Washington Township, Licking County

How Washington Township, Licking County began

Washington Township, on Licking County's northern edge against Knox County, was organized in 1812 around the North and Lake forks of the Licking River, with its earliest documented settler, Joseph Conard, arriving from Virginia in 1808. The township's identity is bound up with the village of Utica at its northwestern corner, which Major William Robertson laid out in 1815 under the name Wilmington before a post office forced the change to Utica; Utica's own detailed history is told separately, since the incorporated village extends the township's history well past what the surrounding countryside alone can tell. Away from the village, the township is remembered for a chain of Mound Builder lookout mounds running toward the great mound at Homer, and for a much darker story: the killing of a Native woman two miles east of Utica in a card game to decide who would shoot her, a site the settlers themselves came to call "Squawtown." Scotch-Irish settlers from the north of Ireland gave the area much of its early Presbyterian and Covenanter religious character.

Settled 1808 (Joseph Conard, of Loudoun County, Virginia, among the earliest documented settlers), incorporated 1812.

Where the name comes from

No source found explains why Washington Township took its name; like dozens of other Ohio townships, it almost certainly honors George Washington, but no source consulted states this directly for this specific township.

Before the town

By the time this township was settled, the 1881 county history says, "the Indians had generally moved further north and west," and the pioneers made the acquaintance of only a few. Relations were generally peaceable, but the county history records one violent exception: the "tragedy of Squawtown," two miles east of Utica, where men named McLean, Hughes and others played a card game to decide who would shoot a Native woman living there. McLean was convicted and sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary; accounts differ on whether he was pardoned shortly before his term ended or died in prison, but one witness recalled him telling an official who pressed him to name an accomplice, "I am innocent, but I have suffered; one is enough to suffer, and I decline to tell." The township's Mound Builder remains are more extensively documented: a large stone-and-earth mound near the later residence of Eli Smoots, two miles south of Utica, in which diggers found portions of two skeletons; a smaller stone mound nearby on the same ridge; a common earth mound near a small lake; and, in the edge of neighboring Burlington Township on the same line of sight, a circular earthwork that the historian believed formed part of a chain of signal or lookout mounds running toward the great mound at Homer.

• Squawtown (other) — about two miles east of Utica, reported killing of a Native woman, exact year not given (archive.org)
• Stone mound near Eli Smoots's residence (mound) — two miles south of Utica, unspecified Mound Builder era (archive.org)
• Earth mound near the lake (mound) — near a small lake south of Utica, on Lake Fork, unspecified Mound Builder era (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1808 — Joseph Conard emigrates from Loudoun County, Virginia, and settles in the township after a stay just over the Knox County line; he later says the local Indians were his friends and that he obtained his prized rifle, which he named Tusco, from a Native man of that name.
2. 1810 — William and James Robertson buy the ground on which Utica will stand and build a cabin and log mill there.
3. 1811 — Ribs believed to be from a mastodon, three in number and six feet long, are found in Major Robertson's mill-race.
4. 1812 — Washington Township is formally organized; Richard Lamson becomes its first justice of the peace.
5. 1815 — Major William Robertson lays out the village of Utica, first naming it Wilmington.
6. c. 1820 — The village's post office application forces a name change from Wilmington to Utica, to avoid duplicating another Ohio post office.
7. October 5, 1818 — The Presbyterian church of Utica is organized, with Rev. James Cunningham as its first pastor.
8. 1813 — The Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) congregation, one of the township's earliest, is regularly organized with the ordination of elders James Dunlap and Nathaniel Kirkpatrick.

Stories

The Tragedy of Squawtown

Two miles east of Utica, in a spot the pioneers themselves named Squawtown, a game of cards once decided who would kill a Native woman living there. The 1881 county history gives only the bare facts: that men named McLean and Hughes, along with others, played the game, that testimony in court pointed to McLean as the one who "won" the grim distinction, and that he was convicted and sentenced to two years in the Ohio penitentiary. Even the ending is uncertain. Some said McLean was pardoned shortly before his sentence expired and died soon after; others said he died still in prison. One account, from someone who claimed to know the family better than any other living witness, recorded a prison official pressing him, on his release, to name whoever else had been involved. McLean's answer, as remembered: "I am innocent, but I have suffered; one is enough to suffer, and I decline to tell." No name for the murdered woman survives in any source found, and no marker or mapped site preserves the location today.

A Chain of Mounds to Homer

South of Utica, on a ridge overlooking the broad Licking valley, stands a mound built in an unusual two-part construction: an earthen base six feet high, topped by a thick layer of gathered flat stones, and above that a thinner cap of decayed vegetable matter, with a two-foot maple tree now growing from its side. A dig straight down through its center found only scorch marks from old fires, but a second attempt, working in from the side about five feet below the surface, turned up portions of two human skeletons, including pieces of skull and teeth, which were given to a Dr. Rogers of Utica. Southeast of it stands a smaller mound of similar build, and a quarter-mile further on, near a small lake, a plain earthen mound, originally twelve feet high but worn down by decades of plowing. The 1881 county historian, tracing a line from this cluster through a circular earthwork just inside neighboring Burlington Township, concluded the whole group belonged to a chain of lookout or signal mounds that extended all the way to the great mound at Homer, each one, he believed, built where its builders could see the next.

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

Every historic place in Licking County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Utica Village83% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• St. Louisville Village14% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Martinsburg Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 3 of 3 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.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-02-24

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