Wayne Township, Columbiana County

How Wayne Township, Columbiana County began

Wayne Township, organized in 1806 in southern Columbiana County, holds no incorporated village of its own but is the actual site of Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan's surrender on July 26, 1863 -- on the Gavers-West Point Road one mile east of Prosperity Corners, a spot commemorated today by a monument on the National Register of Historic Places. The township was also, by 18th-century tradition, home to frontiersman Adam Poe, of the well-known Poe-Big Foot fight, who is recorded as having lived on the west fork of Little Beaver Creek within the township.

Settled by the 1810s-20s, incorporated 1806 (township organized), by Columbiana County commissioners.

Where the name comes from

No source reviewed gives a documented origin for the township's name; Ohio has twenty townships named Wayne, most commonly understood to honor General Anthony Wayne, whose 1794 victory at Fallen Timbers and 1795 Treaty of Greenville opened this part of Ohio to settlement, though we could not confirm that specific attribution for this township.

Before the town

Local county histories record that frontiersman Adam Poe, of the well-known 1782 hand-to-hand fight with a Wyandot warrior remembered as Big Foot (accounts of which differ on its date and location), once resided in Wayne Township on the west fork of Little Beaver Creek. No source reviewed names a specific Native American village, camp or burial site within the township's present boundaries. The township lies within the region ceded under the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh and confirmed by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1806 — Wayne Township is organized in southern Columbiana County.
2. 1807 — James Armstrong, the first white person to die in Wayne Township, dies of a congestive chill after bathing in the creek.
3. 1818 — Rev. James Robertson, a graduate of St. Andrew's University, Edinburgh, begins stated preaching within the bounds of the later Bethel congregation, two Sabbaths a month, in a tent in summer and in dwelling houses in winter.
4. 1820 — John Roley buries a child in a solitary grave near where the first township schoolhouse stood.
5. 1821 — Bethel Presbyterian Church is organized as a branch of the Yellow Creek congregation, with Andrew Adams, Thomas Patterson, James Welch and Richard Gilson as elders; Patterson gives two acres for a graveyard and church site, and a double-hewed log house is built, the township's first public burial ground.
6. 1825 — The first Methodist Episcopal preaching in the township is held at the house of Gideon Gaver.
7. 1827 — 'Old man Powell,' a white-haired, white-bearded teacher, is a well-known schoolmaster of the township; Rev. Robertson leaves the Bethel pastorate this year.
8. 1837 — Joseph Paxton, a blacksmith of Elk Run Township, begins preaching at Thomas Cross's house to United Brethren, who are soon reorganized as a Methodist Episcopal congregation under Peter Coss; Pleasant Grove church is built in 1848.
9. 1849 — The West Beaver post office is established; Gaver is the township's other post office, with Robert L. Fleming its first postmaster.
10. 1852 — A frame church replaces the old Bethel building, and membership rises from 30 in 1850 to nearly 100 in 1851 under Rev. Robert Hays, pastor from 1850; the Lebanon United Presbyterian congregation builds a small frame church in 1858.
11. 1863-07-26 — Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan surrenders to Federal forces on the Gavers-West Point Road, one mile east of Prosperity Corners, ending Morgan's Raid.
12. 1879 — Six district schools serve the township, which has two post offices, Gaver and West Beaver, and no incorporated village.
13. 1886 — A photograph is taken of the surrender site, later adapted into a sketch by Henry Howe.
14. 1889 — Henry Howe publishes his sketch of the surrender site in Historical Collections of Ohio, The Ohio Centennial Edition.
15. 1973 — The Morgan Surrender Site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
16. 2020 — The census counts 797 people in Wayne Township.

Stories

The exact spot on the Gavers-West Point Road

Accounts of where, precisely, John Hunt Morgan's Raid ended vary by a mile or two -- some say near West Point, others near Salineville -- but Wayne Township's own record is specific: the surrender happened on the Gavers-West Point Road, one mile east of a crossroads called Prosperity Corners, on the afternoon of July 26, 1863, after Union cavalry had already broken Morgan's exhausted column earlier that day at the Battle of Salineville. A photograph of the site taken in 1886 became the basis for a sketch Henry Howe published in his 1889 Historical Collections of Ohio, keeping the scene in circulation well after the participants had died, and a monument marking the spot was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 -- a rural township road corner that, for one afternoon in 1863, was the last piece of ground the Confederacy's northernmost raid ever crossed.

A tent for a pulpit

The Rev. James Robertson, a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, was the first Presbyterian minister to labor regularly in Wayne Township. Beginning in 1818 he preached two Sabbaths a month, setting up a tent in a field in summer and using settlers' dwellings in winter, in a country of bad roads and little organized religion. The county historians say he worked 'with much success against such inconveniences.' In 1821 a church was organized as a branch of the Yellow Creek congregation, Thomas Patterson gave two acres for a church and graveyard, and the members raised a double-hewed log house together. The name Bethel was chosen to honor a church of that name in the Pittsburgh Presbytery, and by 1823 the joint membership of Bethel and Robertson's other church, Bethesda in Franklin Township, was 202. Robertson left Bethel in 1827; a new pastor, Rev. Robert Hays, came in 1850 and served for thirty years.

Morgan's last stand, as the county history had it

The 1879 county history gives a short account of the end of John Hunt Morgan's raid. After a sharp skirmish with General Shackelford's force at Salineville the raiders escaped toward Summitville, in Franklin Township, and were hotly pursued into Wayne Township, where Morgan made his last stand and was captured on the farm of David Burbick near the township line. The history adds that those who knew the facts say he was taken by Capt. Harvey Hibbetts, in command of a troop of home guards, who turned him over to General Shackelford, and that beyond causing great alarm and stealing all the horses within reach, the raid was 'not a serious affair.' The surrender site on the Gavers-West Point Road was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Columbiana County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Buckeye Water District - Ohio River53% of residentsOhio River
• Lisbon Village47% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Columbiana County-county Home Rd0% of residentsEast Cold Run Reservoir & Spring Valley Reservoir (Cold Run Creek)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 2 of 3 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.
• Financial Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-23

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