Union Township, Champaign County

How Union Township, Champaign County began

Union Township lies in southeastern Champaign County between Urbana Township and Goshen Township, with Buck Creek crossing it from northeast to southwest; about two-thirds of it is Virginia Military land east of the Ludlow Line. Joseph McLain and Stephen Runyan of Virginia, who arrived in 1801, are the first settlers on record, and the township (then also covering Goshen) held its first recorded election on October 8, 1811. Its one village, Mutual, began as a crossroads nicknamed Texas and took its present name when it incorporated in 1869; the rest is farmland with country churches, a lost trading point called Pollock Town and a railroad stop at Catawba. Its oldest monument is the Carl Potter Mound, an Adena burial mound in the southeast corner.

Settled 1801, incorporated 1811 (first recorded township election, October 8); an 1881 history gives 1805 from tradition, by first settlers on record Joseph McLain and Stephen Runyan, from Virginia.

Where the name comes from

Neither the 1881 nor the 1917 county history records why the name Union was chosen. The 1917 history says the township was part of Salem Township from 1805 until 1811, and that Goshen was cut from its eastern half in 1814 or 1815.

Before the town

The Carl Potter Mound, in the township's southeast corner near Mechanicsburg, is a low burial mound built by people of the Adena culture (roughly 800 BC to AD 100), likely a small group working at the edge of the main Adena range in the Scioto valley to the east. An informal dig by boys in the 1930s turned up human remains and a grooved stone axe; no professional excavation has been done since, and archaeologists believe more burials remain inside. The 1914 survey that recorded six mounds across the whole county missed this one; by 1970 only three mounds were still standing in the county, and this is one of them. The county histories add what settlers remembered: when McLain and Runyan arrived in 1801 many Native families still camped in the township, and the McLain farm was a favorite camping ground, so the settlers built a blockhouse there. In 1807 a rumor of war sent every family into the blockhouse for about six weeks, during which two children were born, but no attack came. The 1881 history says the last Native families had left by 1825. Both histories also note several small mounds in the township that had been opened for skulls and bones, and a railroad gravel cut west of Catawba that exposed more than one hundred human skeletons; an Urbana University professor called them European, and the old theory of a massacred French party was never proved.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture.

• Carl Potter Mound (formerly Hodge Mound) (mound) — east of State Route 56, southeastern Union Township, near Mechanicsburg, Adena, c. 800 BC - AD 100 (en.wikipedia.org)
• McLain blockhouse and camping ground (camp) — James A. McLain farm, eastern Union Township, c. 1801-1825 (archive.org)
• Catawba gravel-pit burials and small mounds (burial) — railroad cut just west of Catawba Station, northwest corner of section 24, undated; exposed during railroad building in the 1850s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1801 — Joseph McLain and Stephen Runyan, Virginians traveling with their families by wagon to Wheeling and flatboat down the Ohio, settled in the military lands of the township.
2. 1803 — Barton Minturn of New Jersey entered part of section 28; the 1917 history gives 1803 and the 1881 history gives the spring of 1808.
3. 1804 — James A. McLain was born on July 9, recorded as the first white child born in the township.
4. 1805 — Benjamin Cheney came on horseback from Virginia; he later scouted for Gen. Hull in 1812 and drove the first herd of cattle from the area to Detroit.
5. 1807 — A rumor of Native attack sent the settlers into the blockhouse on the McLain farm for about six weeks.
6. 1811 — The township's first recorded election was held on October 8, with 68 electors voting.
7. 1813 — James Hughes became the first regular Presbyterian minister and a log meetinghouse was built near the later site of Mutual; it burned in 1827.
8. 1815 — The first log Buck Creek Presbyterian Church was built on land given by James Robinson in section 31.
9. 1821 — Daniel Roberts built a water-powered flour mill on Buck Creek in the southern part of the township.
10. 1830 — Rev. Brandriff organized Pisgah Methodist Episcopal Church, three miles southwest of Mutual.
11. 1834 — Typhoid fever killed Benjamin Cheney, his wife and their son Zachariah within six weeks.
12. 1838 — Diltz Chapel (Methodist Episcopal) was organized at the house of Wesley Diltz.
13. 1840 — The village of Texas, later Mutual, was surveyed on October 2 by county surveyor John Arrowsmith for proprietor John Kean; the plat was recorded April 13, 1844.
14. 1844 — Felty Jacobs was killed by William Shamlin after accusing him of stealing a swarm of bees; Shamlin escaped from the county jail with his wife's help.
15. 1848 — Columbus attorney William S. Sullivan bought the Lee heirs' claim to the Lee Military Survey and won in court, forcing landholders there to pay for their land a second time.
16. 1869 — Texas was incorporated as the village of Mutual after a petition from thirty-two freeholders; the name change was granted at the July 19 hearing.
17. 1878 — A two-story brick school was built at Mutual for $3,100.
18. 1879 — The two-story brick township hall was built in Mutual for $2,200.
19. 1880 — The township counted 1,588 people.
20. 1930s — Boys informally dug into the mound (then called Hodge Mound after owner James A. Hodge) and found human remains and a grooved stone axe.
21. 1974 — The mound, renamed for later owner Carl Potter, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 13.

Stories

The mound the survey missed

In 1914 surveyors counted six Native American mounds in Champaign County, but they missed one in a pasture field in southeastern Union Township, east of State Route 56. By 1970 only three mounds still stood in the county, and that overlooked one was among them. Built by people of the Adena culture more than two thousand years ago, it had already been flattened low by generations of plowing when, sometime in the 1930s, local boys dug into it on their own and pulled out human bone and a grooved stone axe. No archaeologist has excavated it since. It carried the name of one landowner, James Hodge, until a later owner, Carl Potter, gave it the name it holds today on the National Register, listed in 1974.

How Mutual was first called Texas

Around 1840 William Lafferty told his neighbors on Buck Creek that he was leaving for Texas. Instead he moved into a small log cabin at the crossroads, and the neighbors began calling the spot Lafferty's Texas. The name stuck: David Conklin, a wagon-maker, built the first house there about 1840, Stephen Runyan opened a tavern two or three years later, and the plat surveyed for John Kean was recorded under the name Texas. A post office opened in 1843 or 1844. When thirty-two freeholders petitioned to incorporate in 1869, they also asked for a new name, and the county commissioners granted both: the village has been Mutual ever since.

The railroad grade that sank

When the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis line was built through the township in the 1850s, part of the grade stood about eighty feet above the surrounding country. Just as the crews were ready to lay the iron, the gravel and the ties vanished into the ground. Workers found that the whole mass had sunk into a cavity, and the spot was full of eyeless fish. The railroad rebuilt that stretch on a new grade of oak lumber and gravel, which the 1881 county history said had stood solidly ever since.

Pollock Town and the country stores

During the Civil War a small trading center stood in the northeastern corner of the township, where the Urbana-Milford pike crossed Treacles Creek. James Pollock had bought 178 acres there in December 1839, so the houses, store and blacksmith shop became known as Pollock Town, and also as Bridgeport, for two bridges just to the east. The Runyon brothers ran the store for years, and it was still open in the mid-1880s. By 1917 only four houses were left, and the county history noted that few people still knew the name. Nearby, Solomon Linville's horse-powered cider press drew apples from fifteen to twenty miles away in the 1870s and often ran until midnight.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Urbana City54% of residentslocal wells (sand and gravel outwash aquifer)
• Mechanicsburg Village43% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Harvest Square Mobile Home Park1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Catawba Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Rolling Hills Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Sunset Terrace Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Mounds and earthworks (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-19

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