Staunton Township, Miami County

How Staunton Township, Miami County began

Staunton was the first place of permanent settlement in Miami County, settled in 1798-1799 by the Knoop family and Michael Carver, who came from Pennsylvania and built what became known as "Dutch Station." The little hamlet of Staunton, not Troy, was the county's first seat of government: its first court sat in trader Peter Felix's house. The township today is a wedge of farmland running south from the Shelby County line along the Great Miami River, holding the Eldean Covered Bridge on its northern edge and the 1820s-1880s farmhouses of the Culbertson-to-Hobart NRHP list nearby in the neighboring city of Troy.

Settled 1798-1799, by The Knoops and Michael Carver, from Pennsylvania.

Where the name comes from

The 1880 county history gives no naming account for Staunton beyond identifying the early settlement as "Dutch Station."

Before the town

No mound, earthwork, or named Native village specific to Staunton Township is recorded; the county's Native history centers on the Shawnee towns at Upper Piqua a few miles north. The 1880 county history does record direct settler-era contact in Staunton itself: a captured white woman among the Shawnee near Staunton is said to have refused to leave and married one of them, and the Carver family recalled a frightening encounter with an intoxicated Native man whose antics spooked their horses. These are secondhand pioneer recollections printed decades later, not independently verified incidents.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1798-1799 — The Knoops, with Michael Carver and their families, arrive from Pennsylvania and settle at what becomes known as "Dutch Station," the first permanent settlement in what is now Miami County.
2. 1804 — The Staunton Baptist Church is organized on November 3 with seven founding members, one of the earliest congregations in the county.
3. 1809 — William McCampbell, a Virginia-born weaver who had settled in the township in 1807, is elected the township's first justice and serves roughly three decades.
4. 1860 — The Eldean (originally Allen's Mill) Bridge is built over the Great Miami River on the Staunton-Concord township line for Miami County by the Hamilton Brothers of Piqua, using Stephen H. Long's 1830-patented truss design.
5. 1975 — The Eldean Covered Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (February 20).
6. 1989 — The William Hobart Vacation House at 995 Polecat Road, built by the Hobart Welded Steel House Company, is listed on the National Register along with other Hobart steel houses in the Troy area.
7. 2016 — The Eldean Covered Bridge is designated a National Historic Landmark (December 23), recognized as the longest surviving Long-truss covered bridge in the United States at 224 feet.

Stories

The first court in the county sat in a trader's house

Before Troy existed as the county seat, the handful of cabins at Staunton was the effective capital of the new settlement. General John Webb, an early resident, recalled attending "the first court held at Staunton," convened in the house of Peter Felix, a trader. Staunton had been settled first, in 1798-1799, by the Knoop and Carver families from Pennsylvania, and every later settlement in the county grew up around that nucleus. The township's early government, church, and school records all trace back to this same handful of families: the first schoolhouse stood where the Piqua road crossed Spring Creek, and the Staunton Baptist Church organized with seven members in 1804.

Welded steel houses from Troy

The Hobart Welded Steel House Company of Troy built 22 prefabricated welded-steel houses in the Troy area between 1932 and 1941. William Hobart's own vacation house at 995 Polecat Road, north of Troy in Staunton Township, was one of sixteen such steel houses (plus garages and a shed) added to the National Register together in 1989. It stands as a rural, small-scale example of factory-built steel housing, a Troy industrial sideline that is otherwise little remembered outside architectural surveys.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · thetroyhistoricalsociety.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · npgallery.nps.gov · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Miami County on the full map

10 production wells in the Great Miami buried-valley aquifer at Miami Shores Golf Course and Troy Community Park, north of the treatment plant The water here

• Troy City83% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Piqua City14% of residentsGreat Miami River + Ernst Gravel Pit + Swift Run Lake (hydraulic system)
• Miami Co-camp Troy2% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• NAWA1% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Miami Co-n25a Extension1% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Country Meadows Condo.0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2018: 1 of 1 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-09-01
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-10

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