Wayne Township, Muskingum County

How Wayne Township, Muskingum County began

Wayne Township, in the southern part of Muskingum County along the Muskingum River and Salt Creek, was struck off from Zanesville and Salt Creek townships on March 6, 1826 and named for General Anthony Wayne. Everhart's 1882 county history places a Native 'old town' on the east side of the river at Duncan's Falls, occupied until about 1794, with mounds and a ditched circular enclosure nearby; the first white settler, James Findley, came in 1802. Settlers made salt on Salt Creek in 1796 and again from 1820, and Germans settled the western part. Duncan's Falls was laid out by James Taylor in 1841, and the artist Howard Chandler Christy later kept a studio in the township, now known as 'The Barracks' and listed on the National Register. A USGS historical place name, 'White Eyes Town,' is recorded in the township's ZIP code.

Settled 1802 (James Findley, a Pennsylvania weaver, on section 32), platted 1841 (Duncan's Falls, laid out by James Taylor), incorporated 1826-03-06 (township struck off by the county commissioners), by Struck off from parts of Zanesville and Salt Creek townships on a petition of citizens who lived far from the polls; the first election was held at Joseph Dixon's house on April 3, 1826.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for General Anthony Wayne, whose Legion of the United States defeated the Western Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, leading to the Treaty of Greenville (1795). Everhart's 1882 county history says the person who suggested the name was thinking of Wayne as a soldier who invited his antagonists to a council of peace, whom enemies of civilization feared as 'Mad Anthony' but respected.

Before the town

The Geographic Names Information System lists a historical place called 'White Eyes Town' within Wayne Township's 43734 ZIP. That name is easy to over-read: the well-documented White Eyes' Town -- the seat of Koquethagechton, called White Eyes (c. 1730-1778), principal chief of the Lenape (Delaware) Nation during the Revolutionary War era -- stood near present-day Coshocton, roughly 20 miles from Wayne Township, at the forks of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding rivers; it is commemorated there by a Remarkable Ohio historical marker and by White Eyes Township in Coshocton County. Wayne Township's own White Eyes Creek is a real, separate stream entirely within Muskingum County (headwaters near 39°55'N, 81°52'W), also named for Chief White Eyes, and the GNIS 'White Eyes Town' entry most likely marks a nineteenth-century hamlet or post-office locale that took its name from that creek rather than an actual Delaware town site -- no source we found places a historic Native settlement of White Eyes or anyone else at that spot in Wayne Township. This should be treated as unresolved rather than confirmed; a Muskingum County plat book, GNIS detail record, or county history would be needed to say more. Aside from this, no Native village, mound, or camp specific to Wayne Township was documented in the sources checked; a property called 'Mound House' is listed on the National Register within the township (43734), but we could not confirm whether its name refers to an on-site prehistoric mound or is simply a house name. Everhart's 1882 county history adds that the region 'once formed a part of the red man's domain': some branch or subdivision of the Shawnee nation, it suggests, built an 'old town' on the east side of the river at Duncan's Falls, where they were as late as 1794. It also describes mounds in the township, 'some evidently built by Indians, and others by that peculiar race called mound-builders': one about thirty feet across and ten feet high in the town of Duncan's Falls, another of the same size half a mile north, a third on section nine, and, nearly half a mile east of the last, a circular earthwork about fifty feet in diameter with an inner ditch nearly six feet deep, an east-facing doorway and a mound just inside the passage, with large forest trees growing on the embankment. These descriptions are the county historian's of 1882; none has been checked against archaeological survey records.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee.

