Washington Township, Clermont County

How Washington Township, Clermont County began

Washington Township, on the Ohio River east of the county's south-central section, was one of Clermont County's original townships and holds one of its earliest surveyed tracts: the Neville survey, said to be the first located anywhere in the county, if not in the state. John Gregg's party attempted to settle it in the summer of 1795 but abandoned the site after discovering they had built on the wrong survey; William Buchanan then settled permanently nearby that same fall, and the Wood and Manning families built a stockaded refuge, known as Manning's or Miller's Station, that became a resort for incoming settlers and reportedly hosted both Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone. The township holds the Schafer House, a National Register-listed historic building east of Neville, and two prehistoric mounds, the Edgington Mound and Snead Mound, recorded in the 1880 county history.

Settled 1795, by John Gregg's party, first (abandoned) attempt at Neville, summer 1795; William Buchanan, first permanent settler, fall 1795.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted here states directly why the township is named Washington; the common assumption for Ohio townships carrying this name is a connection to George Washington, but no source found confirms this.

Before the town

No source found records a documented violent encounter within Washington Township itself, but its settlers took Native presence seriously enough to build for it: the Wood and Manning families, arriving from Kentucky about 1795, built a timber stockade around their cabins and a small clearing near William Buchanan's farm specifically "for protection against possible attack by the Indians, who had not yet entirely left the country," known as Manning's Station and later Miller's Station. The station was never attacked, but the 1880 county history records that William Buchanan would periodically move his family and livestock into the stockade whenever scouts reported Native presence nearby, and that the station became a general resort for incoming settlers, reportedly visited on occasion by both Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone. Surveyor John O'Bannon worked in Washington and neighboring Franklin townships in the fall and winter of 1787-88, during which he recorded and had explained to him, by a Native guide, the site near Felicity (in Franklin Township) where a Native woman remembered as "Sweet Lips" had been executed the year before on a charge of witchcraft. The county history also records two prehistoric mounds in the township, the Edgington Mound east of Neville and, per National Register documentation, the Snead Mound near Neville; neither is tied to a named historic nation.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Edgington Mound (mound) — Washington Township, east of Neville, prehistoric, unspecified (en.wikipedia.org)
• Snead Mound (mound) — Washington Township, near Neville, prehistoric, unspecified (en.wikipedia.org)
• Manning's Station (Miller's Station) (other) — Washington Township, near William Buchanan's farm south of Indian Creek, built about 1795 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1801 — Washington Township is organized.
2. 1795 — Summer: John Gregg's party -- including William Buchanan and his wife Jane, and a former river spy -- attempts the first settlement at Neville, on a survey later found to be the wrong one; they abandon the site after clearing land and planting a crop.
3. 1795 — Fall: William Buchanan settles permanently on 300 acres south of Indian Creek, becoming the first permanent settler in Washington Township; about the same time the Wood and Manning families arrive from Kentucky and build a stockade, known as Manning's Station and later Miller's Station, near his farm.
4. 1801 — Jane (Abrams) Buchanan, William Buchanan's widow, travels alone with her brother by small boat up the Ohio River and on horseback from Pittsburgh to visit her old home in Pennsylvania, cooking for the party's men along the way.
5. 1805 — William Buchanan dies; his widow Jane is remembered by the county historian as "the first woman in Washington, if not, indeed, in the county."
6. 1809 — Samuel Gregg, son of the township's first would-be settler John Gregg, returns to the Indian Creek neighborhood to learn the tanner's trade.
7. 1974 — May 13: the Schafer House, east of Neville off U.S. Route 52, is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
8. 1808 — Neville, the township's other village, is established and named for Gen. Presley Neville, original owner of the town site; a post office follows in 1816.
9. 1997 — A major Ohio River flood devastates Neville; FEMA subsequently buys out roughly 40 percent of the village's flood-prone properties, and the village loses more than half its population.

Stories

A refuge that was never needed, and always used

When the Wood and Manning families reached Washington Township from Kentucky around 1795, they did what frontier families across Ohio had learned to do first: they built a fort before they built a farm. A stockade of heavy timbers went up around their cabins and a small clearing near a good spring about a mile from William Buchanan's new home, giving the settlement a defensible core against the Native raids that, the 1880 county historian notes carefully, had "not yet entirely left the country." The station -- known first as Manning's, later as Miller's, after a subsequent owner -- was, in the end, never actually attacked. But it did its work anyway: William Buchanan repeatedly moved his own family and cattle into its walls whenever scouts reported Native activity nearby, and the place became a general gathering point for the area's incoming settlers, occasionally hosting travelers as well known as Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone. It stood as insurance rather than as a battlefield, and by the time the Woods and Mannings received formal land titles from Nathaniel Massey before 1800, its timbers were already being salvaged for other buildings -- a fort that had outlived its danger before it had ever outlived its usefulness.

Named for a Revolutionary general, undone by the river

Neville, the second of Washington Township's two villages, was laid out in 1808 and named for Gen. Presley Neville, a Revolutionary War officer and the original owner of the town site; a post office followed in 1816. The village grew slowly through the 19th century, reaching its peak population of 445 in 1880, and survived on the strength of its riverfront location for well over a century. That same location proved to be its undoing: a catastrophic Ohio River flood in 1997 destroyed or damaged so much of the low-lying village that the Federal Emergency Management Agency bought out roughly four in ten of its properties rather than see them rebuilt in the floodplain, and Neville lost more than half its population within a few years. Even so, when residents were asked in 2016 whether to dissolve the shrunken village into the surrounding township rather than keep funding it independently, they voted to keep Neville's separate government alive.

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

Every historic place in Clermont County on the full map

Eleven vertical wells and one collector well in the Ohio River valley aquifer at Clermontville and Moscow The water here

• Tate-monroe Water Association89% of residentsOhio River valley aquifer (collector/vertical wells)
• Bethel Village5% of residentsOhio River valley aquifer (collector/vertical wells)
• Felicity Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• New Richmond Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Clermont Public Water System0% of residentsWilliam H. Harsha Lake plus wells in the Little Miami River and Ohio River aquifers
• Robin Grays0% of residentsWilliam H. Harsha Lake plus wells in the Little Miami River and Ohio River aquifers
• Mount Orab Village0% of residentsSterling Run (reservoirs)

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2024: 0 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

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 2025-08-07

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