Warwick Township, Tuscarawas County

How Warwick Township, Tuscarawas County began

Warwick Township, in east-central Tuscarawas County, was organized on April 1, 1819 and was named, the county history says, for Warwick in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home of the Blickensderfers. Its fertile Tuscarawas valley bottoms were bought from John Heckewelder's tract from 1800 by well-to-do Moravians, and the Sharon Moravian church is still its landmark. The village of Tuscarawas (Trenton) was laid out in 1816 on the Ohio Canal; coal was mined in its western hills. The township counted 2,827 residents in 2020.

Settled 1800 (Moravian families from Pennsylvania: Lewis Knaus, Nathaniel Colver, Elijah Seward), incorporated April 1, 1819 (township established), by Moravian purchasers from John Heckewelder's 4,000-acre tract.

Where the name comes from

The name Warwick is said to have been adopted at the suggestion of the Blickensderfer family, in honor of a little village of the same name in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, whence they came.

Before the town

The 1884 county history names no Native village or mound in Warwick Township. The mission town of Gnadenhutten, founded in 1772, lies next to it (the county history puts the Gnadenhutten tract in Clay Township; Wikipedia says part of the village extends into Warwick). Joseph Fries, the first blacksmith at Trenton, got Goshen Indians to help build his shop, and the first store there used a log building moved from the deserted Goshen Mission. The land is in the Greenville (1795) cession.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1772 — David Zeisberger founds the mission town of Gnadenhutten on the Tuscarawas River; Wikipedia says part of the later village site lies in Warwick Township, though the 1884 county history places the Gnadenhutten tract in Clay Township.
2. 1800 — Heckewelder, who patented the third quarter of Township 7, Range 1 on March 28, begins selling land to Moravians from Pennsylvania: Charles and Nathaniel Colver and Lewis Knaus in December, and John Romig, Isaac Burroway, Abraham Levering and Eberhard Freytig in January 1801.
3. 1802 — Elijah Seward's son is born, the first birth in the township; the second and third white natives are Lydia Demuth and Thomas Knaus.
4. 1804 — Christian Blickensderfer buys 1,500 acres from William Allman for $4,590; the Keller brothers, Swiss Moravians from Lititz, arrive about this year.
5. 1807 — John Colver marries Sarah Everett of Clay Township on April 7, one of the township's first marriages, the Rev. George G. Miller officiating.
6. 1816 — Abraham Ricksecker and Abraham Romig, as attorneys for Eberhard Freytig, lay out Tuscarawas (Tuscarawastown, called Trenton for a time) with 60 lots; John Uhrich adds 24 lots the same year.
7. 1819 — Warwick Township is established on April 1.
8. 1819 — The commissioners organize Warwick Township on April 1, then including all of Township 7, Ranges 1 to 3 except the Gnadenhutten tract.
9. 1820 — John Blickensderfer dams the Tuscarawas about two miles northwest of Trenton about this year and builds a large custom grist mill, rebuilt about 1844 by Minnich and Walton.
10. 1836 — The first church in the village, a large frame Lutheran church, is built through the efforts of John Minnich; Sharon Moravian church, organized by 1812-1815, builds its present brick church in 1854.
11. 1880 — The village of Tuscarawas has 314 people (292 in 1870), four general stores and a drug store.
12. 2020 — The U.S. Census records 2,827 residents in the township, a density of about 132 people per square mile over 21.9 square miles.

Stories

Gnadenhutten across three townships

Wikipedia lists three townships for the village of Gnadenhutten, where David Zeisberger founded the Moravian mission town in 1772: Clay, Warwick and Rush. The 1884 county history places the original Gnadenhutten tract in Clay Township, so how much of the mission ground lies in Warwick is not settled by these sources. Warwick Township itself was established April 1, 1819, and holds the village of Tuscarawas at its center and the hamlet of Wainwright to the north. Sharon Moravian Church, north of Tuscarawas village, is the historic structure documented for the township.

A township of wealthy Moravians

While the Indian-mission tracts at Gnadenhutten and Salem drew Moravian emigrants of small means, who leased farms, the rich plains of Warwick became the property of wealthier Moravians, who bought parcels of Heckewelder's tract and resold them to well-off brethren from Pennsylvania. Lewis Knaus and Nathaniel Colver were both here in 1800, and the Demuths, Romigs, Kellers, Shamels and Blickensderfers followed. John Blickensderfer was said, by the early custom of the church, to have got his wife by lot, and Henry Keller was a renowned bass singer. They built a hewed-log church for the Sharon congregation and in 1854 a large two-story brick church that the county history called the largest country sanctuary in Tuscarawas County. Almost without exception the early settlers belonged to the Moravian Church.

The Cross Keys tavern at Trenton

Godfrey Westhafer, a Mason whom some neighbors dreaded for supposedly unearthly powers, moved to Trenton in 1817 or 1818 and opened the first hotel in a log house: the Westhafer House, Sign of the Cross Keys. Its jolly, good-natured host made it a popular stop for travelers. John Minnich, the first merchant and postmaster, opened his store about 1827 in a log building moved from the deserted Goshen Mission. The village was called Trenton for a time, but since a Trenton post office already existed in Butler County, its office kept the name Tuscarawas.

Photographs

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

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• New Philadelphia City58% of residentsTuscarawas River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Twin City Water and Sewer District20% of residentsTuscarawas River valley aquifer (local wells)
• Gnadenhutten14% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tuscarawas Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Midvale1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Tcmsd-wainwright0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Dover City0% of residentsSugar Creek Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (Dover wellfield)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 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.

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