Wayne Township, Clinton County

How Wayne Township, Clinton County began

Wayne Township, in eastern Clinton County, was laid off in March 1837 from Green and Richland townships and named for General Anthony Wayne. Its first settler was John Jackson, a Quaker from Tennessee who built on the Middle Branch of Lee's Creek in the spring of 1803, near a deserted Indian wigwam and in a wilderness with fewer than ten families in the whole future county. Centerville (now Lees Creek) was laid out December 4, 1816 and has had a post office since 1819; the township never had a railroad, counted 1,448 people in 1880 and 700 in 2020.

Settled 1803, platted 1816-12-04 (Centerville, by Timothy Jones), incorporated 1837-03 (township laid off), by John Jackson, a Friend from Tennessee, first settler (spring 1803); Edward Curtis Sr. second (1805).

Where the name comes from

Named for General Anthony 'Mad Anthony' Wayne, one of twenty Wayne Townships in Ohio; the 1882 county history also calls the bridle path to New Market 'the trail of Gen. Wayne'.

Before the town

The 1882 county history gives two scraps of Native presence in the township. When John Jackson built his cabin on the Middle Branch of Lee's Creek in 1803, the place lay in a wilderness 'peopled by Indians' with deer, bears and wolves, and the only dwelling anywhere near was a deserted Indian wigwam on the creek half a mile away. The early settlers' only road to the nearest post office, at New Market in Highland County twenty miles away, was a bridle path through the woods known as 'the trail of Gen. Wayne'. The township lies in the Virginia Military District, ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

• Deserted Indian wigwam on Lee's Creek (camp) — Lee's Creek, about half a mile from John Jackson's 1803 cabin on the Middle Branch, Wayne Township, 1803 (already deserted) (archive.org)
• Trail of Gen. Wayne to New Market (trail) — bridle path from Wayne Township to New Market in Highland County, about twenty miles, early 1800s (reported 1882) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1803 — John Jackson, a Quaker from Tennessee by way of North Carolina, settles in spring with his wife Phebe and ten children on the Middle Branch of Lee's Creek, the township's first settler; fewer than ten families lived in all of future Clinton County.
2. 1805 — Edward Curtis Sr., from Tennessee, settles on the north bank of Lee's Creek as the second settler; John Allen, David Carter and Thomas Draper arrive about 1807 and William Moore about 1806.
3. 1810-10 — John Jackson's will, drawn August 2, 1810, is probated October 16, the first will admitted to probate in Clinton County; his personal estate is appraised at $423.
4. 1812 — Lee's Creek Cemetery, first called Sharpe's Graveyard, is laid out about this year.
5. 1816-12 — Timothy Jones of Virginia lays out Centerville on December 4: thirty-two lots, a Main Street 54 poles long and 4 poles wide.
6. 1819 — A post office named Lees Creek opens at Centerville; it operates until 2012.
7. 1830 — Sabina, whose water system serves part of the township, platted by founder Warren Sabin with 37 original lots.
8. 1837 — Wayne Township erected by the Clinton County Commissioners from parts of Green and Richland townships.
9. 1872 — Centerville Lodge No. 531, I.O.O.F., is chartered; its building goes up in 1876, and by 1880 the village has two steam saw and grist mills, two drug stores, three blacksmith shops, a church and the county's best township house.
10. 1880 — Wayne Township has 1,448 inhabitants in the census as printed in the 1882 county history; seven school districts serve it, and the township lacks a railroad though a Columbus and Maysville line is hoped for.
11. 1906 — Wilmington's first municipal water system completed, following a mixed 1899 vote and a successful 1901 vote; the system now also reaches part of Wayne Township.
12. 2020 — Wayne Township has 700 residents in the 2020 census, down from 737 in 2000; State Routes 72 and 729 cross it.

Stories

Named for the man who opened this ground

Wayne Township's name is not incidental: it honors Anthony Wayne, whose army defeated the Western Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and whose subsequent Treaty of Greenville in 1795 ceded most of what is now Ohio, this township included, to the United States for settlement. That treaty line is the reason Wayne Township — like the rest of the Virginia Military District around it — exists as surveyed farmland at all; the region's Shawnee and Miami inhabitants were pushed north and west of the new boundary in the years that followed.

A Quaker family in the wildwood, 1803

John Jackson, born in Pennsylvania and raised among Friends in Surry County, North Carolina, came to Ohio from Tennessee in 1802 and built his cabin the next spring on the Middle Branch of Lee's Creek, about a mile from where Highland and Fayette counties meet Clinton. He had his wife Phebe and ten children, but none of his household was suited to the rugged work of opening a farm in the woods: the first three children were girls, the fourth a boy of fifteen, and the youngest a babe of one. The nearest white neighbor was Morgan Van Meter, seven miles away; the nearest sign of any human dwelling was a deserted Indian wigwam on the creek half a mile off. Crops had to be fenced against deer, squirrels and raccoons, and one day a panther followed Phebe through the woods until she climbed a tree and waited for it to leave. Jackson was a squatter, buying his land only in 1809 from the owner's agent, six years after he settled it, and when he died in 1810 his will was the first admitted to probate in the new county.

The man who split a hundred rails

Thomas N. Adams was an early settler in Wayne Township on the Gallatin Survey and was said to have lived to about 107 years of age. On his hundredth birthday he split a hundred rails, one for each year he had lived. His son Thomas N. Jr. claimed in 1867 that the old man had been born September 10, 1772, but the family Bible kept by Isaac Pavey, seen at Manlif Adams's house, recorded his birth as June 4, 1783, which the county historian let stand as a puzzle. His brother John, who said he had been called out in General McArthur's general call of 1812 at about twenty-four years of age, would have been about eighty-eight in 1874. Both brothers died in September 1876.

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

Groundwater wells (6 wells) The water here

• Sabina Village78% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Leesburg Village11% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• New Vienna Village10% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Bowersville Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Public schools (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 2 of 2 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.
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-27

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