Troy Township, Athens County

How Troy Township, Athens County began

Troy Township occupies the southeastern corner of Athens County along the Ohio River, across from Wood County, West Virginia. It was settled in 1798-99 under the Ohio Company, about a year after Athens and Ames, by a party of about forty people who had traveled from near Springfield, Massachusetts, but its history reaches back nearly a quarter-century earlier: Lord Dunmore's Virginia militia camped at the mouth of the Hocking River in the fall of 1774, building Fort Gower, and the outlines of that campground, along with hatchets, gun barrels and bullets, were still being turned up by plows decades later. Its principal community today is the village of Coolville, platted in 1818 by Simeon W. Cooley, with the unincorporated river hamlet of Hockingport — one of the county's earliest settlements, at the mouth of the Hocking — nearby. Part of the township's water history is bound up with the Little Hocking Water Association, based just across the Athens-Washington county line, whose wells were found in 2002 to be contaminated with PFOA (C8) from DuPont's nearby Washington Works plant.

Settled 1798-99 (a party of about forty settlers from near Springfield, Massachusetts, lands at Belpre in 1798 and settles on the Hocking about seven miles from its mouth in 1799).

Where the name comes from

No source consulted documents the origin of the township's name; Troy is one of the most common township names in Ohio (one of seven statewide).

Before the town

Troy Township holds one of the county's most specific documented Native-era sites: Fort Gower, a temporary fortification Lord Dunmore's roughly 1,200-man Virginia militia built at the mouth of the Hocking River in the fall of 1774, at the close of Lord Dunmore's War against the Shawnee. When the township's first permanent settlers arrived in 1798, the outline of Dunmore's camp — a clearing of about twenty acres, by then grown up in saplings and underbrush — was still plainly visible, and for years afterward settlers plowed up hatchets, gun barrels and bullets there; a sword found near the roots of a fallen tree on the Hocking's west side was kept for years afterward in the college museum at Athens. Dunmore's army marched up the Hocking from the fort toward the Shawnee towns near Chillicothe, reportedly camping successive nights at Federal Creek and Sunday Creek elsewhere in the county, and returned to disband at Fort Gower after a treaty council; it was there, from returning officers, that word arrived of the First Continental Congress's boycott of British goods, prompting the Fort Gower Resolves. The county historian also records a secondhand, disputed account (from General George Rogers Clark's brother, via Walter Curtis of Belpre) of an 1831 visit to the site and of bullets found twenty-five miles upriver, which the historian argues conflates a real 1774 encampment with an unsubstantiated 1775 return visit. Beyond Fort Gower, the county's Shawnee, Wyandot and Delaware presence used the Hocking-Ohio confluence as a travel corridor for, in the historian's words, 'perhaps hundreds of years' before white settlement.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Fort Gower (camp) — confluence of the Hocking and Ohio rivers, near present Hockingport, Troy Township, built and occupied by Lord Dunmore's Virginia militia in the fall of 1774, at the close of Lord Dunmore's War; site of the Fort Gower Resolves, November 5, 1774 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1774 (fall) — Lord Dunmore's Virginia militia, marching home from Lord Dunmore's War against the Shawnee, camps at the mouth of the Hocking River and builds Fort Gower; officers there draft the Fort Gower Resolves after learning of the First Continental Congress's boycott of British goods.
2. 1798-99 — A party of about forty settlers, including Eleazur Washburn, the Paulk family and Horace Parsons, travels from near Springfield, Massachusetts, lands at Belpre, and settles on the Hocking River about seven miles from its mouth in what becomes Troy Township.
3. 1797 — Benajah Hoyt, probably the first white settler in Troy Township, arrives at the mouth of the Hockhocking from Nova Scotia with his family.
4. 1805 — The first election for Troy Township officers is held at the house of Ebenezer Buckingham, whose family later moves to Muskingum County and becomes noted for wealth and influence.
5. 1806 — Kingman Dutton settles at the mouth of the Hocking and, with his son, operates canoes and pirogues carrying emigrants and goods up the river — the main route into the county at the time.
6. 1807-02-18 — The Ohio legislature detaches the part of the township east of the Hockhocking from Washington County and adds it to Athens County.
7. 1814 — Simeon W. Cooley and his son Heman begin the settlement that becomes Coolville, building a mill there.
8. 1818 — Coolville is platted by Simeon W. Cooley, for whom it is named.
9. 1835 — Coolville is incorporated (the 1869 county history instead gives 1855 for Coolville's incorporation; both dates are recorded here rather than resolved).
10. 2002 — The Little Hocking Water Association, serving part of this corner of Athens County along with Little Hocking in neighboring Washington County, first learns that PFOA (C8) from DuPont's Washington Works plant has contaminated its water supply.
11. 2009 — The Little Hocking Water Association sues DuPont in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio over the PFOA contamination of its wellfield.
12. 2015 — The Little Hocking Water Association and DuPont reach a settlement, described by the association as an ongoing, federal court-enforceable agreement.

Stories

A sword under a fallen tree

When Troy Township's first permanent settlers arrived in 1798-99, they found a clearing of about twenty acres near the mouth of the Hocking already grown up in young saplings and underbrush — the campground Lord Dunmore's Virginia militia had built almost twenty-five years earlier, in the fall of 1774, at the close of Lord Dunmore's War. For years afterward, settlers plowing their fields turned up hatchets, gun barrels and bullets from the camp, and a rusty but well-preserved sword, found near the roots of a fallen tree on the river's west bank, was kept for years in the college museum at Athens. It was at this camp, called Fort Gower, that Dunmore's officers — who included George Rogers Clark, Daniel Morgan and William Crawford, of the division Dunmore had led down the Ohio from Fort Pitt some 1,700 strong — learned that the First Continental Congress had voted to boycott British trade, and in response drafted resolutions pledging to take up arms against the Crown if it came to that: an early declaration of American resistance, made on ground that would not become Athens County for another thirty years.

Coolville's odd company

Coolville, platted in 1818 by Simeon W. Cooley (who had begun settling the site with his son Heman in 1814 and built a mill there), takes its place among a small cluster of Athens-area communities noted for unusual, temperature-themed names: nearby are the unincorporated communities of Torch and Frost, and Snowville sits just across the line in Meigs County. By the 1830s the young village held two stores, a gristmill and a sawmill; incorporated by 1855 at the latest (Wikipedia's article on the village gives 1835 instead, and both dates are recorded here rather than resolved), it grew into what the 1869 county historian called 'one of the most pleasant villages in the county,' with three churches, two schools and a seminary — a description that still fits a town whose 1846 general store building stands today, remodeled, on Main Street.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Little Hocking Water Association, Inc.52% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (own wells, Porterfield wellfield)
• Coolville Village31% of residentsLocal groundwater wells near Long Bottom (Ohio River valley area)
• Tuppers Plains/chester Water District17% of residentsLocal groundwater wells near Long Bottom (Ohio River valley area)

Nursing homes (1)

Stations and terminals (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 1 of 3 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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-05-08

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