Spring Valley Township, Greene County

How Spring Valley Township, Greene County began

Spring Valley Township was organized in December 1856, on a petition filed December 1, cut from the eastern part of Sugar Creek Township with pieces of Xenia and Caesarcreek townships added the following year. Its village of Spring Valley was laid out by Edward and Moses Walton in 1844 or 1845, across the Little Miami from an older hamlet, Transylvania, laid out about 1820. The township grew around the river bottoms and, after 1845, around the Panhandle Railroad line, and became known for its many mineral springs. Today it is a quiet farming and river-valley township on Greene County's southern edge.

Settled soon after 1803, incorporated 1856 (township organized).

Where the name comes from

The township took the name of its principal settlement, Spring Valley, which itself was named for the valley's many natural springs; before that the settlement on the west bank of the Little Miami was called Transylvania.

Before the town

No village, trail or earthwork specific to Spring Valley Township turned up in the sources we checked; the township's own historical sketches (the 1908 county history, the township's Wikipedia article) are silent on Native American presence here. The Little Miami River, which runs the length of the township and which 1908 sources put at forty-one known earthworks countywide, was a heavily used Adena and Hopewell corridor, and the Shawnee towns of Old Chillicothe (Oldtown) and the Mad River village lay within a day's walk to the north. Say plainly: nothing site-specific to this township is recorded in what was checked.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture, Hopewell culture, Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1803 — Greene County is organized; a hamlet called Transylvania, laid out about 1820 by Jeffrey Truman on the west bank of the Little Miami, is later the older neighbor of Spring Valley (Dills 1881).
2. 1829 — Michael Daugherty begins making linseed oil on Glady Run; in 1832 he builds an oil and woolen mill where Spring Valley now stands, the first oil mill in the county.
3. 1844 — Edward Walton and his son Moses, Quakers from Virginia, lay out the village of Spring Valley at the crossing of the Little Miami Railroad and the Cincinnati, Lebanon and Xenia turnpike; Wikipedia dates the plat 1844 and Dills (1881) 1845.
4. 1844 — George Barrett puts up a woolen mill at Spring Valley, run after his death by his son I. M. Barrett with a flouring mill and a grain and pork house.
5. 1845 — The Panhandle (Little Miami) Railroad is built through the valley, pulling the settlement's population from the west bank toward the tracks on the east bank.
6. 1845 — Elias Adrit and John Speer lay out Claysville, two miles south of Spring Valley on the railroad, with a grain house and five dwellings by 1881.
7. 1856 — Spring Valley Township is organized from the eastern part of Sugar Creek Township, with parts of Xenia and Caesarcreek townships annexed the next year.
8. 1856-12-01 — R. D. Poague, Robert Evans and Ambrose Elam file the petition for a new township; Washington Alexander, Ambrose Elam and Jason Neeld are the first trustees, and Joseph Mason the first clerk and justice.
9. 1857 — Parts of Xenia and Caesar's Creek townships are added to Spring Valley Township.
10. 1880 — The township has eleven school districts, four Methodist Episcopal churches, one Friends' and one Methodist Protestant church, three flouring mills, two saw-mills, a woolen mill, an oil mill and a tow mill; the village has about 400 people.
11. 1880 to 1881 — A fire destroys the Walton sons' buggy factory at Spring Valley that winter.
12. 1907 — A new school and high school building, built of concrete blocks, opens in the village, alongside a flouring mill, two saw mills, a canning factory and a concrete block factory then operating in the township.
13. 1907 — A concrete-block Methodist Episcopal church costing $8,000 is built at Spring Valley in the same year as its concrete-block school.
14. 2020 — The census counts 2,478 people in Spring Valley Township.

Stories

Fourteen kinds of water

Spring Valley's defining feature by 1908 was its water. County historians counted fourteen different kinds of mineral water within a two-mile radius of the village, drawn from springs and drilled wells. A pipe drilled in the hope of striking oil gave what was called 'magnetic' water, and within ten inches of it a strong medicinal water with no magnetic quality rose from 1,450 feet down, heavy with common salt and Epsom salts.

A shifting village

Before the railroad came through in 1845, Spring Valley's original settlement, Transylvania, sat on the west bank of the Little Miami and amounted to a handful of houses, a general store and Jeffrey Truman's tavern and stage station. The Panhandle Railroad's arrival pulled the town eastward across the river toward the tracks. Byrd & Walton ran a pork packing and shipping business there; Barrett's Woolen Mill, Dougherty's linseed oil mill and Giles Kinney's cooper shop rounded out the village's early trades.

Three townships and a vacated seat

Spring Valley Township was created at the end of 1856. R. D. Poague, Robert Evans and Ambrose Elam filed the petition on December 1, asking the county commissioners to cut a township from the east of Sugar Creek Township, and a year later land from Xenia and Caesar's Creek townships was added. The first election gave the trustees' posts to Washington Alexander, Ambrose Elam and Jason Neeld, and Joseph Mason was clerk. Mason had been Sugar Creek's justice of the peace and stayed one for twenty-one years in all. The first justice elected in the new township, W. J. Alexander, had his office declared vacant by the common pleas court because of some supposed irregularity in the new organization, and a new election was ordered; Alexander and A. T. Craig won it. Alexander served as trustee for nineteen years.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Xenia City61% of residentsGreat Miami/Mad River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells near US-68/SR-235)
• Spring Valley Village15% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Greene County - northwest Reg Water11% of residentsLittle Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (2 wellfields, Beavercreek area)
• Greene County - southwest Reg Water8% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Waynesville Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Spring Valley Estates MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Western Water Company0% of residentsLittle Miami River valley wells (51%) plus Cincinnati Ohio River water (49%)
• Greene County Eastern Regional0% of residentsLittle Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (2 wellfields, Beavercreek area)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 3 of 3 passed.

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-23

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