York Township, Darke County

How York Township, Darke County began

York Township was constituted by the county commissioners in June 1837 out of Richland Township, in northern Darke County, and named for Newberry York, a Georgia-born War of 1812 veteran who farmed on Indian Creek and served as the township's first Justice of the Peace. His son Nicholas S. York's 1880 recollection traces the family from Georgia through Preble County and briefly Illinois before their 1817 arrival in Darke County. In June 1841 the township's northern portion was split off to form Wabash Township. Its only settlement, the hamlet of Brock, grew around Josiah Johnson's crossroads store and an 1848 post office rather than any formal incorporation.

Settled 1817 (Newberry York, first in Wayne Township near Versailles); into what became York Township by the early 1830s, incorporated 1837-06, by split from Richland Township.

Where the name comes from

Named for Newberry York, born near Augusta, Georgia, who came to Ohio in 1810, settled in Darke County's Wayne Township near Versailles in 1817, later moved into what became York Township (entering eighty acres of Section 15, Township 11, Range 3), served as Justice of the Peace from 1834 and later as an Associate Judge, and farmed there until his death in 1870 at age 82.

Before the town

No Native American village or site specific to York Township is documented in the sources checked, though the township's Indian Creek -- on whose banks namesake settler Newberry York farmed -- carries a name recalling the area's Native past, and the 1880 county history notes that the township's earliest roads followed old 'blazed' routes and Indian traces before being replaced by surveyed roads. The township lies in northern Darke County, part of the broader homeland ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1817 — Newberry York moves his family to Darke County, first settling in Wayne Township near Versailles on land he later traded for the site of Versailles itself.
2. 1830 — Mr. Collins erects the first house in what becomes York Township, on the school-lease land.
3. 1834 — Newberry York is appointed Justice of the Peace for the area, an office he had already held years earlier in Wayne Township.
4. 1837-06 — York Township is constituted by the Board of County Commissioners out of Richland Township, named for Newberry York.
5. 1837 — The first schoolhouse, a log building, is erected on Newberry (Judge) York's land; the first church in the township, also a log building seating about a hundred, follows in 1848 on an acre deeded by Ezra Marker.
6. 1841-06 — The northern portion of York Township is detached and organized as Wabash Township.
7. 1848 — Ezra Marker, George Bertram and others lay out the hamlet of Brock on the St. Marys Pike; a post office opens there the same year with Jacob Miller as postmaster.
8. 1857 — The frame Methodist Church at Brock is built and dedicated by Rev. Henry Sheldon.

Stories

A township named for its first judge

Newberry York's path to Darke County, as his son Nicholas told it to a stenographer in 1880, ran from near Augusta, Georgia, through a brief stop in Illinois and two stretches in Preble County before he reached Wayne Township, near Versailles, in 1817. He entered eighty acres there, traded it for land that became the town site of Versailles itself, sold that in 1833, and only then moved into what would become York Township, entering eighty acres on Indian Creek. He served as Justice of the Peace both there and earlier in Wayne Township, later became an Associate Judge, and farmed the same land until his death in 1870 at eighty-two. When the township organized in 1837, it took his name directly, and his old wagon -- one of only two or three in the entire township in its early years -- was remembered decades later by a neighbor's son as 'a great convenience' that spared families the ten-mile trip around the hills to Versailles.

Mother Sonday's seventy years

Among York Township's oldest settlers in 1880 was a woman the county history calls only 'Mother Sonday,' then in her ninety-second year, whose family had arrived in 1834 from Montgomery County by way of Pennsylvania and stayed with pioneer Newberry York until they could build their own house. Her son August, by then nearly seventy, had never married and had lived with her his entire life -- a fact the county historian singled out as remarkable at a time when, in his words, generations of young men were leaving their old homes to seek fortune elsewhere rather than staying to care for aging parents.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Versailles Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (14 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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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