• White Eyes Town (GNIS historical place name) (other) — Wayne Township, Muskingum County, ZIP 43734, unknown, likely 19th century place name (mindat.org)
• Old town at Duncan's Falls (village) — east side of the Muskingum River at Duncan's Falls, occupied as late as 1794 according to Everhart (1882) (archive.org)
• Mounds at Duncan's Falls and on section nine (mound) — in the town of Duncan's Falls, half a mile north of it, and on section nine, each about thirty feet across, undated; called Indian and 'mound-builder' mounds by Everhart (1882) (archive.org)
• Circular ditched enclosure near section nine (earthwork) — nearly half a mile east of the section nine mound; about fifty feet across, ditch nearly six feet deep inside, east doorway, undated; trees on the embankment older than surrounding forest (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1794 — General Anthony Wayne defeats the Western Confederacy at Fallen Timbers, leading to the 1795 Treaty of Greenville that opens the future Muskingum County to settlement; the township is later named for him.
2. 1796 — A company of fifty Marietta shareholders brings twenty-four kettles by water to Duncan's Falls and packs them seven miles up Salt Creek, boiling brine from a hollow-sycamore well; after four years of trying, the salt costs $3 a bushel and the company dissolves.
3. 1802 — James Findley, a Pennsylvania weaver, finds the spot that becomes his home on section 32, the first white settler in the township; Abraham Mercer follows in 1803, Caleb Dunn in 1804 and Nicholas Border in 1805.
4. 1807 — The first Methodist society in the township, the origin of Fairview M.E. Church, is formed at the house of Lemuel Joseph, who settled in 1806; it builds a hewed-log church about 1822 and a brick one in 1846.
5. 1812 — The first schoolhouse, a round-log building with a puncheon floor, is built on Brookover's farm on section nine; Mathias Spangler is justice of the peace this year, and Abraham Bell is buried on Lemuel Joseph's land, the first grave in the township's first cemetery.
6. 1820 — Moses Ayers builds salt works near Duncan's Falls, moderately successful before they were abandoned; Martin Chandler adds works at the mouth of Salt Creek in 1825.
7. 1826-03-06 — The county commissioners strike off Wayne Township from Zanesville and Salt Creek townships on March 6, and order the first election at Joseph Dixon's house on April 3.
8. 1830s — Wayne Township has a church and two salt works.
9. 1840 — The Duncan's Falls Baptist Church is organized October 17 at Taylorsville by a council of brethren from Salt Creek, Zanesville and Zoar churches with seventeen members, sixteen of them from Salt Creek Church.
10. 1841 — James Taylor lays out the town of Duncan's Falls; by 1882 it has about 200 people, two general stores and a drug store, and a large mill built at a cost of $75,000 stands by the dam.
11. 1856 — Anchor Lodge No. 283, F. and A. M., is constituted at Duncan's Falls on April 24.
12. 1872 — Howard Chandler Christy, later a nationally known illustrator and portrait painter, is born in neighboring Morgan County and attends school in Duncan Falls.
13. 2020 — The census counts 4,892 people in the township.

Stories

A name that needs checking: White Eyes Town

Federal place-name records list a historical locale called White Eyes Town inside Wayne Township, in the 43734 ZIP code -- the kind of lead that invites a quick, wrong headline. The real White Eyes' Town, seat of the Lenape principal chief Koquethagechton, known to Americans as White Eyes, stood near present-day Coshocton, at the meeting of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding rivers, a day's walk or more from this township. White Eyes was a major figure: Speaker of the Delaware Head Council by 1773, principal chief by 1774, and the Lenape leader who in 1778 negotiated the Treaty of Fort Pitt aiming to bring his nation into the United States as a fourteenth state, before dying two months later under disputed circumstances on a military expedition. Wayne Township does have its own White Eyes Creek, a real stream also named for the chief, and the GNIS place name likely marks a small nineteenth-century settlement along that creek rather than a Native town; what stood there before American settlement is not recorded.

Salt kettles at Duncan's Falls

The first people to look for salt on Salt Creek were settlers short of it. The early settlers near Marietta suffered for want of salt until a man who had been a prisoner among the Indians in the Muskingum Valley, released in August 1795, told them it could be found in the valley, and a party that went to look came back after a week with a gallon boiled in a camp kettle. In 1796 fifty shareholders paid a dollar and a half each and sent to Pittsburgh for twenty-four kettles, which came by water to Duncan's Falls and then on packhorses seven miles up Salt Creek to the springs. They dug a well to the rock at the creek's edge, sank a hollow sycamore log in it, raised the brine with a sweep and set the kettles twelve in a row under a cabin, working in shifts night and day. They made about a hundred pounds of dark, inferior salt, which in their need was very welcome, but after four years the cost worked out at three dollars a bushel and the company dissolved. Moses Ayers tried again at Duncan's Falls in 1820 and Martin Chandler at the mouth of the creek in 1825, with brief success.

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

Every historic place in Muskingum County on the full map

Wells in a buried-valley sand-and-gravel aquifer in the Muskingum River floodplain, about one mile north of Duncan Falls along State Route 60 The water here

• Zanesville52% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (wells)
• Muskingum County Water - Se35% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)
• South Zanesville5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
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• Greenlawn Estates MHP1% of residentsMuskingum River buried valley aquifer (wells near Duncan Falls)

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