Violet Township, Fairfield County

How Violet Township, Fairfield County began

Violet Township was set off and incorporated in 1808 in the northwestern corner of Fairfield County, taking its name -- unique among Ohio townships -- from the abundance of wildflowers found on its land. A Revolutionary War veteran, George Kirke, was its first resident, and the township's northern sections were part of the federal Refugee Tract set aside for Canadians who had aided the American cause. Pickerington grew up within the township after 1815, and the canal-era hamlet of Lockville, straddling the Violet-Bloom line, took its name from the number of locks on the Ohio and Erie Canal at that point. Two Adena burial mounds, the Fortner Mounds and the Theodore B. Schaer Mound, remain from the township's earliest inhabitants. Today Violet is Fairfield County's most populous and most urbanized township, its western and southern edges absorbed into the growth of Columbus, Pickerington, Canal Winchester and Reynoldsburg.

Settled by or before 1806 (George Kirke, a Revolutionary War veteran, is the first recorded resident, entering the 80 acres on which Pickerington later stood), incorporated 1808 (organized as a township).

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history states that Violet Township took its name 'from the variety and abundance of its wild flowers.' A modern secondary source elaborates that these were flowers that 'once blanketed the area with a soft purple hue,' and notes that Violet is the only township of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

Violet Township lies within the roughly two-thirds of Ohio that twelve Native nations, including the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Miami and Odawa (Ottawa), ceded to the United States at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. The 1883 county history's chapter on the township records that at first settlement 'Indians were few and friendly, and soon left for lands further west,' and that while they remained, the children of white settlers and Native children played together, 'amusing themselves by wrestling and running foot races.' No source consulted names a specific village or camp within the township, but two documented Adena mounds stand on its ground: the Fortner Mounds, a pair of earthworks northeast of Pickerington built by the Adena culture (roughly 500 BC to AD 400) and believed to contain postholes from ancient dwellings and possibly burials; and the Theodore B. Schaer Mound southeast of Canal Winchester, a 13-foot-high, 60-foot-diameter Woodland-period burial mound whose builders' exact cultural affiliation (Adena, Hopewell, or a blend of both) remains unidentified because it has never been excavated.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Ottawa, Adena culture.

• Fortner Mounds (mound) — northeast of Pickerington, Violet Township, Adena culture, c. 500 BC - AD 400 (en.wikipedia.org)
• Theodore B. Schaer Mound (mound) — southeast of Canal Winchester, Violet Township, Woodland period (Adena and/or Hopewell traits, unexcavated) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of Ohio, including the future Violet Township, to the United States.
2. 1806 — George Kirke, a Revolutionary War veteran, becomes the township's first settler, entering the 80 acres on which Pickerington later stands.
3. 1808 — Violet Township is set off and incorporated, taking its name from the abundance of wildflowers on its land.
4. 1812 — Mordecai Fishbaugh settles three miles east of Pickerington; he recalls hearing the wagons of a United States army passing near his cabin during the War of 1812.
5. 1815 — Abraham Pickering lays off town lots on the section of land including George Kirke's earlier claim, founding what becomes Pickerington.
6. 1828 — Waterloo, a small canal village, is laid out by Squire John Donaldson on the Ohio Canal and the later Hocking Valley Railroad line.
7. 1830s — The canal hamlet of Lockville, taking its name from the number of locks on the Ohio Canal at that point, is platted; it lies partly in Violet and partly in Bloom Township.
8. 1845-1859 — The Mithoff Brothers operate the largest distillery in Fairfield County at Lockville, consuming 300 bushels of corn a day for about 1,200 gallons of whiskey.
9. 1974 — The Fortner Mounds, a pair of Adena-culture earthworks northeast of Pickerington, and the Theodore B. Schaer Mound southeast of Canal Winchester are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
10. 1974 — The Lockville Canal Locks and the Hizey Covered Bridge, both in Violet Township, are added to the National Register of Historic Places.
11. 2020 — The census records Violet Township's population at 45,785, up from 38,572 in 2010, and the township is described as the only one in Fairfield County classified as urban.

Stories

Whiskey by the Lockful

Lockville was never more than a hamlet, but for about fourteen years in the middle of the nineteenth century it was home to the largest distillery in Fairfield County. The place took its name honestly: it grew up around a set of locks that lifted and lowered canal boats on the Ohio Canal, and it straddled the line between Violet and Bloom townships so exactly that the 1883 county history could only say it was 'partly in this and partly in Bloom township.' Sometime between 1845 and 1850 the Mithoff Brothers built their distillery there, burning through three hundred bushels of corn every day to produce twelve hundred gallons of whiskey. After the brothers left the business, the county history reports, the village's growth slowed to a crawl -- it 'can hardly expect, at this date, to increase.'

Turkeys at the Window

Mordecai Fishbaugh was ninety years old when he sat down to recall arriving in Violet Township from Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1812, and settling three miles east of Pickerington on the same ground where he still lived more than sixty years later. He remembered wolves howling around the cabin day and night, and wild turkeys coming right up to the back of the house to peer through the little window -- close enough that he shot them through the glass without stepping outside. In the cold winter of 1813, he recalled lying awake listening to the wagons of an American army rumbling past on the road half a mile from his cabin, on their way through the War of 1812, the shouts of the drivers carrying through the night air.

Two Mounds, One Unanswered Question

Long before Abraham Pickering platted his town, other people had already left their mark on Violet Township's land. Northeast of where Pickerington would rise, someone of the Adena culture built a pair of earthen mounds -- the Fortner Mounds -- sometime in the five centuries before or after the turn of the millennium, likely covering postholes from a dwelling and, archaeologists believe, human remains. Southeast of Canal Winchester stands a second, larger mound, thirteen feet high and sixty feet across, built by people whose exact identity nobody has ever confirmed: it carries traits of both the Adena and the Hopewell traditions, and because it has never been excavated, the question of who built it -- and what they left inside -- remains open.

Photographs

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

Five active wells drawing from the local buried-valley aquifer near Diley Road The water here

• Pickerington City42% of residentslocal buried-valley aquifer (wells near Diley Road)
• Fairfield County Utilities37% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (central Ohio, aquifer undocumented)
• Columbus Public Water System18% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Canal Winchester City3% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (Franklin Co.)
• Carroll Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Lithopolis Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Little Walnut Water Treatment Facility0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2025, released 2026-06-30
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-16
• Compliance Examination, 2023, released 2025-11-06

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