Union Township, Scioto County

How Union Township, Scioto County began

Union Township, organized August 9, 1803, is one of the four townships (Nile, Union, Upper and Seal) laid out when Scioto County was organized, and Wikipedia says it was named for the federal union. By 1833 its economy ran on a forge and finery for ironworking, three gristmills, four sawmills, a store and a tannery. Comstock, a small farming community of mostly Irish descent, straddled its border with Brush Creek Township, and Saint Patrick's Cemetery there dates from 1862; Freestone, named for the sandstone quarried nearby, held a post office on and off from 1862 to 1911. No incorporated town has ever stood within the township's bounds. Its 2020 population was 2,023.

Settled about 1802 (Benjamin Feurt's still at Stony Hill, on Feurt's Flats), incorporated August 9, 1803 (one of the four original townships, laid out at Judge John Collins's house in Alexandria), by named for the federal union, according to Wikipedia.

Where the name comes from

According to Wikipedia, the name derives from the concept of the federal union; it is one of twenty-seven Union Townships in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native site or event specific to Union Township was found in the sources consulted.

Timeline

1. 1802 — Benjamin Feurt builds a still at Stony Hill and the country around becomes known as Feurt's Flats, the first settled part of the township; William Drake enters the land.
2. 1803-08-09 — Union Township is organized, one of the four original townships of Scioto County.
3. 1812 — Union Township is first divided, Portsmouth having been in it until then; part of Seal Township is attached on November 6, 1814.
4. 1833 — The township supports a forge and finery for making iron, three gristmills, four sawmills, a store and a tannery.
5. 1854 — Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church is built on an acre given by Ferrole Levrey; it has about twenty-four families in 1903, half the number of twenty years earlier.
6. 1862 — Saint Patrick's Cemetery is established at Comstock, a farming community of mostly Irish descent on the Union-Brush Creek township line; the same year a post office opens at Freestone.
7. 1862 — Francis Lombard locates at the place that takes his name, Lombardville, about 1862; its post office is established in 1868, and the settlement is filled by French and Swiss families in the sixties.
8. 1883 — The Cincinnati and Eastern Railroad (later the Norfolk and Western) reaches Henley; the post office is established there that year and J. W. O'Brien opens the first store in 1882, with lumbering following.
9. 1890 — The Henley Stone Company is organized by John, Robert and Richard Peebles and others and opens a quarry; it suspends in 1898, and the Wellmann company, incorporated in February 1901 with $25,000 capital, opens two quarries northeast of Henley.
10. 1898 — On September 26 a portion of Brush Creek Township is added to Union, giving it its present bounds of 29,918 acres.
11. 1902 — St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is rebuilt at a cost of $800 on the west fork of McCullough Creek, replacing the 1876 church; the township has five churches and seven school districts.
12. 1907 — Comstock's post office, which had run since 1882, closes.
13. 1911 — Freestone's post office closes for the final time, after two separate periods of operation since 1862.

Stories

An Irish parish on the township line

Comstock was never platted as a town. It was a small farming community of mostly Irish descent on the line between Union and Brush Creek townships, and Saint Patrick's Cemetery there was established in 1862. The 1903 county history records a church of that name on the west fork of McCullough Creek, rebuilt in 1902 at a cost of $800 to replace one built in 1876. Comstock had a post office from 1882 to 1907.

Feurt's Flats and the first still

The first part of Union Township to be settled was the high, hill-ringed region around Lombardville known as the 'flats.' About 1802 Benjamin Feurt, whose name had earlier marked the mouth of Carey's Run, built a still at a place called Stony Hill, and the country round about was called Feurt's Flats. It stayed a wilderness for a century: as late as 1883, when the Cincinnati and Eastern Railroad ended at Henley, thousands of acres had scarcely felt the axe, and the railroad turned the forests into lumber for shipment. By 1903 the township had no church organizations before 1883, only meetings in homes by local preachers, and then five churches, with the stone business at Henley described as an industry still in its infancy.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohioghosttowns.wordpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Northwest Regional Water District69% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)
• Portsmouth City20% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Co. Regional Water District #13% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)
• Scioto Water Inc.-careys Run3% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-hygean Run1% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-oakwood1% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc.-rose Hill1% of residentsPurchased: Scioto Co. Regional Water Dist. #1 (Teays Valley Aquifer)
• Scioto Water Inc.-slab Run1% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc. - Pond Run0% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water Inc - Stony Run0% of residentsOhio River
• Scioto Water, Inc.-davis Camp0% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (wells near SR 348)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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