Wilson Township, Clinton County

How Wilson Township, Clinton County began

Wilson Township, in Clinton County's northeast corner, was created by the county commissioners on August 20, 1850 from parts of Union, Richland and Liberty townships and named, in the first page of its record book, for the Rev. Amos Wilson. Wilson built a cabin on Hinkson Prairie in 1796 or 1797, where a band of Native people camped with their ponies on the creek, and is credited with the first improvement in the county; Col. Thomas Hinkson, a veteran of Harmar's, St. Clair's and Wayne's campaigns, came in 1807. Lewisville (post office Bloomington) was platted in 1842 and in 1854 two local farmers imported 26 Short-Horn cattle from England; the township had 1,159 people in 1880 and 505 in 2020.

Settled 1796-97, platted 1842 (Lewisville, by Peyton West for James Degroot), incorporated 1850-08-20 (township petitioned and created); first election 1850-09-07, by Amos Wilson (first improvement in Clinton County, 1796 or 1797); James Mills (neighbor, 1802).

Where the name comes from

Named for the Rev. Amos Wilson (born New Jersey April 7, 1770; a Baptist preacher, d. 1854 in Delaware County, Indiana); the first page of the township record reads 'Record of Wilson Township, Clinton County, Ohio; organized August 20, 1850; named in honor of Rev. Amos Wilson', and Wilson's Creek, which drains nearly half the township, also bears his name.

Before the town

The 1882 county history records Native presence on Hinkson (Anderson's) Prairie at the start of settlement. When Amos Wilson plowed a piece of the prairie for corn in 1796 or 1797, a band of Indians was camped with a herd of ponies on the creek near where the Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley railroad later crossed it; Wilson often told that he never saw even a pony's track on the land he had plowed, because the women and young people kept the ponies away from his corn, and he gathered a good crop. His directions to the farm began 'due northeast from the Deserted Camp', a landmark the history does not otherwise explain. The Urbana trace, which Simon Kenton paid an Indian $100 to blaze from the Ohio River to Urbana, crossed the township and was followed by the road still called the Urbana road. The township lies in the Virginia Military District, ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. The township's one documented Native American site on the National Register of Historic Places is the Beam Farm Woodland Archeological District, southwest of Sabina, listed on March 22, 2006.

• Native camp on Wilson's Creek near Hinkson Prairie (camp) — creek near the later Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley railroad crossing, Anderson's (Hinkson) Prairie, 1796-97 (archive.org)
• Urbana trace (trail) — from the Ohio River to Urbana, blazed for Simon Kenton by an Indian paid $100; crossed Wilson Township along the later Urbana road, undated; pre-settlement route, reported 1882 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1796 — Amos Wilson, from Warren County, builds a cabin on Hinkson Prairie in 1796 or 1797 on land he thought he had bought of Joshua Carmen; a Native band is camped with its ponies on the creek nearby.
2. 1802 — Wilson finally settles on his own land with brother-in-law James Mills as neighbor; the two raise their cabins on the same day, the work crews meeting in the middle of the path between them.
3. 1807 — Col. Thomas Hinkson, a Kentucky militia veteran of Harmar's, St. Clair's and Wayne's campaigns, settles about eight miles east of Wilmington, then in Highland County; he is elected an associate judge of the new Clinton County in 1810.
4. 1809 — John Coulter, born in County Antrim, moves in December to his farm bought in 1806; Ramoth Hankins builds a cabin the same year and moves his family in on May 7, 1810 with a small copper still, the only distilling ever done in the township.
5. 1810 — Absalom and Cyrus Reed come from Kentucky and soon introduce improved cattle; two primitive schoolhouses are built by 1810-1812, one on Lindsey's Survey and one on Carrington's.
6. 1825 — Samuel Williams builds a horse-powered 'draft-mill' grist mill, one of the greatest conveniences of the township; Amos Wilson builds the first brick house in this part of the county in 1827.
7. 1830 — Sabina, whose water system reaches part of the township, platted by founder Warren Sabin with 37 original lots.
8. 1842 — Lewisville is laid out by County Surveyor Peyton West for James Degroot; its post office is named Bloomington, and it has 169 people by 1880.
9. 1850 — Wilson Township established by Clinton County Commissioners, formed from portions of Union, Richland and Liberty townships.
10. 1850-08 — The county commissioners create Wilson Township on August 20 from Richland, Union and Liberty townships; the first election, September 7, is held at Bloomington, with Anderson Horney, H. H. Hankins and John G. Coulter elected trustees.
11. 1851 — Trustees divide the township into six school districts on March 3 (ninety-three votes for a school tax to forty-six against in April), and voters back a $200,000 county subscription to the Cincinnati, Wilmington and Zanesville Railroad 141 to 12.
12. 1854 — John G. Coulter and H. H. Hankins sail for England and buy 26 Short-Horn cattle for the Clinton County Importation Company, which had raised $18,000 in stock subscriptions.
13. 1880 — Wilson Township has 1,159 inhabitants and Lewisville 169; the Friends' select school, kept near their meeting-house from 1850 to 1866, has closed.
14. 2020 — Wilson Township has 505 residents in the 2020 census, the fewest of Clinton County's thirteen townships.
15. c. 1796 — Amos Wilson, for whom the township is later named, arrives as one of the earliest settlers of Clinton County.

