Tremont City

How Tremont City began

Tremont City is a small village in the northeast corner of German Township, Clark County, on the Mad River about seven miles north of Springfield. William Chapman and William Ross came to the neighborhood in 1798, and a cluster of mills grew up at the river crossing where John Ross had a carding machine and distillery in 1836 and platted a village, recorded in 1838 as Clarksburg. A post office opened in 1839 and renamed the town Tremont, because Ohio already had a Clarksburg; the 1908 county history says the name was originally Treemount, for a wooded hill, and that 'City' was added about 1879 to stop mail going to Fremont (Wikipedia gives 1877). A mile east stood the short-lived distillery hamlet of Owltown. The village had 279 residents in 1880, peaked at 493 in 1990, and had 352 in 2020.

Settled 1798 (William Chapman and William Ross near the site), platted plat recorded 1838, as Clarksburg, by John Ross.

Where the name comes from

The village was first platted as Clarksburg. When a post office was established in 1839 the name was changed to Tremont, 'there being another town in the State of the name of Clarksburg' (1881 county history). The 1908 county history adds that the name was originally Treemount, signifying that the burg stood at the foot of a large hill with a number of large trees, and that because Tremont and Fremont were so alike in writing, much mail for Tremont went to the larger place, so about 1879 the word 'City' was added; Wikipedia gives 1877 for the change.

Before the town

At Tremont, the 1881 county history reports 'some evidences of an Indian burying-ground, or of the works of that mysterious nation that antedates the red man, the Mound-Builders': on a hill terraced by Gabriel Albin and Dr. A. C. McLaughlin, many human bones and several skulls 'differing from those of our race' were exhumed by accident, and the writer hoped for later examination by science. No excavation report, date or culture was found, so the burials are undated. The land lies in the area ceded by the Treaty of Greenville (August 3, 1795). On August 8, 1780, General George Rogers Clark's militia destroyed the Shawnee town of Piqua on the Mad River a few miles southwest in Bethel Township, driving the Shawnee from the Mad River valley.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Burial hill at Tremont (burial) — terraced hill in the village of Tremont City, German Township, undated; the 1881 history attributes the bones to an Indian burying-ground or the Mound-Builders (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1798 — William Chapman and William Ross settle near the site of Tremont City; Chapman's Creek is named for the first white man to settle on its banks.
2. April 2, 1836 — Dr. A. C. McLaughlin begins practice at Clarksburg, now Tremont City; he is postmaster in 1839 and still the village's physician in 1881.
3. 1836 — A small carding machine stands on the site of the later Seitz Mill, and John Ross builds a distillery there; the Rosses, John and William, keep a dry-goods store through 1836-37.
4. 1837 — John Hupp opens a tavern; the neighborhood has a schoolmaster, a physician, a blacksmith and a carpenter.
5. 1838 — The plat of the village, called Clarksburg, is recorded; the Methodists, who had worshiped at Rector Church, build a brick church the same year.
6. 1839 — A post office is established with Dr. A. C. McLaughlin as postmaster, and the name is changed to Tremont; Kiblinger and Kneisley build a large distillery with a grist-mill and saw-mill a mile east, at Owltown.
7. 1840 — Benjamin Turman makes an addition to the town; about now lime is burned from a quarry a mile south.
8. 1863 — The German Reformed Church is organized by Rev. Jesse Richards; its brick church is built in 1865 for about $4,000, the congregation worshiping meanwhile in the old log house it had left forty years before.
9. 1877 — Wikipedia dates the renaming of the post office and village to Tremont City to this year; the 1908 county history says about 1879.
10. 1880 — The census counts 279 residents (about 300 in the 1881 history); the village has two churches, a four-story mill built by Andrew Seitz for $5,000, a hotel, three blacksmith and carriage shops, and a two-room brick school with ninety-nine pupils.
11. 1908 — The village's Seitz Mill still operates, the Knights of Pythias are building a hall, and the Tremont City school district enrolls 122 pupils.
12. 1990 — Village population reaches its recorded peak of 493.
13. 2020 — The census records 352 residents, down 6.1 percent from 375 in 2010.

Stories

From Clarksburg to Tremont City

The village at the Mad River crossing began as a cluster of mill-hands' houses around John Ross's carding machine and distillery in 1836, and Ross began selling small lots until the neighborhood looked like a village. The plat, recorded in 1838, called it Clarksburg. When the post office was established in 1839 with Dr. A. C. McLaughlin as postmaster, the name was changed to Tremont because another Clarksburg already existed in Ohio. The 1908 county history says the name was originally Treemount, from a hill with large trees, and that mail meant for Tremont kept going to Fremont, so 'City' was added about 1879. The 1881 history's snapshot, taken then, shows what the place had been: a church, a store, a tavern in 1837, three blacksmith shops, and a four-story mill with three sets of burrs that ground ten barrels of flour a day.

Owltown and the stolen chickens

A mile east of Tremont City on the Mad River, Kiblinger and Kneisley built in 1839 what was said to be the largest distillery in Clark County, with a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a cooper shop and nine or ten houses beside it. Fifteen to twenty-five men worked there, and hog pens fed from the still's slop held as many as three thousand hogs. According to the 1908 county history, the neighborhood's housewives had long been losing poultry and blamed marauding owls, until they discovered that the owls were the still-house boys, who were roasting the chickens in the furnace. The place was called Owltown from then on. The distillery, still running in 1864 under the name Blose, Seitz & Blose, ceased in a few years and not a vestige remained by 1908.

Photographs

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

No water-system data is linked to Tremont City's ZIP codes yet.

Fire and EMS stations (1)

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-11-25

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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