Scioto Township, Pickaway County

How Scioto Township, Pickaway County began

Scioto Township was laid out along the Scioto River's western side, in the northern part of Pickaway County, and was transferred to the newly formed county from Franklin County on March 1, 1810. Its earliest settlers, arriving around 1800, included two Revolutionary War veterans, Thomas and John Thompson; later came the Robison family, who founded Robtown in 1822, and Wiley H. Beckett and James H. Burnley, whose rival hamlets of Genoa and Rome grew together into the village now called Commercial Point. In the early twentieth century the township's northwest corner, near the rail stop of Orient, became the site of a state institution for people with disabilities, ground that later became the Pickaway Correctional Institution and the Correctional Reception Center. Today the township holds Commercial Point, the unincorporated communities of Robtown and Southern Point, and the census-designated place of Orient.

Settled c. 1800 (Thomas and John Thompson, Revolutionary War veterans, from Pennsylvania and Virginia), incorporated March 1, 1810, transferred to the new Pickaway County from Franklin County by the Ohio General Assembly.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for the Scioto River, which forms its eastern boundary; Ohio has five townships named Scioto, of which this is one.

Before the town

Aaron Van Cleaf's 1906 county history records that 'on the bluffs of the Scioto River in this township were found at an early day traces of earthworks built in such a form and position as would indicate that they were used as places of defense,' together with a number of mounds, some still visible in 1906, 'supposed to have been built by the Mound Builders' -- the Adena and Hopewell peoples who built earthworks across the Scioto valley, though no excavation or dating of this particular site is recorded. No source consulted names a specific historic Native nation, village, or trail within Scioto Township's own boundaries. The famous Shawnee towns of the 1770s (Cornstalk's Town and the Grenadier Squaw's Town) and the Camp Charlotte treaty ground, often loosely associated with the Pickaway Plains, in fact stood on Scippo Creek several miles south, in Pickaway Township, not here. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville, signed by the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Ottawa and other nations, ceded the land that became Scioto Township to the United States along with most of the rest of Ohio.

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

• Scioto River bluff earthworks and mounds (earthwork) — on bluffs of the Scioto River within Scioto Township, attributed by early local historians to the Mound Builders (Adena/Hopewell era); not independently dated or excavated in any source found (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of what becomes Ohio, including the future Scioto Township, to the United States.
2. c. 1800 — Thomas and John Thompson, brothers and Revolutionary War veterans, become among the township's earliest settlers, locating on the McMahon survey.
3. 1810 — Pickaway County is formed on March 1, and Scioto Township is transferred into it from Franklin County by the Ohio General Assembly.
4. 1822 — Michael Robison and his son Isaac found Robtown in the south part of the township.
5. 1830 — Scioto Township gives up part of its land to Jackson Township.
6. 1841 — Wiley H. Beckett, who had settled on a 238-acre tract in 1829, lays out the hamlet of Genoa in the northeast corner of his land.
7. 1843 — James H. Burnley, who had arrived from Virginia in 1832, lays out the rival hamlet of Rome adjoining Genoa to the east.
8. 1851 — Genoa is incorporated by special act of the legislature on March 21, absorbing Rome as its eastern half; the first village election is held March 8, 1852.
9. 1872 — The legislature changes the village's name from Genoa to Commercial Point, a name credited to resident Eli Harsh.
10. 1878 — On October 14, the portion of neighboring Darby Township lying east of Darby Creek is set off to Scioto Township, making it one of the largest and, after Circleville Township, the most populous township in the county.
11. 1895 — Scioto Township builds a brick high school at Commercial Point at a cost of $7,000, described in 1906 as one of the finest school buildings in the county outside Circleville.
12. 1906 — A branch of the State Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth, the 'Custodial Farm,' is under construction on about 2,000 acres in the township's northwest corner near Orient, with 75 residents already present and 200 expected by Christmas.
13. 1984 — Pickaway Correctional Institution opens on the same ground near Orient, in buildings that had housed a since-closed Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities facility, the institutional descendant of the 1906 Custodial Farm.

Stories

The Custodial Farm

In 1906, in the northwest corner of Scioto Township near the rail stop of Orient, the State of Ohio was building what county historian Aaron Van Cleaf called 'the Custodial Farm,' a branch of the State Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth. The state had already secured about 2,000 acres, one of the first and largest tracts being the old Morgan farm, and extensive building operations were underway. Seventy-five residents were already living there when Van Cleaf's history went to press, with 200 expected by Christmas. The institution grew and changed names over the twentieth century, eventually operating under the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, until that facility closed. In 1984 the state reused the same buildings, condemned as they were for their original purpose, to open Pickaway Correctional Institution; Warden James Jackson had to modify structures never built to hold prisoners into secure housing. A second facility, the Correctional Reception Center, opened next door in 1987. What began as an institution for people the state labeled 'feeble-minded' is, more than a century later, one of Ohio's largest men's prison complexes, on the same ground.

Growth by Annexation

Scioto Township did not reach its present size all at once. In 1830 it gave up territory to help form Jackson Township, and later ceded more land toward the formation of Muhlenberg Township. Then, on October 14, 1878, the balance shifted the other way: the portion of neighboring Darby Township lying east of Darby Creek was set off into Scioto Township. The addition made Scioto one of the largest townships in Pickaway County in land area, and by the 1900 census its population of 2,030 was second only to Circleville Township's. The shifting line explains why Commercial Point's own early history, and the story of the Wyandot camp on Darby Creek, both sit close to the Scioto-Darby township boundary as it runs today.

Genoa and Rome, Side by Side

Wiley H. Beckett came from eastern Virginia in 1829 and settled west of what is now Commercial Point; in 1841 he platted a small town on his land and named it Genoa. Two years later James H. Burnley, a Virginian who had arrived in 1832, laid out his own plat immediately to the east and called it Rome. The two little towns grew into each other, separated only by a narrow strip of grove left out of both plats, until the Ohio legislature incorporated them as one village in 1851, with Genoa's name covering the whole and Rome absorbed as its eastern half. Twenty-one years later the legislature changed the combined village's name again, to Commercial Point, on the suggestion of resident Eli Harsh -- a name it has carried ever since.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Pickaway County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Ashville Village38% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Commercial Point Village16% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Columbus Public Water System15% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Village of Orient12% of residentsGroundwater wells (7 wells)
• South Bloomfield Village10% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Darbyville Village4% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Johnson Mobile Home Park3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Timberlake Water System2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Caravan Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Lockbourne Village0% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Obetz Satellite 60% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Obetz Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

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, 2024, released 2026-01-13
• Financial Audit, 2023, released 2024-11-21
• Financial Audit, 2022, released 2024-09-05

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