Washington Township, Mercer County

How Washington Township, Mercer County began

Washington Township, on the Indiana line north of Recovery Township, was organized on March 5, 1838, and held its first election at the house of George Arbaugh on April 2, 1838. Most of its land was entered between 1836 and 1840, much of it by speculators who never lived on it, which slowed clearing for decades. Its small settlements were Macedon, laid out in 1838 by William Nichols and George Arbaugh; Erastus, first called Murphysboro; Wabash; and Padua, where St. Anthony's Catholic parish built a log church in 1852 and its present brick church in 1873 to 1879. The Wabash River crosses it from south to north, and the tornado of 1886 did its worst damage here.

Settled 1830s (entries 1836-1840), platted 1838-09-28 (Macedon), incorporated 1838-03-05 (township organized), by Mercer County commissioners; Macedon laid out by William Nichols and George Arbaugh.

Where the name comes from

One of forty-three Washington Townships in Ohio, for George Washington; no source specific to this township's own naming was found.

Before the town

The Mercer County Historical Society's 1959 history records that the high knoll between Macedon and the Wabash River lowlands, now the village cemetery, was an Indian burial ground 150 years or more before its time, and that many bones and hundreds of ornaments and arrowheads were turned up when graves were dug there; it does not identify the people. No other Native site in the township is recorded in the histories opened; the Fort Recovery battlefields lie to the south in Recovery Township.

• Macedon cemetery knoll burial ground (burial) — high knoll on the west edge of Macedon, between the village and the Wabash River lowlands, before settlement (recorded in 1959 as more than 150 years old) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1837 — Jefferson Walters of Dayton enters 320 acres in the township; he never lives in the county but holds the land into the 1880s.
2. 1838 — Washington Township is established in western Mercer County along the Indiana line.
3. 1838-04-02 — The first township election is held at the house of George Arbaugh; James Schoonover, David Trexler and James Q. Grimes are elected trustees.
4. 1838-09-28 — William Nichols and George Arbaugh lay out Macedon in 60 lots.
5. 1838-12 — A Miss Montgomery, probably the first teacher in the township, is paid $6 for teaching.
6. 1839 — David Cathcart enters 641 acres in section 1; he never lives on the land.
7. 1840 — The township has 214 residents.
8. 1842-03-02 — The township, until then a single school district, is divided into three districts, each six miles long and two miles wide.
9. 1848 — Padua is founded.
10. 1852 — Settlers near the present St. Anthony's church hew timber and build a log church, each pledging $4.
11. 1861 — St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran congregation is organized, the first Protestant congregation in the township.
12. 1871-06-17 — Elder O. S. Green organizes Bethel Christian (New Light) Church with 31 members.
13. 1873 — Stone is hauled from New Bremen and bricks are made on site for a new St. Anthony's church, on two acres given by Gerhard Homan.
14. 1875 — The new brick St. Anthony's church, designed by Anton DeCurtins and built by Mr. Van Oss of Minster, is completed; it is finished and plastered in 1879.
15. 1880-03-28 — Elder O. S. Green organizes Wabash Christian Church at the town of Wabash with 11 members.
16. 1882-07-27 — A post office is established at Padua; it is discontinued August 31, 1903.
17. 1886 — A tornado does its greatest damage in Washington Township, destroying scores of buildings including St. Paul's Lutheran Church and School; the congregation builds its present church the same year.
18. 1900 — St. Anthony's church gains a brick tower, sacristy and frescoes.
19. 1961 — The U.S. Board on Geographic Names rules for the name Padua, though signs and residents call the community St. Anthony.
20. 1979-07-26 — St. Anthony Catholic Church at Padua, completed 1875 and finished 1879, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

Macedon

Macedon was laid out on September 28, 1838, by William Nichols and George Arbaugh, the township's first clerk and first treasurer, in 60 lots, and 42 more were added later. According to the Mercer County Historical Society's 1959 history it once had 400 to 500 people, four general stores, saloons, two hotels, a lime kiln, a brickyard and a wagon shop, and for some years a small medical school in a large log house where students read medicine; it closed in the 1870s, and Dr. S. R. Wilson, later Liberty Township's county coroner, studied there. One of the hotels, the Guenther House, was the scene of an unsolved disappearance of a cattle drover before the Civil War. By 1907 Scranton found only a few residents and no business, and the 1959 history counted about 20 homes.

How Murphysboro became Erastus

The settlement now called Erastus was first Murphysboro, named for Mr. Murphy, who owned its sawmill. About the 1880s it had a Methodist church, the sawmill, two tile mills, two general stores and a blacksmith shop. When a newcomer opened a saloon, farm wives of the neighborhood objected; after their protests failed they went in with axes and wrecked the tables and fixtures, and the next morning the saloon was closed and its owner gone. When a star mail route reached the village and a post office opened in Erastus Walker's general store, the Post Office Department would not use the name Murphysboro because another Ohio town had it, and chose Walker's first name instead. By 1959 only a grocery and the Methodist church remained.

The log church at St. Anthony

The first Catholics around Padua were served by priests of the Society of the Precious Blood, who said Mass in settlers' houses, including one across the line in Indiana. In the fall of 1852 ten men, among them Heinrich Schroer, John Stelzer, Anton Schnett and Heinrich Fortmann, hewed timber and built a log church themselves, each pledging $4 at a time when, Scranton wrote, there was no market for farm produce nearer than a great distance. A priest came about once a month, and on other Sundays the people walked to St. Peter's, six miles east. In 1873 they began hauling stone from New Bremen, about 20 miles over mud roads, and making bricks on the site for a new church, which was completed in 1875. At the parish's golden jubilee in 1903 one founding member, Henry Schroer, was present.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Mercer County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Coldwater Village49% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)
• Celina, City Of25% of residentsGrand Lake St. Marys (surface water intake)
• Ft Recovery Village24% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Grand Lake Estates1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2025-11-04; later elections are not loaded yet.

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