Stone Creek

How Stone Creek began

Stone Creek was settled starting in 1827 when John Hawk became the area's first resident, drawing later settlers of German descent after the Ohio and Erie Canal was built through Tuscarawas County. The place took its name from a crossing built by resident Philip Burrier, who hauled stone to make a passable ford across the creek, and the name stuck when a post office was established in 1840, before the town itself was platted. Phillip Leonhardt (Leonhart), a native of Germany, laid the town out on Stone Creek in 1854 and named it Phillipsburg; it grew slowly (only thirteen houses by 1865) until the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad reached it, and by 1884 it had roughly 200 residents, two general stores, two hotels, a drug store, a planing mill and a grist mill. When the village went to incorporate in 1904 its council found another Phillipsburg already existed near Dayton and renamed it Stone Creek after the older post office. Its population later peaked at 226 in 1960 before declining to 153 by 2020.

Settled 1827, platted 1854, incorporated 1904, by Phillip Leonhardt (Leonhart) platted the town (as Phillipsburg) in 1854; John Hawk was the area's first settler in 1827.

Where the name comes from

Named for a stone crossing that resident Philip Burrier built across the creek to let horses and wagons pass; the name was fixed by 1840, when a post office called Stone Creek was established (before Phillipsburg was platted), and the village adopted it in 1904 after discovering its original name, Phillipsburg, was already used by another Ohio village near Dayton. Sources disagree on precisely whose farm first hosted the post office: Wikipedia names Michael Harmon's property, while the 1884 county history says it was 'located at first at the farm house of Joseph Murphy, one and a half miles north of the village' -- both are given here rather than silently picking one.

Before the town

We found no source describing Native American sites, trails, or history specific to the Stone Creek area.

Timeline

1. 1827 — John Hawk becomes the first settler in the area, later ground of Stone Creek, which had gone unsettled until then owing to its distance from the principal streams.
2. 1840 — A post office named Stone Creek is established, taking its name from Philip Burrier's stone crossing over the creek; it was located at first at a farm house one and a half miles north of the later village site (Wikipedia names Michael Harmon's property; the 1884 county history names Joseph Murphy's).
3. 1848 — Adam Sherrets lays out a village plat named Pleasant Valley on the southwest part of Lot 30, just north of the junction of Dott's Fork with Stone Creek, with thirty-five lots; the attempt "came to naught as an actual village."
4. 1854 — Phillip Leonhart, a native of Germany, lays out Phillipsburg on Stone Creek with an original plat of thirty-four lots; Adam Regula becomes the first merchant, followed by Frederick Wagner.
5. 1865 — Phillipsburg has grown to only thirteen houses before the coming of the railroad.
6. 1870s — The Cleveland and Marietta Railroad is built through the town along Stone Creek Valley, spurring growth.
7. 1875 — Frederick Regula adds eleven lots to the village plat, on Bridge and Marietta streets.
8. 1876 — George W. Meese & Co. start a planing and saw mill in the village.
9. 1882 — George Meese lays out an addition of eleven lots (five of them outlots) on the southeast side of the village; by this time Phillipsburg has about 200 residents, two general stores, a stove and tin store, a drug store, two hotels, three saloons, two blacksmith shops, a cooper shop, a bone mill, two shoe shops, a planing mill and a grist mill, and is served by physicians Dr. John Parks (since 1865) and Dr. S. P. Putts.
10. 1904 — Village council members Charlie Kughler and Fred Haas, filing incorporation papers in Akron, discover another Phillipsburg already exists in Ohio near Dayton and rename the village Stone Creek after its post office.
11. 1927 — A consolidated school building opens, merging several smaller district schools; it closes in 1974.
12. 1949 — The village's volunteer fire department is formally established.
13. 1960 — Village population peaks at 226.

Stories

Two towns named Phillipsburg

When Phillip Leonhart platted his town on Stone Creek in 1854, he named it Phillipsburg, and the name held for half a century while the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad arrived and the settlement grew from thirteen houses in 1865 to roughly 200 people by the early 1880s, with two general stores, two hotels, three saloons and its own grist and planing mills. In 1904 the village council, led by Charlie Kughler and Fred Haas, traveled to Akron to file the paperwork to formally incorporate as a village -- only to learn that a Phillipsburg already existed elsewhere in Ohio, near Dayton. Rather than invent a new name outright, the council reached back to the place's oldest continuous identity: the Stone Creek post office, established by 1840 at a farmhouse a mile and a half north of the village and named for Philip Burrier's stone ford across the creek. The post-office name outlived the platted name and has been the village's name ever since.

Pleasant Valley, the village that never was

Six years before Phillipsburg succeeded, another man tried and failed to found a town on the same stream. In 1848 Adam Sherrets surveyed a plat of thirty-five lots on Stone Creek, just north of where Dott's Fork joins it, and gave it the hopeful name Pleasant Valley. The 1884 county history records that the plat "presents a pleasing appearance on paper, but it came to naught as an actual village" -- no houses, no store, no post office, nothing but a surveyor's lines that were soon forgotten. Six years later Phillip Leonhart's plat on the same creek, a short distance away, succeeded where Sherrets's had not.

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

No water-system data is linked to Stone Creek's ZIP codes yet.

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-03

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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