Wilkesville Township, Vinton County

How Wilkesville Township, Vinton County began

Wilkesville Township, the southeasternmost in Vinton County, was organized in 1815 from Gallia County territory that an Eastern investor named Wilkes had bought about 1807; his agent, Henry Due, laid out its namesake village in 1810. Along Raccoon Creek in the township's north stood Hartley's Mill, built about 1825 and worked by three generations of millers into the 1880s, near where three men drowned in 1857; near Minerton the Quinn Mill was nearly as old, alongside a Catholic parish serving about ninety families by the 1880s. The township also held the Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge, a 165-foot arched span whose 1874 replacement of an arson-destroyed predecessor became the first property in Vinton County listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, only to be destroyed by a deliberately set fire on June 6, 2013.

Settled 1810, incorporated 1815, by organized as a separate township from Gallia County land bought by Wilkes about 1807.

Where the name comes from

Named for the village of Wilkesville within it, itself named for Wilkes, the Eastern gentleman who bought the town site about 1807; the village was laid out and named in his honor in 1810 by his agent, Henry Due.

Before the town

No Native American site or village specific to Wilkesville Township was found in the sources checked.

Timeline

1. 1810 — Henry Due, agent for landowner Wilkes, arrives and lays out the village of Wilkesville on June 10; five families settle in the township that year, led by Isaac Hawk's, which had moved from Greenbrier County, Virginia by way of Gallia County.
2. 1815 — Wilkesville Township is organized as a separate township, split off from Gallia County.
3. 1817 — Matthias Croy, assisted by Mr. Gear, builds Croy's Mill on Raccoon Creek, on the site later occupied by Barnes Mill.
4. c. 1825 — A miller remembered only as "Houdasheldt" builds Hartley's Mill on Raccoon Creek in the northern part of the township, near present-day Hawk's Station; he runs it about twenty years before selling to Benjamin Hawk.
5. 1848 — A first covered bridge over Raccoon Creek is built at the site later occupied by the Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge, and Hartley's Mill burns and is rebuilt by then-owner David Westfall.
6. 1857 — Malachi Dorton, Dennis McGinnis and a settler named Knapper drown at Hartley's Mill when a canoe they were rowing capsizes.
7. 1870 — The 1848 covered bridge over Raccoon Creek, having lasted until this year, is replaced by a county-contracted bridge; that replacement is deliberately burned about four years later.
8. 1874 — Martin McGrath and Lyman Wells build the replacement Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge, a 165-foot arched span funded by a new county tax.
9. 1880 — A post office opens at Minerton, and the store there is opened by John Lawler, who also serves as railroad agent and postmaster.
10. 1881-08-12 — The village of Wilkesville is incorporated.
11. 1973-04-11 — The Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge becomes the first property in Vinton County listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
12. 2013-06-06 — The Ponn Humpback Covered Bridge is destroyed by a fire that the state fire marshal deemed intentionally set.

Stories

Burned twice, 139 years apart

The bridge four miles southwest of Wilkesville had a hard history even before its famous end. The original 1848 span over Raccoon Creek lasted until 1870; the bridge that replaced it was deliberately burned about four years later, and county officials had to levy a new tax just to pay for another. What they got was worth it: Martin McGrath and Lyman Wells built a 165-foot bridge with a 19-inch arched camber, its namesake "humpback," that let it cross the gorge without a single internal support, one of the longest covered bridges in Ohio and, in 1973, the first property in Vinton County to earn a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Its luck ran out on June 6, 2013, when state fire marshals determined that someone had deliberately set fire to it, ending a 139-year run with the same kind of act that had destroyed its predecessor.

Three drowned at Hartley's Mill

In the northern part of the township, near what became Hawk's Station, stood one of the county's oldest mills, built on Raccoon Creek about 1825 by a miller remembered only as Houdasheldt. He ran it some twenty years before selling to Benjamin Hawk, whose family had settled the area after moving from Greenbrier County, Virginia by way of Gallia County. The mill burned and was rebuilt in 1848, changed hands again through the 1850s and 1860s, and by 1883 was worth $5,000, with two run of stone still turning on water power. Its history was not all commerce: in 1857 three men, Malachi Dorton, Dennis McGinnis and a settler named Knapper, drowned there when the canoe they were rowing capsized, a loss remembered alongside the mill's long working life.

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

Every historic place in Gallia County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Leading Creek Conservancy District100% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Power plants (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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