Union Township, Brown County

• John Rankin HouseBuilt in 1828 above Ripley, the John Rankin House sheltered people fleeing slavery until 1865, perhaps 2,000 by a later estimate, and, by the family's account, the Eliza of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

How Union Township, Brown County began

Union Township, in southern Brown County on the Ohio River, is the oldest-settled township in the county; the 1883 history mentions a hut built on Eagle Creek in 1793 and says Belteshazer Dragoo made the first permanent settlement in 1794 or 1795. Red Oak Presbyterian Church, organized in 1798, was the county's first church, and the township holds the river town of Ripley, the first Brown County court in 1818, Levanna with its vineyards and Boyd mills, and the Underground Railroad landmarks around Ripley. It had 2,739 residents in 2020.

Settled 1793-1795 (huts on Eagle Creek in 1793; Belteshazer Dragoo's permanent settlement 1794 or 1795), by Belteshazer Dragoo (first permanent settler).

Where the name comes from

No source we found explains the name Union; it is one of 27 Union Townships in Ohio. The 1883 county history does not give an organization date; its oldest surviving township record book begins March 7, 1825.

Before the town

The 1883 county history records that the river bank between the mouths of Eagle Creek and Red Oak Creek was washing away through a burial ground of 'the ancient dead', with skeletons and pottery 'constantly washed out into the river', at a spot once nearly a quarter mile from the water. It adds that stone darts, hammers and axes were found in the township, mostly on Eagle Creek, and that a granite pipe nine inches long turned up on the Benjamin Sidwell farm. It does not name the builders or give dates. The same history says Indians often crossed the Ohio near Ripley and Aberdeen to raid horses in Kentucky, and assigns the region to the Shawnee and Miami.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• Prehistoric burial ground between Eagle Creek and Red Oak Creek (burial) — Ohio River bank between the mouths of Eagle and Red Oak creeks, Union Township, prehistoric, undated (archive.org)
• Stone pipe and tools, Eagle Creek valley (other) — Benjamin Sidwell farm and Eagle Creek, Union Township, prehistoric, undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1793 — Cornelius Washburn and William Dixon cross the Ohio from Kentucky at Logan's Gap and build a hut on Eagle Creek a mile from the river, where Dixon stayed for some time.
2. 1794 — Belteshazer Dragoo, a Virginian by way of Mason County, Kentucky, builds a cabin on Eagle Creek and buys 300 acres, the first permanent settlement in the township; he later sold out and joined the Shakers near Cincinnati.
3. 1799 — John Liggett clears land and builds a log cabin on the future site of Levanna; merchants and a ferry (the county's first, kept by Waters) were operating there by 1810.
4. 1800 — Henry Miller teaches the first school in the Levanna area, in a log cabin on Matthew Davidson's land.
5. 1805 — Rev. James Gilliland settles on Red Oak and becomes pastor of Red Oak church, serving until shortly before his death in 1854; a Latin school was held in the church for many years.
6. 1818 — The first court held in Brown County meets in April at Dr. Alexander Campbell's house in Ripley, Judge Joshua Collett presiding; a county seat laid out at Bridgewater on Straight Creek in 1819 was given up for a defective title, and a courthouse begun at Ripley was not finished before commissioners fixed the seat at Georgetown; the legislature relieved James Poage for building it in 1824.
7. 1820 — The Benefactor, the first newspaper published in Brown County, is issued at Levanna by Louden, Butt & Co. and lasts a year.
8. 1825 — The oldest surviving township record book begins on March 7 with the trustees Barnard Jackson and Jeptha Beasley and clerk John C. Poage.
9. 1833 — Union Township has six gristmills and eight sawmills.
10. 1849 — Catawba grape vineyards are set on the hills behind Levanna, and C. W. Boyd arrives to clerk in a store; the Boyd sawmill, rebuilt in 1866 with a planing mill, grew by the 1880s into the Boyd Manufacturing Company, making tobacco hogsheads at Ripley, Levanna and Higginsport.
11. 1869 — W. H. Dunn finds a mastodon tusk fifteen feet down in a sand bank on Red Oak Creek and ships it to P. T. Barnum for $50.
12. 1876 — The 'Reinert fire' of May 10 starts in the heart of Ripley and threatens the block between Second and Third streets before it is brought under control.
13. 1982 — Red Oak Presbyterian Church is added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17.
14. 2020 — The township's population is 2,739.

Stories

A pulpit on the Underground Railroad

Red Oak Presbyterian Church was organized in 1798, making it the first church congregation in what would become Brown County two decades later, and the stone building that still stands on Cemetery Road went up in 1817. Its minister, James Gilliland, preached openly against slavery and, like his better-known Ripley neighbor John Rankin, is claimed to have helped hundreds of escaped slaves, and held anti-slavery rallies from the same pulpit where he held Sunday services. Wikipedia credits Gilliland with Ripley's Rev. John Rankin and West Union's Rev. Dyer Burgess as having assisted hundreds of escaped slaves.

The Shaker excitement on Red Oak

Red Oak church's first stated minister, Rev. Dunlavy, began preaching the 'heresy of Shakerism' and was forbidden the pulpit. When he came back to the church anyway, the sexton, Jacob Shepherd, met him at the door and would not let him in. Dunlavy still drew with him to the Shakers, the county history says, nearly half of the congregation, and the movement swept Eagle Creek: Belteshazer Dragoo, the township's first permanent settler, sold his farm and lived out his life with the Shakers near Cincinnati. Gilliland, called to the pulpit in 1805, rebuilt the church, and a stone house of worship went up in 1817.

A tusk for P. T. Barnum

In 1869 W. H. Dunn, who owned a sand bank on the south side of Red Oak Creek about 300 yards from its mouth, found a huge tusk fifteen feet down, probably a mastodon's. It broke into three pieces on its way out and began to crumble in the air, but it had been about fourteen feet long and seven inches thick at the widest. Dunn wrote to P. T. Barnum in New York, struck a bargain, shipped the pieces and got a $50 draft. Other bones turned up in the neighborhood: a ten-inch molar in the Eagle Creek bottoms on Benjamin Sidwell's farm and a shoulder blade at the old ford over Red Oak Creek at the foot of Third Street in Ripley, which Mrs. Elizabeth Allen kept in her museum at Second and Market.

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

Every historic place in Brown County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Brown County Rural Water99% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Adams County Regional Wd1% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)

Nursing homes (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-18: county board of elections.

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.
• On the Auditor of State's unauditable list.

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