Tiltonsville

How Tiltonsville began

Tiltonsville was founded in 1806 by John Tilton, who had bought the full 900-acre Section No. 22 at a Pittsburgh federal land auction on November 25, 1796 for $3,623.76 -- a deed signed by President John Adams and dated November 20, 1797. Tilton and Charles Kimball had already been in the area since about 1784-85, part of Warren Township's earliest settlement wave. A post office opened in 1852 as 'Tiltonville,' and residents changed the spelling to 'Tiltonsville' in 1875. The village holds Hodgen's Cemetery Mound, an intact, never-formally-excavated Adena culture burial mound listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975; Tiltonsville's population peaked at 2,454 in 1960 and had fallen to 1,259 by the 2020 census.

Settled c. 1784-85 (John Tilton and Charles Kimball), platted 1806, incorporated date not found in sources reviewed, by John Tilton.

Where the name comes from

Named for John Tilton, who purchased the 900-acre section on which the village stands at a Pittsburgh federal land auction in 1796 and platted the village in 1806.

Before the town

Tiltonsville holds one of the few site-specific, physically confirmed Native American sites we found documented in Jefferson County: Hodgen's Cemetery Mound, a roughly one-acre, cone-shaped Adena culture burial mound along the Ohio River shoreline, built sometime between about 500 BC and AD 500. The mound has never been formally excavated, but erosion has exposed human remains including a skull showing artificial cranial deformation, a documented Adena and Hopewell-era practice. It sits inside a 19th-century cemetery later established by Tiltonsville's white residents, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 25, 1975. Separately, the township's own settlement-era history records that Jack Tilton, a boy of twelve to fourteen believed to be a relative of the village's founder John Tilton, was killed by a Native war party near Short Creek sometime between 1789 and 1794, before the village existed.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture.

• Hodgen's Cemetery Mound (mound) — Hodgen's Cemetery, off Walden Avenue, Tiltonsville, Adena culture, c. 500 BC - AD 500 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1796 — John Tilton buys the full 900-acre Section No. 22 at a Pittsburgh federal land auction on November 25 for $3,623.76.
2. 1797 — Tilton's deed to the land, signed by President John Adams, is dated November 20.
3. 1806 — John Tilton establishes the village that takes his name.
4. 1852 — A post office opens under the name 'Tiltonville.'
5. 1875 — Residents change the spelling of the post office and village name to 'Tiltonsville.'
6. 1960 — Village population peaks at 2,454.
7. 1975 — Hodgen's Cemetery Mound is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 25.

Stories

A mound that erosion excavated, not archaeologists

Hodgen's Cemetery Mound has never been formally excavated, yet it has given up some of its secrets anyway. Nineteenth-century Tiltonsville residents built their own cemetery around and partly on top of the roughly one-acre, cone-shaped Adena mound along the Ohio River shoreline, and over the following century natural erosion of the hillside has periodically exposed human remains -- including, at one point, a skull showing artificial cranial deformation, a burial practice documented among Adena and Hopewell-era peoples elsewhere in Ohio. Modern grave-digging on the mound's southwestern side has disturbed it further, but its general conical shape survives, and it has stood on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975 -- a rare case, in this stretch of the county, of a specific, physically locatable prehistoric Native site rather than only a documented history of the historic-era nations who arrived later.

Photographs

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

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• Tiltonsville100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Mounds and earthworks (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 2 of 2 passed.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-10-14

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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