Steubenville Township, Jefferson County

How Steubenville Township, Jefferson County began

Steubenville Township was established May 30, 1803, the parent township from which Island Creek (1806), Cross Creek (1806-07) and Salem (1807) were later carved. George Adams settled on section 32 around 1796 and remained until his death in 1856; other early arrivals included Robert Hill, who came from Pennsylvania in 1806, and Irish immigrant John Moore, who arrived in 1805. The township surrounds Steubenville itself and includes the Mingo Town/Mingo Junction river bottom, remembered in the township's own 1880 history for George Washington's 1770 visit and for what that history calls the last formidable encounter with Indians in the area, known locally as Buskirk's Fight. Nineteenth-century township residents worked the river trade, coopering, farming and small manufacturing, including a cigar factory turning out roughly 250,000 cigars a year.

Settled c. 1796 (George Adams), platted not applicable (township, not platted as a town), incorporated May 30, 1803, by Jefferson County (territorial government).

Where the name comes from

Named for Steubenville, the county seat it surrounds, itself named for Fort Steuben and Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben.

Before the town

Steubenville Township's own 1880 county history preserves two pieces of site-specific native history beyond the general county record. It describes 'the Ancient Mingo Town' within the township (at the site of present Mingo Junction) and notes that Mingo Island, in the Ohio River opposite the settlement, still showed traces decades later of the corn and grapes once grown there; George Washington is recorded visiting Mingo Town in the fall of 1770. The same history gives a full, named account of 'Buskirk's Famous Fight,' which it calls the last formidable encounter with Indians in Jefferson County: in the summer of 1793, Captain Lawson Van Buskirk -- whose wife had been killed less than a year before -- led about thirty men in pursuit of a Native raiding party, catching them at a place that became known as Battle Run, on the farm of a Mr. Adams about a mile from Mingo. Buskirk was killed in the resulting exchange, shot eleven times, while only three of his men were wounded and several of the Native fighters were killed or mortally wounded, their remains reportedly still being found in the rocks by local farmers years later. This account shows that the 1910 county history's undated 'last recorded Indian fight...on the Adams farm about a mile west of Mingo' is the same event as the 1880 history's dated, named 1793 fight at Battle Run.

Nations recorded here: Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

• Mingo Island (other) — Ohio River opposite Mingo Town/Mingo Junction, pre-19th century use by Native and early settler farmers (ohiogenealogyexpress.com)
• Battle Run (Buskirk's Fight) (battle) — on the farm of a Mr. Adams, about one mile from Mingo, Steubenville Township, summer 1793 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1793 — Captain Lawson Van Buskirk, avenging his wife's killing less than a year earlier, leads about thirty men against a Native raiding party at Battle Run, a mile from Mingo; Buskirk is shot eleven times and dies on the field, the only white man killed, while several of the Native fighters are killed or mortally wounded.
2. 1796 — George Adams settles on section 32 of what becomes Steubenville Township; he remains until his death in 1856.
3. 1800 — Rev. Lyman Potter, a Presbyterian missionary, and his son-in-law Jasper Murdock buy 600 acres of the Mingo Bottom country (the later Potter and Means farms), where the well-known watering trough at Potter spring stands beside the state road down the river.
4. 1802 — The first recorded township meeting is held January 18, with Zaccheus Biggs presiding and John Black elected clerk.
5. 1803 — Steubenville Township is established May 30, initially including the land that becomes Island Creek, Cross Creek and Salem townships.
6. 1805 — Irish immigrant John Moore arrives in Jefferson County and settles in the township.
7. 1806-1807 — Island Creek Township is set off June 4, 1806 and Salem Township June 3, 1807, reducing Steubenville Township to roughly its later bounds.
8. 1853 — Mingo Bottom becomes a railroad junction and landing for supplies during construction of the Steubenville & Indiana Railroad, yet remains only a small frame house and a railway station until 1869.
9. 1869 — Daniel Potter sells the locust grove and a tract on the hill to capitalists for iron works, and a town begins to grow on the bottom; his executors lay out 45 lots in 1871 and more in 1872 for a total of 117, and a post office opens about 1870 with Robert Turner as postmaster.
10. 1872 — A frame Presbyterian church, Potter Chapel, is built; the Franklin schoolhouse follows on the hillside in 1873, and an eight-room brick Logan school is later built on the East Side.
11. 1879 — After the check of the panic of 1873, enlargement of the iron works and the discovery of oil bring steady progress; the town has 700 to 800 residents in 1880.
12. 1890 — Mingo Junction, in the township, first appears as a separate civil division in the census with 1,856 people, rising to 2,954 in 1900; Junction Lodge No. 414, Knights of Pythias, is organized February 17.
13. 1898 — St. Agnes Church and school are completed in Mingo Junction; a Greek Catholic church and Slavonic and Hungarian benefit societies reflect the immigrant steelworkers, and Central School, costing $60,000, is completed in 1906.
14. 1899 — The Mingo water and light companies are organized, with a river pumping station, reservoir and mains; the First National Bank of Mingo follows in 1901.
15. 2020 — The census counts 4,117 people in the township.

