Springfield Township, Muskingum County

How Springfield Township, Muskingum County began

Springfield Township lies in the southwestern part of Muskingum County and takes in part of the city of Zanesville, the county seat, in its northeast corner, plus the village of South Zanesville in the southwest. Its own village history predates the township's: Dr. Increase Mathews and Levi Whipple laid out the town of Springfield on the Muskingum River in 1802, naming it for a well-known spring on what became 'Putnam Hill.' The town was later renamed Putnam, for Revolutionary War General Rufus Putnam, incorporated as a village in 1835, and annexed piece by piece into Zanesville between 1870 and 1872, ending its separate existence as the city's Ninth Ward. The rest of the township remained agricultural well into the 20th century.

Settled 1802 (Dr. Increase Mathews and Levi Whipple, town of Springfield), platted 1802, incorporated 1835, as the Village of Putnam, by Dr. Increase Mathews and Levi Whipple.

Where the name comes from

The village that became the township's namesake was itself called Springfield when Dr. Increase Mathews and Levi Whipple laid it out on the Muskingum River in 1802; the 1882 county history says the name came from a well-known spring issuing from the highland west of the village, afterward called 'Putnam Hill.' The village was later renamed Putnam, honoring Revolutionary War General Rufus Putnam, who with Whipple and Mathews had in 1801 deeded the hill's 11.5 acres to the town as a public park. Wikipedia notes only that Springfield Township is one of eleven Ohio townships of that name; the township evidently kept the original village name even after the village itself was renamed and later absorbed into Zanesville.

Before the town

No site-specific Native American history for Springfield Township's own ground turned up in the sources checked. The township's story is bound up with Zanesville's: Ebenezer and Jonathan Zane, who with John McIntire founded Zanesville where Zane's Trace crossed the Muskingum River, are recorded as having close personal friendships with Wyandot and Delaware people who visited and hunted with them; a Delaware man remembered as Captain John is credited with warning the Zane family of an impending raid. The wider county was opened to settlement after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, which drew its boundary near the Muskingum's Tuscarawas branch well north of this township. A county-level file, if written, should carry the fuller Adena, Hopewell and historic-nations picture for Muskingum County; nothing more specific has been verified for Springfield Township's own ground.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1801-07-27 — Rufus Putnam, Levi Whipple and Dr. Increase Mathews assign 11.5 acres on the highland west of the town, later Putnam Hill Park, to the town of Springfield 'for the purpose of erecting such public buildings thereon as may be wanted' with the rest to remain a perpetual commonage; Mathews and his brother John open a store in Zanestown the same year.
2. 1802 — Dr. Increase Mathews and Levi Whipple lay out the town of Springfield on the Muskingum River, and Mathews opens the town's first store the following year.
3. 1803 — A post office is established in Springfield with Dr. Increase Mathews as postmaster; the same year, Peter Miser opens the settlement's first blacksmith shop, and Warner Whipple is supposed to be the first child born in the township.
4. 1803 — Warner Whipple, born this year, is supposed to have been the first child born in the township; the first death, that of Dr. Mathews's wife, and the second, of Andrew Crooks's daughter Grace, follow in 1804.
5. 1804 — Dr. Jesse Chandler arrives to share Dr. Mathews's practice; John Matthews, Abraham Leaven and Levi Whipple plant the first orchards about this time.
6. 1805 — I. Newell builds the first tannery in Springfield; Peter Miser had opened the first blacksmith shop about 1803, followed by Philip Munch and John Balthis.
7. 1806 — A Methodist Episcopal society, the township's first, is organized in Springfield by Rev. John Meeks, with first members including John Goshen and Merriam Putnam.
8. 1806 — John Leavens and Benjamin S. Gilmore build Burnham's Hotel, the first public house in Springfield, a three-story stone-and-brick building at Muskingum and Putnam avenues, called the best hotel west of the Alleghenies; Burnham leaves it in 1811.
9. 1813 — The Muskingum Bank is chartered at the corner of Muskingum and Putnam avenues with Gen. Isaac Van Horne as president; it suspends, is reorganized about 1829-30 under Ebenezer Buckingham and winds up in 1846.
10. 1814-01-20 — The General Assembly changes the name of the town of Springfield to Putnam, because two towns in the state bore the same name and mail was miscarried, in honor of Gen. Rufus Putnam, whose residence the prominent citizens visited to show him the compliment.
11. 1830 — The Methodist society, organized in 1806 and holding a frame church on land given by Levi Whipple, builds a brick church; it is taken down about 1868 for the Moxahala Avenue church.
12. 1835 — The Village of Putnam -- Springfield's later name, honoring General Rufus Putnam -- is incorporated, with William H. Moore elected its first mayor at the Council's first meeting, July 4.
13. 1872 — Putnam is annexed to the City of Zanesville, becoming its Ninth Ward, following an 1870 annexation that had already created a Seventh Ward from part of the same area.
14. 2020 — The census counts 5,452 people in the township.
15. winter 1814-15 — Dr. Jesse Chandler, the settlement's second physician, dies suddenly of what residents called 'the cold plague'; eleven other prominent citizens die of the same illness at about the same time, spreading terror through the community.

