Sugarcreek Township, Tuscarawas County

How Sugarcreek Township, Tuscarawas County began

Sugar Creek Township, in the northwest of Tuscarawas County, was erected by the county commissioners on March 7, 1811 and named for Sugar Creek, which runs through it. Pennsylvania German farmers, the first of them Frederick Domer in 1807, took up its sandstone hills, and many were Amish (called 'Ornish' in the 1884 county history), Mennonite or Dunkard. Shanesville, laid out in May 1814 by Abraham Shane of New Philadelphia, is now part of Sugarcreek, which gained the Swiss-style tourist trade in the 1960s. A floor collapse at a Knights of Pythias festival in Shanesville on December 31, 1881 killed ten. The township had 4,464 residents in 2020.

Settled 1807 (Frederick Domer, probably the earliest pioneer), platted May 1814 (Shanesville, by Abraham Shane), incorporated March 7, 1811 (township erected by the county commissioners), by Frederick Domer, pioneer; Abraham Shane of New Philadelphia, proprietor of Shanesville.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for Sugar Creek, the stream that courses through its midst; the 1884 county history says it takes its name from the creek, and Wikipedia notes that it is one of five Sugar Creek townships in Ohio. The creek bottoms were timbered with sugar maple.

Before the town

No mound, earthwork or Native town specific to the township is recorded in the sources checked. The 1884 county history says that when the War of 1812 opened, 'Indians who took up the hatchet against the Americans had hunted just before in the valley of Sugar Creek,' and that when Hull surrendered and rumors of raids spread, settlers buried their goods and fled east, Henry Miller reaching Gnadenhutten before the alarm proved false. Wikipedia says Shanesville was laid out in 1814 at the crossing of two Indian trails, now State Routes 39 and 93; it credits the founding to Anthony Shane, whom the county history does not name (it gives Abraham Shane). The land was ceded by the Treaty of Greenville (1795). For the Delaware (Lenape) towns of the Tuscarawas valley and the Moravian missions.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

• Crossing of two Indian trails at Shanesville (trail) — site of Shanesville, now part of Sugarcreek, at the crossing of present State Routes 39 and 93, before 1814 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1807 — Frederick Domer, called Judge Domer, a Dunkard from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, enters the southeast quarter of Section 3 south of Shanesville and is probably the earliest pioneer.
2. 1808 — Henry Sliffe walks from Pennsylvania, enters the southwest quarter of Section 22, and returns in 1811 with his family in a cart drawn by two oxen and a horse.
3. 1810 — Jacob Miller, the first Amish preacher in the township, arrives with a wagon and six horses and begins preaching.
4. 1811 — On March 7 the commissioners erect Sugar Creek Township, with the first election at Frederick Domer's house in April; it then included most of present Auburn and part of Holmes County.
5. 1812 — The War of 1812 alarms the settlers; some bury their goods and flee east before the rumors prove false.
6. 1814 — Abraham Shane of New Philadelphia lays out Shanesville in May on a ridge nearly a mile from Sugar Creek, with 101 lots; the town is a cross-shaped plat around a public square.
7. 1820 — Shanesville has 57 residents (226 in 1840, 382 in 1850, 321 in 1860, 360 in 1870, 368 in 1880); William D. Mefendish advertises books and medicines there in the Tuscarawas Chronicle.
8. 1821 — The German Reformed congregation is organized at Shanesville by Rev. W. Reiter; in 1828 the Reformed and Lutheran congregations jointly build a church there, laying the cornerstone on September 3.
9. 1830 — George Wertz starts a carding and fulling mill at Shanesville, probably by this year; it becomes a woolen mill.
10. 1853 — John Baltzly rebuilds the mill at Barr's Mills, the township's first grist mill, built by John J. Miller at a very early day; David Barr buys it about 1868.
11. 1881 — John King plats the paper village of Kingsville two miles north of Shanesville; it never gets beyond the plat. On December 31 the second-floor hall of the Goeler Building in Shanesville collapses during a Knights of Pythias festival, killing ten.
12. 1883 — The Connotton Valley Railroad opens in spring half a mile east of Shanesville, bringing a planing mill, a tile factory and a warehouse.
13. 1969 — Shanesville is administratively merged with Sugarcreek, the combined village taking the Sugarcreek name.
14. 1990 — The township's population is recorded at 3,666 (3,894 in 2000, 4,194 in 2010).
15. 2020 — The census counts 4,464 residents over 23.4 square miles.

Stories

The night the floor fell in at Shanesville, 1881

On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1881, the Knights of Pythias lodge gave a festival on the second floor of the Goeler Building, at the southwest corner of the square in Shanesville. More than two hundred people were packed into the small hall, and supper had been announced in the next room, but the crowd lingered to hear the village band while boys beat time with their feet. Suddenly the floor parted in the center, and the mass of people, with stove, lamps and furniture, dropped in a heap into the store below. Fire caught the clothing of the struggling victims. The store doors would not open, for the fallen floor hung above them, and men from outside broke them down, pulling people out and putting out flames, but ten had received mortal burns. Miss Mary Neff was killed instantly; Mrs. Catharine Yoder and her son Melta, Annie Orin, Mrs. Allen Goeler, the village clothier Frederick Schlarb, blacksmith Frederick Weimer, farmer George Froelick, Amanda Troyer and Annie Graff died of their injuries. There was scarcely a house in the village without a sufferer.

The Ornish of Sugar Creek: farmers who built the barn first

The first Amish, called 'Ornish' in the 1884 history, came to the Sugar Creek valley from Pennsylvania in the early settlement, and the first preacher, Jacob Miller, began holding services in 1810. About thirty families still lived in the township in the 1880s, with more in neighboring Holmes County. Their ministers were chosen by lot: members wrote down names, and those who received votes each drew a book from a row of several, one of which had been marked; whoever drew the marked book became the minister, serving for life without a salary. The historian observed that their first ambition was a large, substantial red barn, with the family living in a rude cabin until stock and grain were housed, and that the women were noted butter makers. The church had by then split into an old order, which still met in private houses, and a progressive one, which had built a meetinghouse in Holmes County.

Sorting out Sugar Creek's neighbors

Sugar Creek Township borders no fewer than six other townships, two of them across the Holmes County line, and shares its name with a Sugar Creek Township in Stark County as well as with the creek. Its own village, Sugarcreek, began in 1814 as Shanesville, laid out in May 1814 by Abraham Shane of New Philadelphia (Wikipedia credits Anthony Shane) where two Indian trails crossed — a site chosen for the same reason Native travelers had already been using it. The hamlet of Ragersville, platted in 1830 by Conrad Rager and often loosely associated with this part of the county because of its shared postal history and rural character, is documented in Tuscarawas County's National Register records as lying in neighboring Auburn Township rather than in Sugar Creek Township itself; that distinction is easy to miss in casual references to the area and is worth stating plainly here. Outside the village of Sugarcreek, the township remains rolling Sugarcreek Valley farm country typical of the county's Swiss and German Amish settlement belt.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Sugarcreek Village68% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Dover City26% of residentsSugar Creek Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (Dover wellfield)
• Walnut Creek Water Co.5% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Winesburg Area Development Corporation0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Tcmsd-dundee0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Mount Eaton Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Private schools (3)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 2 of 2 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 2 of 2.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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