Trenton Township, Delaware County

How Trenton Township, Delaware County began

Trenton Township was carved down, township by township, from the vast original Sunbury Township organized June 16, 1808, and kept the Sunbury name until sometime between 1830 and 1835, when three settlers sitting on a log - Van Dorn, Leak and Condit - agreed the name should change to avoid confusion with the village of Sunbury in neighboring Berkshire Township. Kentucky settlers William Perfect and Mordecai Thomas arrived in the spring of 1807, and New Jersey native Gilbert Van Dorn opened the township's first tavern, the "Center Inn," in 1818, rebuilding it in brick in 1829 on a site that still stands and carries the National Register listing today. The township never grew a real town of its own - by 1880 the county historian noted it had no store, no post office town, and only a scattering of quarries and gristmills - and it remains a quiet farming and stone-quarrying district on the Big Walnut Creek.

Settled 1807, incorporated 1808 (as Sunbury Township); renamed Trenton c. 1830-1835.

Where the name comes from

The township was organized June 16, 1808 as Sunbury Township, one of the original divisions of the newly formed county, and at first covered most of the county's eastern side, including present-day Harlem, Porter and half of Berkshire and Genoa townships. As those townships were successively set off, the remaining territory kept the Sunbury name even though the actual village of Sunbury lay in Berkshire Township. Tradition holds that around 1830-1835, prominent early settlers Van Dorn, Leak and Condit, talking over the confusion this caused while sitting on a log, agreed to rename it; Leak proposed "Chester" for his native town, Condit wanted "Orange" (already taken by another township), and Van Dorn's suggestion of "Trenton," for the capital of his native New Jersey, was the one the County Commissioners adopted.

Before the town

No source consulted names a specific Native village, mound, or trail within Trenton Township's own boundaries; the 1880 county history's Trenton chapter moves directly from land surveys to the arrival of Kentucky, New Jersey and New York settlers after 1807 without describing prior Native occupation there. The land came into United States hands through the Treaty of Greenville (1795), and the township lies wholly within the United States Military District set aside for Revolutionary War land warrants. A 1908 county history's claim that Gilbert Van Dorn settled within present Trenton Township as early as 1783 - twelve years before the Treaty of Greenville and eighteen years before any other confirmed settlement in the county - is presented there as an unverified tradition, not a documented fact, and is not repeated with confidence here. For county-level Native history, including the Delaware and Mingo villages near the city of Delaware and the historic nations of the Scioto and Olentangy valleys.

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of what becomes Ohio, including the future Trenton Township, to the United States.
2. 1807 — William Perfect and Mordecai Thomas, from Kentucky, become the township's first settlers, each buying 100 acres from military-land owner Pearson Spinning near the mouth of what becomes Perfect's Creek.
3. 1808 — The township is organized June 16 as Sunbury Township, the third township formed after the county's organization, then covering most of the county's eastern side.
4. 1810 — Harlem Township is set off from Sunbury Township on September 11; further townships (Kingston, 1813; part of Genoa, 1816) are cut from the same original territory in the following years.
5. 1818 — Gilbert Van Dorn, an 1817 emigrant from New Jersey who bought 1,000 acres in what became known as "Van's Valley," opens the township's first tavern, a log "cabin hotel" under a sign of a gilt sun called the Center Inn.
6. 1829 — Van Dorn replaces his log tavern with the present brick building, the first brick house built in the township, using stone quarried locally for the foundation.
7. c. 1830-1835 — The County Commissioners adopt the name Trenton, proposed by Gilbert Van Dorn for the capital of his native New Jersey, replacing Sunbury Township.
8. 1835-36 — The township's first church society, Presbyterian, organizes after Rev. Mr. Ransom of the Genoa church, who had twice discouraged the idea, changes his mind while preaching the funeral of J. S. Condit.
9. 1835 — John Van Sickle builds the first gristmill in the township on Big Walnut Creek, half a mile northeast of Sunbury, with a brush dam later replaced by planks.
10. 1983 — The Center Inn is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
11. 1969 — Del-Co Water Company is founded by Ralph Scott, Timothy McNamara and Gerald Solt, financed through the USDA Farmers Home Administration, later reaching rural Trenton Township customers.

Stories

Three Men on a Log Rename a Township

For more than two decades the eastern third of Delaware County was called Sunbury Township, even though the actual village of Sunbury sat over the line in Berkshire Township - a standing source of confusion for anyone sending mail or filing papers. Tradition says the fix came almost by accident: Van Dorn, Leak and Condit, three of the township's leading men, were sitting on a log one day talking business when the subject came up. Leak proposed Chester, his hometown back east; Condit wanted Orange, but Orange Township already existed elsewhere in the county; so Van Dorn's suggestion carried the day - Trenton, for the capital of his native New Jersey. The three men took the idea to the County Commissioners, who adopted it, and Sunbury Township quietly disappeared from the map.

The Gilt Sun of the Center Inn

Gilbert Van Dorn came from New Jersey in 1817 to a stretch of country so empty that only two families lived on the entire road between the Licking County line and Sunbury. He bought 1,000 acres in a valley that took his name, and the following year opened the township's first public house, a rude log structure that grew, cabin by cabin, into a four-room log hotel as his reputation as a host spread. He hung out a sign painted with a gilt sun over the words "Center Inn," a beacon the county historian said appeared to weary travelers "as welcome... as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." In 1829 Van Dorn replaced the log building with the brick tavern that still stands today, carrying the same name and, for a time, the same sign, on State Route 37 southeast of Sunbury.

A Township With Almost No History of Its Own

The 1880 county historian, having exhausted the story of Trenton's settlement and its pioneers, admitted there was little else to tell: "no villages or towns dot its landscapes; no manufactories other than a mill or two and a few quarries; no stores are kept; even the old taverns of the pioneer days have passed away." What Trenton did have was good farmland, good building stone along Big Walnut Creek, and, after the Cleveland, Columbus & Mount Vernon Railroad came through, a growing quarry business that shipped stone to market. It was, in the historian's own words, home to "a moral and upright law-abiding people" who minded their own business - not a dramatic legacy, but an honestly reported one.

Photographs

Local history sources: dn710906.ca.archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · delcowater.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Delaware County on the full map

Alum Creek Reservoir intake at the Scott plant, Lewis Center Rd at Africa, Orange Township The water here

• Del-co Water Company, Inc.100% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells

Nursing homes (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-07-28
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-17

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