Wayne Township, Champaign County

How Wayne Township, Champaign County began

Wayne Township lies in the northern tier of Champaign County, second from the east, against the Logan County line. It was cut from Salem Township before 1811 and at first included present Rush Township, which was set off from it in 1828. The Johnsons from western Pennsylvania and the Spains from Virginia arrived in 1804 and 1805, and Quaker families such as the Grays and Cowgills followed; the Carmel Friends meeting dates from 1825. Its crossroads villages rose and fell with the railroads: Middletown, platted in 1833, faded after Cable was laid out beside the new railroad in the 1850s and Mingo, first called Mulberry, in 1866. The township remains farmland drained by King's Creek and Spain's Creek, with no incorporated village.

Settled 1804, incorporated by 1811 (first recorded election October 8, 1811); Rush Township was set off from it in 1828, by early settlers William Johnson (1804) and the Spain families (1805).

Where the name comes from

Probably named for Gen. Anthony Wayne (no source we found confirms this), whose 1794 victory at Fallen Timbers and the resulting Treaty of Greenville (1795) opened this part of Ohio to American settlement; one of twenty Wayne Townships in the state.

Before the town

Settlers' accounts record Native people farming and hunting in the township when it was settled. Jacob Johnson, who moved onto land in the Mingo Valley in April 1805 and raised corn that year, was told that Native people had raised a crop on the same ground the year before. Native families often camped on Spain's Creek near Hezekiah Spain's farm, and Mary Gray Guthridge, who came with her family in 1811, remembered that they returned each year to their old hunting ground on King's Creek to camp for a month, the women weaving baskets and moccasins and the men shooting squirrels with bows and arrows. She also remembered seeing an old Mingo chief lying on straw in his wigwam a few days before he died. The village of Mingo was renamed from Mulberry for the Mingo people. The land was ceded to the United States under the Treaty of Greenville (1795), negotiated by Gen. Anthony Wayne.

Nations recorded here: Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

• Mingo Valley cornfield (village) — Jacob Johnson's land in the Mingo Valley, near the later village of Mingo, farmed by Native people in 1804 (archive.org)
• King's Creek hunting camps (camp) — along King's Creek, Wayne Township, seasonal, remembered from about 1811 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1804 — William Johnson came from western Pennsylvania and bought 337 acres from James Denney, including the later site of Mingo; he built a house there in 1806.
2. 1805 — Hezekiah Spain and about nine other families from Dinwiddie County, Virginia, settled in the northern part of what is now Wayne and Rush townships; Spain's Creek is named for them.
3. 1805 — Jacob Johnson moved onto 478 acres in the Mingo Valley in April and raised a crop of corn where Native people had grown one the year before.
4. 1811 — The township's first recorded election was held on October 8, with thirty-one electors.
5. 1811 — Isaac Gray, born in North Carolina, arrived from Grayson County, Virginia, in October and settled near the center of the township; his wife Lydia was a Quaker and their house became a preaching place for Friends ministers.
6. 1813 — Isaac Gray and his neighbors built a log schoolhouse southeast of the later Carmel Church, about 1813 or 1814.
7. 1821 — A Methodist class formed at the house of Alexander St. Clair Hunter in the Mingo Valley; in 1824 it built the North Salem log church on land given by Lydia Russell.
8. 1825 — The Carmel Friends (Quaker) society took shape; it built a meetinghouse in 1832 and a new one in 1873 in the western part of the township.
9. 1828 — Rush Township was set off from the eastern half of Wayne Township.
10. 1833 — John Miller platted Middletown, the township's oldest village, at the crossing of the Urbana-North Lewisburg and Woodstock-Mingo roads; its Brinton post office ran from about 1838 to 1872.
11. 1833 — O. M. Herron opened a store and a post office called Johnson's Store in the Mingo Valley, probably the first in the township; both closed in 1835.
12. 1840 — Wayne Township voters gave William Henry Harrison 191 votes to Martin Van Buren's 54.
13. 1853 — P. S. Cable laid out Cable beside the planned railroad; Wikipedia gives 1852 and the name Philander L. Cable. The railroad was built through in 1854.
14. 1864 — Track for the Atlantic and Great Western (later New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio) railroad was laid through the Mingo Valley on Sunday, April 24.
15. 1866 — Mingo was laid out for Ebenezer C. Williams as Mulberry, named for a large mulberry tree, and renamed Mingo at the urging of Thomas Hunter.
16. 1868 — A post office called Cable opened.
17. 1880 — The township counted 1,631 people, up from 1,300 in 1840; Cable had 172.

Stories

The mulberry tree prophecy

In 1844 Alexander St. Clair Hunter of the Mingo Valley met the Rev. B. W. Gehman on the road and, pointing to a large mulberry tree, told him that a railroad would come through the valley someday and a village would stand beside that tree. Twenty years later the Atlantic and Great Western railroad laid its track through the valley, the rails going down on Sunday, April 24, 1864. In 1866 a village was platted for Ebenezer C. Williams beside the line and named Mulberry. At the request of Thomas Hunter and other residents the name was changed to Mingo, and by 1880 it had two churches, a school, a flour mill, a sawmill and three stores.

Mary Guthridge remembers 1811

Mary Gray, later Mrs. Guthridge, was a girl when her family left Virginia on September 28, 1811, bound for a Quaker settlement in Indiana, and stopped instead near the Ludlow Line in Champaign County. Her father traded a wagon and two horses for a squatter's lease and a crop of corn. The cabin they moved into had been taken over by wild hogs, and when the thirteen members of the family lay down that first night there was hardly room for all of them. Neighbors in the Mingo Valley gave them fire to start their own, and Mrs. Barnett Johnson sent milk and butter. In her recollection, printed in the 1917 county history, she describes Native families returning to hunt and camp on King's Creek, and the 1812 alarm when Hull's army camped in Urbana and the settlers baked pies to sell to the soldiers.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• North Lewisburg Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Public schools (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

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 2024-03-19; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-17

Statewide question: State Issue 3: Voter ID

Local questions for Wayne Township, Champaign County, Champaign County and its school district:

• Wayne Township: Renews a 2.5-mill property tax levy for the roads of Wayne Township for 5 years, beginning in 2027.
• Champaign County: Renews a 0.4-mill property tax levy to operate Champaign County Health District of Champaign County for 5 years, beginning in 2027.

Races, candidates and every question for an address: your ballot. County offices and judges are on your county board's sample ballot.

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