Stories

Forty-nine trips to New Orleans

Before railroads reordered Ohio Valley commerce, Steubenville Township residents like Henry Adams built livelihoods on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers themselves. Adams spent about twenty years in the river trade, the 1880 county history records, making forty-nine trips down to New Orleans and back -- a measure of both the scale of the antebellum river economy and the physical toll of a career built on months-long flatboat and steamboat voyages. It was a way of life that largely vanished within a generation as railroads reached Steubenville in the 1850s, replaced by the coal, iron and manufacturing economy that came to define the township and city alike.

Battle Run, at last identified

Two county histories, thirty years apart, each mentioned the last serious fight with Native warriors in this part of Jefferson County -- but only the earlier one named it. The 1880 history devotes several pages to 'Buskirk's Famous Fight,' compiled, it says, from more than a dozen informants to keep the record faithful: in the summer of 1793, Captain Lawson Van Buskirk, whose wife had been killed less than a year before, led about thirty men -- including David Cox, two Cuppy brothers, John Aidy, John Parker and a man named Carpenter -- in pursuit of a Native raiding party. They caught them at a place later called Battle Run, on a Mr. Adams's farm about a mile from Mingo. In the exchange that followed, Buskirk was hit eleven times and killed; only three of his men were wounded, while several of the Native fighters died, their remains reportedly still turning up in the rocks decades later. The 1910 county history, writing more briefly, calls this simply 'the last recorded Indian fight...on the Adams farm about a mile west of Mingo' without naming Buskirk at all -- but the shared farm, the shared distance from Mingo, and the shared claim to being the area's last such fight leave little doubt the two histories describe the same 1793 encounter, thirty years and one generation of retelling apart.

The famous place with no village

The 1910 county history has a good deal to say about Mingo Bottom, the river flat in the township where the old Mingo Town stood. It was a historic point from the first arrival of whites in the valley, the scene of the first recorded event in the county, the rendezvous of the Crawford and other early expeditions against the Ohio Indians, a railroad junction from 1853, a landing for the Steubenville & Indiana Railroad builders and a Civil War camp. Yet down to the fall of 1869 there was not even a semblance of a village there: only cultivated farms, one small frame house and a railway station, no post office, and residents went to Steubenville to vote. The old name had meanwhile been taken by a post office elsewhere in Ohio, so when a name was wanted the word 'Junction' had to be added. The locust groves on the river bank and hilltop were favorite picnic grounds until Daniel Potter sold the grove in 1869 for iron works, and the village of Mingo Junction followed, with 2,954 people by 1900.

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

Every historic place in Jefferson County on the full map

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• Mingo Junction86% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Steubenville, City Of10% of residentsOhio River
• Jefferson Co. W&s District- J3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Brilliant Water and Sewer1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Shale and injection wells (6)

Superfund sites (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 1 of 3 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.
• Financial Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-09-10
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-01-02

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