Stories

A township that is mostly a city

Springfield Township covers 18.6 square miles in the southwest corner of Muskingum County, but a large share of its population and its history belongs to Zanesville, whose northeastern neighborhoods sit inside the township line rather than the city's own historic core. The Adena Court Apartments (1980), Alameda Apartments (1982), Arlington Hotel (1982), Black-Elliott Block (1979), Blocksom-Rolls House (1979), the Charles Brendel House (1980), the Nicholas Christman House (1978) and the Baker Brothers Wholesale Grocery (2023) are all listed on the National Register with addresses in Zanesville's 43701 ZIP; the National Register places them in Zanesville, not in any township. The rest of the township, outside the city, stayed in farms and small crossroads through the 20th century, its own institutions largely undocumented in the sources we found.

The village that gave the township its name, then vanished into a city

Springfield Township is named for a village, not the other way around. In 1802 Dr. Increase Mathews and Levi Whipple laid out the town of Springfield on the Muskingum River, taking the name from a spring that gushed from the highland just west of the townsite -- ground soon known as 'Putnam Hill' after Revolutionary War General Rufus Putnam, who with Whipple and Mathews deeded its 11.5 acres to the town in 1801 as a public park, still known today as Putnam Hill Park. The village itself later took the Putnam name as well, incorporating as the Village of Putnam in 1835. Its independence did not last: Zanesville annexed part of Putnam's territory as a Seventh Ward in 1870, then the remainder as a Ninth Ward in 1872, absorbing the town whose original name the surrounding township still carries.

The cold plague of 1814

Dr. Jesse Chandler arrived in Springfield in 1804 to help Dr. Increase Mathews, the settlement's founding physician, share an increasingly demanding practice. He built an extensive practice of his own and kept it for a decade, until the winter of 1814-15, when he died suddenly. He was not alone: the 1882 county history records that eleven other prominent citizens of the settlement died just as suddenly, at nearly the same time, of an illness residents called 'the cold plague.' Terror spread through the small community at the scale of the mortality and the fear that the disease would keep spreading -- one of the few glimpses the surviving record offers of frontier medicine's limits in the township's earliest years.

Putnam Hill and Lover's Fountain

The highland on the west side of the town of Springfield was known for the finest view of the Blue Muskingum in the region, and a spring that gushed from it gave the town its name. The spring was christened 'Lover's Fountain' by the young people drawn to it by sparkling water and fairy moonlight. On July 27, 1801, Rufus Putnam, Levi Whipple and Dr. Increase Mathews set apart eleven and a half acres there as a perpetual commonage, to be used for public buildings or a religious society and otherwise to remain open ground, and it became Putnam Hill Park. Everhart's 1882 history notes the park had recently been fenced and planted with young trees, and expects seats, flower beds and fountains to follow. In 1814 the General Assembly renamed the town Putnam, because a second Springfield in Ohio caused letters to be lost; the prominent citizens met at General Putnam's house to tell him of the honor. Zanesville annexed the town as its Ninth Ward in 1872.

Photographs

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

Wells in the eastern floodplain of the Muskingum River along Lewis Drive/SR 666 (Riverside Park well field, reportedly in use since about 1917), adjacent to the treatment plant on Buckeye Drive The water here

• Zanesville68% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (wells)
• Muskingum County Water - Se20% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• South Zanesville6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Maysville Regional Water5% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• Greenlawn Estates MHP1% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Public libraries (1)

Superfund sites (1)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-16
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2024-12-24

Cite this page