901 the population was back to about 1,200 or 1,300.

Scio College and its one study at a time

Scio College was chartered in 1866 as a Methodist Episcopal school and opened in 1867 under A. D. Lee. The state marker remembers it for its unusual "one-study" curriculum, in which a student took up a single subject at a time, and for a School of Pharmacy under Prof. J. H. Beal that was widely known. The 1921 county history lists seven departments (collegiate, pharmacy, music, business, elocution, art, shorthand and typewriting), a literary course of three preparatory and four college years, and about 600 graduates by 1893, with 548 students from ten states and countries enrolled in 1892. The oil boom hit it hard: in eight weeks attendance dropped from about 300 to about 25, most departments moved to Philadelphia for four months, and the school never recovered its old standing. It consolidated with Mount Union College at Alliance in December 1911, ending Scio's career as a college town.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · hmdb.org · loc.gov · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Scio100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 8 of 8 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, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-02-17

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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