Thorn Township, Perry County

How Thorn Township, Perry County began

Thorn Township, six miles square in the northwest corner of Perry County, was organized about 1804 by Fairfield County, of which it was then part, and is the only township of that name in Ohio; it was named for the red-berried thorn bushes that grew around the little natural lakes on its northern line, lakes later drowned by the Licking Summit Reservoir (now Buckeye Lake). Settlement began in 1801 or 1802, largely by Pennsylvania Germans, and German was the common language of its churches and schools for years; Zion or Ribel's Church, organized in 1806, is the second oldest congregation in the county. Its main settlements are the village of Thornville, laid out about 1811 as Lebanon (an older account says about 1815, as New Lebanon), and the unincorporated Thornport, platted in 1839 by W. W. Talbott as a canal-trade landing on the reservoir. The township's one lasting architectural landmark on the National Register is the Soloman Whitmer House on Zion Road.

Settled 1801 or 1802, incorporated about 1804 (township organized by Fairfield County), by George Stinchcomb Sr., Daniel Snider, George Valentine, John Humberger and others (first settlers).

Where the name comes from

Named 'on account of there being many thorny plants within its borders.' The 1883 county history is more specific: the name came from the numerous thorn bushes bearing red berries that grew near the little lakes on the township's northern line, the site of the later reservoir, and it notes that other theories exist. The 1902 history likewise ties the name to the thorns around the Great Swamp.

Before the town

No permanent Native American town is recorded inside Thorn Township. The 1883 county history describes an Indian trail running from near present-day Dresden through Muskingum, Licking and Perry counties to 'the Great Swamp,' a wetland later drained into the Licking Summit Reservoir (now Buckeye Lake) that the township borders; the swamp and the country around it were used as shared hunting ground by the Shawnee, Delaware (Lenape) and Wyandot. The Thorn Township chapter of the same history adds that Native hunters came into the township often in early settlement years to hunt bear around the lakes and swamps, especially a large swamp in the Hooper neighborhood; that a trail crossed the township between the Native towns on the Muskingum and the Scioto; and that an 'Indian Spring' a little north of George Stinchcomb Sr.'s house was walled with split puncheons. The 1902 county history lists for Thorn Township three circles, twenty-two earth mounds, one village site, one mound group and one enclosure, the largest count of any Perry County township, and places the Scioto-Beaver trail just south of Buckeye Lake. Rev. Jacob Hooper of Thorn served as a missionary among the Wyandot from 1820 to 1825.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Trail to the Great Swamp (near Thornport) (trail) — Thorn Township, near Thornport and the Licking Summit Reservoir (Buckeye Lake), pre-1795 (ohiogenealogyexpress.com)
• Indian Spring (other) — a little north of the George Stinchcomb Sr. house, Thorn Township, early 1800s (archive.org)
• Thorn Township earthworks (3 circles, 22 earth mounds, a mound group, an enclosure and a village site) (earthwork) — Thorn Township, Perry County (locations not given), pre-contact (unspecified) (archive.org)
• Scioto-Beaver Trail (trail) — northern Perry County just south of Buckeye Lake, historic (1700s) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1801 — Permanent settlement begins in 1801 or 1802 at several places at once, among the first settlers George Stinchcomb Sr., Daniel Snider, George Valentine, a Hooper and John Humberger.
2. 1804 — Thorn Township is organized in the northwest corner of Perry County.
3. 1806 — Matthias and Elizabeth Reinbold sell two and a half acres to Zion (Ribel's) Church, organized that June by Rev. John King (Reformed) and Rev. William Foster (Lutheran) as a shared church; articles are written in German.
4. 1806 — Fairfield County tax lists record about eighty taxpayers in Thorn Township.
5. 1811 — Thornville is laid out about this year as Lebanon by Joseph McMullen and a partner (Howe's 1891 history quotes an older account that one Beesacker laid it out about 1815 as New Lebanon), and renamed because Warren County already had a Lebanon post office.
6. 1824 — The Regular Baptist church in section 17 builds its first hewn-log meetinghouse on land given by Henry Bowman.
7. 1832 — Asiatic cholera strikes the central-southern part of the township; Dr. William Trevitt of Thornville rides day and night, and two of his horses drop dead under him.
8. 1839 — W. W. Talbott plats the village of Thornport; his canal improvement company builds a private waterway linking the township's farmers to the Licking Summit Reservoir for trade.
9. 1841 — Stephen Benton Elkins, later U.S. Secretary of War and senator from West Virginia, is born September 26; Howe gives his birthplace as Thorn Township, while Wikipedia says near New Lexington.
10. 1844 — Samuel White of Newark, Whig candidate for Congress, dies suddenly and is buried beside his wife in the Methodist cemetery at Thornville after a long funeral procession around the reservoir.
11. 1871 — The Newark, Somerset and Straitsville Railroad opens with a station at Thornport, reviving the village; a roadbed had been graded through the township in 1853 but never finished.
12. 1880 — Thorn Township, including villages, has 1,900 people; Thornville has 269 and Thornport 125.
13. 1979 — The Soloman Whitmer House at 13917 Zion Rd. NW is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

Thornport's canal that a storm undid

Thornport was platted in 1839 by W. W. Talbott, who built a private canal connecting the settlement to the Licking Summit Reservoir so that Thorn Township grain and produce could move by water. For a time the arrangement gave the small landing real commercial life. A destructive storm later damaged the village and its waterway, and the canal trade never fully recovered; a nearby railroad eventually restored some of the grain traffic the canal had once carried. Thornport survives today as an unincorporated community and census-designated place on the shore of what is now Buckeye Lake.

The storm on the reservoir

The 1883 county history tells the Thornport venture in more detail. The Licking Summit Reservoir Improvement cut a boat channel through the reservoir from the canal feeder, about three miles northeast of Millersport, to its southeastern end about a mile from Thornville, and a two-horse tread-wheel boat was to tow canal boats back and forth. A large hotel and warehouse went up at Thornport, and for a season the boats carried out the township's grain and brought back salt, groceries, hardware and dry goods. Then, as a canal boat was being towed in on a calm day, a storm came out of the northwest with torrents of rain and a gale that wrecked the whole fleet; the boatmen escaped, but no crew would venture onto the reservoir again. The hotel and warehouse stood empty until the railroad came in 1871 and a new town grew up beside the old buildings.

Dr. Trevitt's horse

In 1832 cholera spread through the central and southern part of Thorn Township and many died. George Clum and William Friend, almost the only grown men in the district who did not fall ill, nursed the sick and laid out the dead for weeks without sleeping in a bed. Dr. William Trevitt of Thornville, five or six miles away, kept three horses saddled and rode day and night; two of them dropped dead under him. After one fell, he ran the rest of the way with his saddlebags on his arm and reached a patient named Henderson in time to save him. When Henderson recovered he asked for his bill and the price of the horse, eighty dollars, and though Trevitt would take only his ordinary fee of two or three dollars, Henderson left the eighty dollars on the counter, saying the money belonged to the doctor.

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

Every historic place in Perry County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Thornville, Village Of32% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Northern Perry Co.water #131% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Buckeye Lake, Village Of21% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Licking County Harbor Hills9% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Pleasantville Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Roberts Trailer Park1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Glenford Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-12
• OP&F Examination, 2023, released 2025-05-08

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