Union Township, Muskingum County

How Union Township, Muskingum County began

Union Township sits in the western part of Muskingum County along the National Road (later U.S. 40), and contains the villages of New Concord and Norwich. By 1833 it already had two post offices, four churches, a saw mill and two physicians. Its best-known landmarks are the 1828 stone "S" bridge that carried the National Road over Fox Creek and the boyhood home of astronaut and senator John Glenn in New Concord, seat of Muskingum University (formerly Muskingum College).

Settled 1803-1807 (squatters on the school lands); 1804 (Henry Reasoner entered land at New Concord; Thomas Warren opened a tavern on the Zane Trace), incorporated before 1808 (the organization date does not appear in the commissioners' journal; elections were held at the Few tavern in 1808), by The township, town one range five of the United States Military District, was surveyed in 1803; the first settlers followed Ebenezer Zane's trace of 1797.

Where the name comes from

Union Township is one of twenty-seven townships in Ohio carrying the name "Union"; no specific reason this Muskingum County township took the name is recorded.

Before the town

Everhart's 1882 county history says that when the whites first settled the township there was an Indian camp on section five, on the land later owned by Isaiah Carr, and another camp on White Eyes Creek, which it says took its name from the Shawanoes (Shawnee) chief of that name. The Zane Trace, surveyed through the township by Ebenezer Zane in 1797 as the road from Wheeling to Limestone, Kentucky, opened the township to emigrants. The township lies in the Military District, opened to settlement after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. The county's Native record also includes the Wakatomika villages near Dresden.

• Indian camp on section five (camp) — section five, on land later owned by Isaiah Carr, Union Township, before and at the time of white settlement, c. 1803 (archive.org)
• Camp on White Eyes Creek (camp) — White Eyes Creek, Union Township, before and at the time of white settlement, c. 1803 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1797 — Ebenezer Zane surveys the road from Wheeling to Limestone, Kentucky, the Zane Trace or Old Wheeling Road, through the township; it enters on the southeast quarter of section ten.
2. 1803 — The township is surveyed; the government reserves the southeast quarter for school lands, leased for ninety-nine years, and the first squatters occupy lots on them between 1803 and 1807.
3. 1804 — Thomas Warren opens the township's first tavern on the Zane Trace, later the old Few Tavern Stand; William Speer sets up the first blacksmith shop in 1805; Henry Reasoner enters the land on which New Concord stands.
4. 1806 — Samuel Wilson, who settled on section eleven, finds a bee tree near his cabin and starts the first apiary in Muskingum County, whose bees his son John still tended in 1882.
5. 1807 — John Hadden builds the township's first tannery; Ralph Hardesty settles on section fourteen, a place later famous as the spot where the settlers came to vote, drink and fight.
6. 1808 — Elections are held at the Few tavern, where Benjamin Reasoner is chosen justice of the peace, showing that Union was among the first townships organized.
7. 1812 — The Crooked Creek congregation, later the New Concord United Presbyterian Church, is organized about a mile southwest of New Concord; its first elders include Judge David Findley and Andrew Lorimer.
8. 1815 — Col. John Reynolds opens the first regular store in the township at Locust Grove on the Wheeling road.
9. 1827 — The National Road is surveyed through the township, and William Harper, an Englishman, lays out Norwich, naming it for his native Norwich in England; the first brick house in the township is built by Peter Monroe on the school lands.
10. 1828 — The stone "S" bridge (later listed as "S" Bridge II / Fox Creek S Bridge) was built on the National Road over Fox Creek near New Concord; its curved, S-shaped alignment let masons cross the creek at a favorable angle rather than square across it.
11. 1828 — Judge David Findley lays out New Concord along the National Road, and builds the township's second brick house there; the first stone house is built by Ralph Hardesty at Norwich in 1830.
12. 1833 — Union Township had two post offices, four churches, one saw mill and two physicians.
13. 1833 — Norwich is incorporated, with James Launders as its first mayor.
14. 1876 — The township is divided into two voting precincts, with a new polling place at New Concord for the eastern ten sections; by 1882 it has eight churches, three post offices, two railroad depots on the Central Ohio Division of the Baltimore & Ohio and three mills.
15. 1973-04-23 — The Fox Creek S Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "S" Bridge II.
16. 2018-12 — The John Glenn boyhood home at 72 W. Main Street in New Concord is added to the National Register of Historic Places in late December.
17. 2020 — The census counts 4,265 people in the township.

Stories

The S bridge on the National Road

When engineers of the National Road reached Fox Creek west of New Concord in the 1820s, the creek crossed the road's line at an awkward angle. Rather than force a square crossing, the builders curved the roadway into the shape of an S, letting the stone arch cross the creek more directly. The bridge was built in 1828 of sandstone and is one of the surviving examples of the S-shaped bridges built along the road in eastern Ohio. It carried the National Road, later U.S. 40, over Fox Creek, and a stretch of its brick roadway survives. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

A plumber's son from New Concord

John Herschel Glenn Jr. was two when his parents moved to New Concord in 1923 and settled into a house on US Route 40 at the west end of the village. Glenn went on to become one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, and later a four-term U.S. senator from Ohio. In the early 1950s, when Route 40 was widened, his parents moved the house to Friendship Drive, north of the village, and in 2001 it was moved again to its present site at 72 West Main Street. It is now the John and Annie Glenn Museum and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in late December 2018.

The first bee tree and the first apiary

Samuel Wilson came to Union Township from Pennsylvania in 1806 and settled on the northwest quarter of section eleven. Near his cabin he found a bee tree, appropriated the bees, and so established the first apiary in Muskingum County. His son John was still looking after the descendants of the old bee gum in 1882, the bees his father had nursed for fifty-seven years, and another son, John C. Wilson, had by then the largest apiary in the county. The county history also records the township's other firsts: Judge David Findley covered his house with lap shingles and wrought nails in 1809, the first outside Zanesville; Peter Monroe built the first brick house in 1827; Ralph Hardesty built the first stone house in Norwich in 1830; John Hadden brought in the first fine Merino sheep in 1830; James Findley brought Durham shorthorn cattle from Kentucky in 1840; and James Taggart brought in the first McCormick reaper.

Where the settlers came to vote, drink and fight

Ralph Hardesty, from Wheeling, West Virginia, pitched his tent in 1807 on the southeast quarter of section fourteen, on the Old Wheeling Road. Everhart's county history says the spot later became famous as the place chosen by the stalwart and pugnacious settlers to vote, drink and fight. The township had been organized by 1808, when elections were held at the old Few tavern, the stand on the Zane Trace that Thomas Warren had opened in 1804 and that George Heep and Isaac Few later kept. By 1882 the road had been replaced twice over, first by the National Road, finished through the township after its 1827 survey, and then by the Baltimore & Ohio, whose cars left the four-horse stage coaches behind.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · newconcord-oh.gov · johnandannieglennmuseum.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Muskingum County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Muskingum County Water - Se50% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• New Concord45% of residentsFox Creek via New Concord reservoirs (Upper & main reservoir)
• Western Guernsey Regional Water District5% of residentsWills Creek via Cambridge Reservoir + Wills Creek direct intake

Nursing homes (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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 2026-06-09
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-05

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