York Township, Tuscarawas County

How York Township, Tuscarawas County began

York Township sits at the geographic center of Tuscarawas County and was organized on December 1, 1828, receiving its name directly from York County, Pennsylvania, whence a large share of its early settlers had come. John Shull, a Somerset County, Pennsylvania native, led his family by team to New Philadelphia and then cut a road up Stone Creek to become the township's first settler in or about 1806, building his cabin beside a spring after making a peace-offering of provisions to a Native encampment already using the site; Jacob Gimlin followed about six months later. The township never grew a town of its own -- close as it is to New Philadelphia and Dover -- but its hills proved rich in black-band iron ore, one deposit alone netting its owners $120,000, and coal mining was extensive along the valley the Marietta & Pittsburgh Railroad follows. It covers 23.7 square miles, had 1,392 residents at the 2020 census, and the Tuscarawas County Courthouse and the rest of New Philadelphia's National Register listings belong to that separately incorporated city, not to the township.

Settled 1806 (John Shull), incorporated 1828-12-01, by organized December 1, 1828; John Shull was the first settler on Stone Creek within the township, about 1806.

Where the name comes from

York Township received its name directly from York County, Pennsylvania, whence a large share of its pioneers emigrated.

Before the town

The 1884 county history records a specific, dated encounter at the township's first settlement: when John Shull and his hired hand Henry Shanaman built the first cabin in the township, beside a spring in the northeast quarter of Section 16, they found a band of Native people already encamped there. By offering the group provisions as a peace offering, Shull persuaded them to relocate about half a mile farther down the creek. No source names the people or nation involved, so none is asserted here. The township lies in the interior of the Tuscarawas Valley, Delaware (Lenape) country before the Treaty of Greenville (1795). The valley's documented mission towns and treaty history are not placed inside York Township's own boundaries by any source found here. A second note concerns Old Town Creek, which the county history says enters the Tuscarawas almost opposite the site of the Moravian mission Schoenbrunn, whence the creek's name was probably derived. Settler Adam Bugher owned a hand-turned cast-iron corn cracker found near the Schoenbrunn site, 'doubtless a relic of mission days.' The mission itself (founded 1772 and abandoned in 1777) lay in Goshen Township, not York.

• Schoenbrunn (Moravian mission), across the river from the mouth of Old Town Creek (village) — east side of the Tuscarawas River in Goshen Township, almost opposite where Old Town Creek enters, 1772-1777 (archive.org)
• Native encampment at John Shull's spring (camp) — northeast quarter of Section 16, beside a spring near the later home of Gabriel Shull; the band moved half a mile down the creek, c. 1806 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1806 — John Shull, a Somerset County, Pennsylvania native, leaves his old home with his wife Elizabeth and six children and travels by team to New Philadelphia, then cuts a road up Stone Creek to the north half of Section 16; he and his hired hand Henry Shanaman build the township's first cabin beside a spring, after persuading an encamped group of Native people to move about half a mile down the creek with a gift of provisions. Shull, a Lutheran, dies in the township in 1833.
2. 1806 (about six months later) — Jacob Gimlin, also of German extraction and a Lutheran, becomes the township's second settler, building his cabin on the southeast quarter of Section 15, later the farm of Henry Fisher.
3. 1809 — Brothers-in-law Philip Kuhn and Francis Gernand, Germans from York County, Pennsylvania, settle on Stone Creek and live in one cabin for a few years.
4. 1811 — Samuel Deardorff, formerly of Virginia and York County, Pennsylvania, clears and plants corn on Lot 2 near the township's center and brings his family out in September.
5. 1813 — The first school opens in John Shull's cabin, taught in German by Daniel VonBramer, and moves before the term ends to the newly built Lutheran log church; George Bugher teaches next, in English and German.
6. c. 1814 — Kuhn and Gernand build a water-powered sawmill on Stone Creek and run a distillery that supplies the community's whisky.
7. 1815 — The German Reformed and Lutheran church on Stone Creek, called Jerusalem Church, dates its origin to this year; Henry Ankney of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, also settles.
8. 1818 — John Rice and Jacob Fribley settle on Old Town Creek, joining Grim, Howe, Wolf and Shaffer in that valley.
9. 1828 — York Township is organized on December 1, taking in the eastern part of Jefferson and nearly all of present-day York, with small fractions later annexed to Goshen and Warwick.
10. c. 1830 — John Benfer builds an oil mill that is not operated very successfully.
11. 1873 — A Black Band post office is recorded, with the name Blackband from 1881 to 1909; the county history says it was moved to Yorktown for a time and a short-lived Deardorff's office was set up at the station.
12. 1874 (about ten years before 1884) — The Marietta & Pittsburgh Railroad is built down Stone Creek Valley, ending the township's wholly agricultural character; two stations, Black Band and Yorktown, are established within its limits.
13. 1941 — The York Township School building is constructed.

Stories

Shull's Hill: a $500 investment that paid $120,000

More than twenty mines and banks of coal were opened in York Township by the 1880s, but its most striking story concerns black-band iron ore. Jacob Blickensderfer bought fifty acres of land including a deposit-rich rise called Shull's Hill for $500, then sold the land itself for $300 while keeping the mineral rights beneath it. His estate later sold that mineral reservation to David Miller for $900, and Miller sold a two-thirds interest in it to Rhodes & Card for about $3,000. By the time the 1884 county history was written, the ore taken from that one bank had netted its successive owners $120,000 -- a two-hundred-and-forty-fold return on the mineral rights alone, without a single acre of surface land changing hands twice.

A peace offering at the spring

When John Shull and his hired hand Henry Shanaman cut a road up Stone Creek about 1806 and began the township's first cabin beside a spring in the northeast quarter of Section 16, they found a band of Indians already camped there. Shull made them a gift of provisions and persuaded them to move about half a mile farther down the creek. The county history gives no name for the band. Shull was a Lutheran of German descent from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, with a wife and six children, and went on to have twelve; he died in 1833, and Jacob Gimlin settled the next claim about six months after his arrival.

A hand mill from Schoenbrunn

Old Town Creek, one of York's two main streams, enters the Tuscarawas almost opposite the site of the Moravian mission town Schoenbrunn, which is probably where it got its name. Adam Bugher, an early settler, owned a little cast-iron corn cracker turned by hand, which he used for his own and his neighbors' convenience. He had found it near the site of Schoenbrunn, and the county historian judged it 'doubtless a relic of mission days.' The tool is a small, tangible link between the township's settler farms and the Christian Lenape town that Zeisberger had founded there in 1772 and that was abandoned in 1777.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• New Philadelphia City97% of residentsTuscarawas River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Midvale2% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Tcmsd-wainwright0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tuscarawas Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Dover City0% of residentsSugar Creek Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (Dover wellfield)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

Cite this page