Warsaw

How Warsaw began

Warsaw sits on the Walhonding River in western Coshocton County. William Carhart, a general of the Ohio militia in the War of 1812 and son-in-law of Revolutionary War colonel William Simmons, whose land grant covered the site, built the first house here several years before he laid out 32 lots on his own land on November 13, 1834 and named the village for the Polish capital, in sympathy with the failed 1830-31 uprising against Russian rule. The Walhonding Canal, dug past the village from 1836 to 1842, brought a second addition of lots, taverns and a five-story flour mill powered by canal water; by about 1881 Warsaw had 275 residents, a two-story school (1871), a Methodist church and a foundry. A railroad followed the canal route in the 1890s. The Warsaw Hotel, built in 1906 on East Main Street, was listed on the National Register in 1994, and the village had 634 residents in 2020.

Settled before 1834 (William Carhart's house, the first building), platted November 13, 1834, by William Carhart, son-in-law of Col. William Simmons.

Where the name comes from

Named for Warsaw, the capital of Poland, 'through sympathy with her earnest though ineffectual struggle for liberty,' in the words of the 1881 county history. Wikipedia ties the choice to the November 1830 uprising of Polish military cadets against Russian rule.

Before the town

No Native American site or event specific to the village of Warsaw is recorded in the sources checked. Warsaw sits on the Walhonding River, a corridor of Delaware (Lenape) and other Native travel and settlement in the 1700s. Coshocton County's wider record includes the Lenape capital Goschachgunk at the forks of the Muskingum, the Bouquet expedition of 1764 that met just below the forks, and White Woman's Town at the Killbuck-Walhonding junction. The 1881 county history describes ancient flint workings, a stone mound and a stone wall elsewhere in Jefferson Township, the township that holds Warsaw, and says Abner Meredith, an early settler near Mohawk, hunted with Native people up the Killbuck.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1834 — William Carhart plats 32 lots on his own homestead on the Walhonding River and founds Warsaw, naming it for the Polish capital.
2. 1834-11-13 — William Carhart lays out Warsaw, 32 lots on both sides of Main Street, around his own house, which had been built several years earlier and is the first building on the site; John Collins keeps the first store and Major William Long soon opens a second.
3. 1836 — Construction begins on the Walhonding Canal, which is finished in 1842 and runs from Roscoe past Warsaw to Cavallo as a feeder of the Ohio and Erie Canal.
4. 1840-03-04 — During canal construction Rufus Eldredge adds 41 lots facing Church Street and opens a tavern; William Long begins the five-story canal-powered flour mill, finished after his death by Nichols and Porter Rector.
5. 1871 — A large two-story frame schoolhouse with high-school, secondary and primary departments is built, replacing a one-room school.
6. 1881 — The county history counts 275 residents, two physicians, several stores, a foundry and carriage shops, the Sherman House hotel and one church, the Methodist Episcopal.
7. 1889 — The Pennsylvania Company organizes the Walhonding Valley Railroad to follow the canal route from Coshocton to Loudonville; it is finished four years later and its use of abandoned canal land leads to a legal dispute with the state.
8. 1906 — The Warsaw Hotel is built at 102 East Main Street.
9. 1994 — The Warsaw Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (March 17).
10. 2020 — The census counts 634 people in Warsaw.

Stories

A treasury officer's land grant and a Polish uprising

The land Warsaw stands on traces to a 4,000-acre grant President John Adams made in 1800 to William Simmons, a Revolutionary War colonel who had been one of five men George Washington appointed to organize the first United States Treasury. Simmons's daughter Josephine married William Carhart, a general who helped organize the Ohio militia during the War of 1812. In November 1834 Carhart laid out 32 lots on his own land here. Half a world away that same era, young cadets at the Warsaw military academy had risen against Russian rule in November 1830; although that revolt was crushed and Polish independence was another 85 years off, Carhart named his new Walhonding River village Warsaw in its honor.

The Warsaw Hotel

Built in 1906-07 on East Main Street, the Warsaw Hotel served travelers and townspeople through the twentieth century and remains the village's most visible historic landmark. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 17, 1994.

An open bar for the canal diggers

When the Walhonding Canal was being dug past Warsaw in the late 1830s, Rufus Eldredge opened a tavern in the little village, and on the first day, as was the custom, the bar was open and everyone was invited to drink free. The 1881 county history says most people in the neighborhood spent a lively day at it. The road up the Walhonding was thick with taverns then. Two miles west, Eckman's tavern served as the township's election house, and a teamster hauling wheat to Coshocton would stop there, then at Warsaw, then at Nathan Spencer's in Bethlehem Township, with the same round in reverse on the way home. The canal route ran straight through the site of Eckman's, so the building was torn down and the state paid its owner for his three acres. By 1881, the historian thought, it would be hard to find two gallons of whisky in the whole valley outside the few saloons.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Coshocton County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Warsaw100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

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 2025-12-23

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page