Sparta

How Sparta began

Sparta sits in South Bloomfield Township, in the southeastern corner of Morrow County. South Bloomfield Township was organized in 1817. Before Morrow County's 1848 formation, the area had been more closely tied to Knox County, and its transfer prompted some local objection. The village was incorporated shortly before 1870 after residents pushed for the change, and local retrospectives describe it as having survived a period of lawlessness ('desperadoes') in the 1840s and two major fires in 1918 and 1920.

Settled 1826 (first cabin, by William B. Carpenter); the township's first cabin was raised in 1814 by Enoch Harris, platted 1837 (surveyed by Johnson Stone for Dr. A. W. Swetland, twenty lots on each side of the Columbus road); earlier paper towns Aaronsburg (1824) and Rome (1827) failed, incorporated about 1870 (the Sentinel says 1870), by Dr. A. W. Swetland, projector and proprietor.

Where the name comes from

Dr. A. W. Swetland, who helped survey the town in 1837, gave it the name Sparta, according to Perrin (1880); neither Perrin nor Baughman (1911) says why. The Sentinel says the name is for the ancient Greek city. Before 1837 the place was generally called Bloomfield, and the earlier paper towns on the ridge were Aaronsburg and Rome.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or trail specific to Sparta or South Bloomfield Township is recorded in the sources checked. Baughman (1911) opens his township chapter with period prose that 'wild beasts and savage Indians roamed at large' and 'nature built the wigwams in the hidden recesses of the forests,' which is scene-setting rather than a record of a site. His book does record Native sites elsewhere in the county (Cardington, Canaan and Washington townships). South Bloomfield lies south of the Greenville Treaty line of 1795, which crosses the county at Cardington, so the land was within the 1795 cession.

Timeline

1. 1811 — Bloomfield Township is erected, encompassing the area that later becomes Sparta.
2. 1813 — Three hunters, Peter and Nicholas Kile and Enoch Harris, leave Mount Vernon, enter the southeast corner of South Bloomfield township, and agree to enter a quarter section each; Harris returns in March 1814 and raises the township's first log cabin.
3. 1822 — Reverend James Smith of Mount Vernon establishes a New Light Church society in the vicinity of Sparta; a Methodist society organizes near Sparta the same year.
4. 1824 — Aaron Macomber, who turns wooden bowls on horse-powered machinery, has a town surveyed half a mile northeast of the later Sparta and names it Aaronsburg; no lots are sold.
5. 1826 — William B. Carpenter builds the first structure in Sparta, a double log cabin, followed a month later by a small log store across the street; Joseph Skinner (1828), David McGinnis (1829) and Osgood Dustin (1830) build the next three dwellings, the whole population of Sparta in 1830.
6. 1827 — Lemuel Potter lays out the town of Rome near his tavern on Potter's Hill; it too fails.
7. 1829 — South Bloomfield splits off from Bloomfield Township as its own township.
8. 1833 — In the spring Dr. A. W. Swetland moves his family from Delaware County to Sparta, then known by the general name of Bloomfield, and runs the store and ashery.
9. 1837 — Dr. A. W. Swetland, who had bought Carpenter's ashery and store, surveys and plats the town of Sparta (surveyor Johnson Stone laying out twenty lots on each side of the Columbus road) and gives it its name.
10. 1837 — A post office named Sparta appears in the postal listing from this year (Perrin and Baughman date Swetland's appointment as first postmaster to 1838).
11. 1838 — A post office is secured at Sparta, with Dr. Swetland as the first postmaster.
12. 1841 — The Sparta Christian church, organized by Reverend James Smith in a barn on the Marengo road in June 1820, erects its first edifice; the deed was recorded in Mount Vernon because the village was then still in Knox County.
13. 1848 — Morrow County is organized from parts of Delaware, Marion, Knox and Richland counties; South Bloomfield Township, previously closer to Knox County, becomes part of the new county over some local objection.
14. 1854 — Dr. Swetland closes his store after a quarter century of trade, and William Chase buys him out.
15. 1863 — The Chase firm, whose war-years sales reach $40,000 a year, buys 106,000 pounds of wool.
16. 1870 — Sparta is incorporated as a village after leaders hold a private meeting; they buy street lamps but soon run out of oil. Baughman (1911) confirms the date as about 1870.
17. 1884 — Mary Fry becomes the village's first postmistress, after Augustus W. Swetland as first postmaster.
18. 1918 — On November 8 a fire at the Jinkins & Hedge hardware store about 10 p.m. destroys part of the store and the Knights of Pythias Hall.
19. 1920 — On December 10 a fire in the town hall about 1 a.m. spreads to the J. D. Vall dry goods store and the Thomas Liggett house, with losses estimated at $20,000.

Stories

Fires, desperadoes, and a push to incorporate

The Morrow County Sentinel's 2020 retrospective on Sparta's 150th year says that between 1840 and 1850 'several notorious desperadoes' roamed the area, and that when Morrow County was cut out of Knox and other counties in 1848 some Sparta residents resented the change. The leaders of the village held a private meeting in 1870, incorporated, and bought street lamps, which soon ran out of oil. Fire hit the town twice in the twentieth century: on November 8, 1918, a blaze starting around 10 p.m. in the Jinkins & Hedge hardware store destroyed part of the store and the Knights of Pythias Hall, and on December 10, 1920, a fire in the town hall about 1 a.m. spread to J. D. Vall's dry goods store and the Thomas Liggett house, for losses of about $20,000.

Two rival towns that never were

Sparta was not the only town platted in South Bloomfield township's early years, only the one that survived. About half a mile northeast of Sparta, Aaron Macomber, who turned wooden bowls from cucumber wood on horse-powered machinery, hired a surveyor in 1824 and laid out a town he named Aaronsburg; no lots ever sold, and the plan was abandoned. A few years later, in 1827, Lemuel Potter laid out a second paper town near Potter's Hill and called it Rome; it too passed into oblivion and was gradually forgotten. Sparta, platted a decade later by Dr. A. W. Swetland with an ashery and a store already doing business, was the one name on the map that stuck.

An ashery, a store, and a town takes shape

Sparta's first building was a double log cabin raised in 1826 by William B. Carpenter, who a month later put up a small log storeroom across the street, stocking $250 of goods, largely whisky, and trading them for ashes that he rendered into 'scorched' and 'white salts' and a little pearlash. In December (apparently 1832) Carpenter sold out to Dr. A. W. Swetland, who stocked the store with about $4,000 in goods and brought his family from Delaware County in the spring of 1833. The ashery became one of the most extensive in central Ohio, at times yielding fifteen tons of pearlash a year; the store, run on trust, bought wheat, pork, flaxseed and butter, at one point 3,000 pounds of butter at six cents a pound that sold in New York for a shilling, and by 1850 carried $12,000 in goods. Swetland surveyed and platted the town in 1837 with Johnson Stone and secured the post office in 1838 (the postal listing has 1837). He was eighty-three and still living at his old home when Perrin wrote in 1880.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · morrowcountysentinel.com · archive.org · archive.org · postalhistory.com

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