Stories

The least populous corner of the county

Wilson Township, formed in 1850 by combining slivers of three older townships (Union, Richland and Liberty), has never held an incorporated village of its own — only the small unincorporated crossroads of Bloomington. It remains, as of the 2020 census, the least populous township in Clinton County at 505 residents, a status consistent with its late, patchwork formation from the leftover edges of its neighbors rather than around any town or mill site substantial enough to anchor growth.

Amos Wilson's three farms

Amos Wilson, born in New Jersey in 1770, raised in Kentucky and unable to read or write when he married, bought 200 acres from Joshua Carmen in 1796 or 1797 and set out on a sled drawn by one horse to find it, with two young men cutting a path and a pocket compass to follow. He built a cabin and broke some prairie for corn, wary of the Native band camped on the creek with their ponies, but the women and young people kept the ponies off his crop and he reaped a good harvest. Then he learned he was on the wrong survey, and moved to the next, where he built a house, planted an orchard and cleared a 'flax patch'. In 1802 Carmen himself came from Kentucky and told him that he was again on another man's land; Wilson, discouraged, announced he would go back to the old settlements until Carmen gave him 50 acres of his own as compensation for his repeated labors. His first wife taught him to read and write, he became a Baptist preacher, and the township, its main creek and the first page of the township record bear his name.

Captain Hinkson and the turkey hunter

Col. Thomas Hinkson, who settled in 1807 about eight miles east of Wilmington, had served in the Kentucky militia in Harmar's 1790 campaign, at St. Clair's defeat and in Wayne's army at the Maumee rapids. In the War of 1812, after Hull's surrender, he raised a company of rangers for Governor Meigs and scouted the Miami of the Lake. According to the county history, he and his men lay hidden on a hill above the camp of Tecumseh and Capt. Clark's Canadian rangers, taking aim in whispers just to test their men's nerves, when Clark wandered into a nearby cornfield in pursuit of wild turkeys. Hinkson's men flanked the captain, the turkeys flew into the treetops, and while Clark was looking up Hinkson politely asked him to lay down his arms on pain of instant death. Clark surrendered, and the rangers retreated all night to bring their prisoner safely to camp. Hinkson later became colonel of the Third Regiment and, losing his property through carelessness with money, moved to Indiana in 1821, where he died in 1824.

The Clinton County Importation of 1854

By 1853 there was such demand for Short-Horn cattle in Clinton County that local farmers formed the Clinton County Importation Company, raising $18,000 in stock subscriptions. John G. Coulter and H. H. Hankins of Wilson Township and A. R. Seymour of Fayette County were chosen as agents and sailed to England early in 1854. Seymour soon returned home, leaving Coulter and Hankins to do most of the buying. They picked twenty-six Short-Horns from ten of the best herds in England, among them animals named Warrior, Alfred and Wellington, and shipped them across with an experienced herdsman, Edward Lawrence. The company lost money, but the county historian called the 'Clinton County Importation of 1854' of incalculable benefit in improving local stock, and from it came the Hankins and Coulter herds of national reputation. The Coulter family had already been improving breeds since John Coulter brought the first China hogs from near Cincinnati.

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

Groundwater wells (6 wells) The water here

• Sabina Village99% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Bowersville Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Mounds and earthworks (1)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

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• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-04-15

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