Zane Township, Logan County

How Zane Township, Logan County began

Zane Township, in the southeastern corner of Logan County, was organized in 1818 and named for Isaac Zane, a captive raised among the Wyandot who later became a well-known interpreter and landowner in the region. It is the only Zane Township in Ohio. The township has no incorporated village of its own; its main settlement is the small unincorporated community of Middleburg, platted in 1832 in the township's northwest. Big Darby Creek and Mill Creek both rise here, and the township's early economy centered on gristmills and sawmills built along them.

Settled 1800, incorporated 1818.

Where the name comes from

Zane Township is named for Isaac Zane, a pioneer settler of the region who as a boy had been captured and raised among the Wyandot, later marrying into a Wyandot family and becoming a trusted go-between for settlers and Native nations in this part of Ohio; the village of Zanesfield in neighboring Jefferson Township also carries his name.

Before the town

Zane Township itself has no specifically documented Native village, mound, or treaty site in the sources checked here, but it borders Monroe and Jefferson townships, where the historic Shawnee towns of Mac-a-cheek (Mackachack) and Wapatomica stood. The township's own name is a direct link to that history: Isaac Zane was raised among the Wyandot after being captured as a child and remained connected to Native communities in the Mad River valley for the rest of his life. The Treaty of Greenville cession opened this land to settlement.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1800 — Robert Power made the first recorded land claim in what is now Zane Township, on March 17.
2. 1801-12-25 — Job Sharp, a New Jersey native from Culpeper County, Virginia, arrives on Christmas Day with his wife Phebe, a son, two daughters and a son-in-law, on a tract surveyed by Levi Sullivant in 1797; he is the first white settler in either Logan or Champaign County.
3. 1803 — Thomas Antrim, a blacksmith and Quaker preacher, settles on his father-in-law Job Sharp's farm; his son Daniel, born in 1804, is the first white child born in Union, Champaign or Clark County.
4. 1805 — James Stokes, married to a daughter of Moses Evans, builds the first frame house in the township, a curiosity to whites and Indians alike; the Evans and Stokes families arrive that year.
5. 1806 — An influx brings Daniel Garwood and sons, John and Joshua Inskeep, Robert Ray, Joshua Outland and Joshua Ballinger; Josiah Outland settles at the spring where Big Darby Creek rises.
6. 1807-01-29 — William Inskeep, son of John Inskeep, is born, the second male white child born in the county; John Warner and John Cowgill arrive that year.
7. 1809 — Dr. John D. Elbert of Kentucky, the first physician in the township and a founder of its first Methodist Episcopal church, settles; he dies on his way to a patient on December 28, 1838.
8. 1811 — Thomas Seger, from Baltimore, builds a substantial house in the south of the township that is often used as a block-house when settlers fear an Indian attack.
9. 1816-11-16 — John Inskeep receives a commission as first Justice of the Peace for what is now Zane and Perry townships, signed by Governor Thomas Worthington.
10. 1818 — Zane Township was organized, according to the township's own history, and named for Isaac Zane.
11. 1822-01-13 — Job Sharp dies; his wife Phebe, for many years the only physician in the locality, dies soon after and is buried by the roadside at her request.
12. 1823 — Lot Inskeep opens the township's first store in a small cabin near the old Inskeep sawmill, selling pins, needles, tinware and a little calico; before this the only goods came from an Indian trader at Zanesfield.
13. 1831 — Caleb Ballenger built the first mill in the township.
14. 1832 — The unincorporated community of Middleburg was platted in northern Zane Township; it later had the first steam-powered sawmill in this part of the state, run by Chesher & Sons, later converted into a bucket factory for the local sugar-making industry.
15. 1861 — David and Daniel Eicher rebuilt Ballenger's mill into one of the best-regarded mills in Logan County.
16. 1880 — The township, composed entirely of Virginia Military land, has Middleburg as its only village and is known for more maple sugar camps than any other township in the state.
17. 2020 — The census counts 1,191 people in Zane Township.

Stories

A township named for a man raised by the Wyandot

Isaac Zane was taken captive as a boy and grew up among the Wyandot, eventually marrying into the nation and becoming one of the most trusted intermediaries between Native communities and incoming settlers in west-central Ohio in the years around the Treaty of Greenville. When the township was organized in 1818, by its own history's account, the settlers of this corner of the county named it for him, the only Zane Township anywhere in Ohio. The neighboring village of Zanesfield, across the line in Jefferson Township, carries his name too. That a formerly captive settler with deep ties to a Native nation gave his name to the ground is one of the clearest traces, in a township with few surviving Native sites of its own, of how entangled the two histories were here in the early 1800s.

Job and Phebe Sharp

On Christmas Day 1801 Job Sharp, a New Jersey native who had lived near Chillicothe, reached the head waters of the Mackachack with a four-horse team, his wife Phebe, his son Joshua, his daughters Achsah and Sarah, and a son-in-law, Carlisle Haines, a mere lad. They raised a rude shelter, cleared a patch in the spring and raised a crop, in the midst of the forest where wolves and panthers lurked. The settlement grew as Job's daughter Esther and her husband Thomas Antrim came up from Chillicothe in 1803, and Job's brother John and friends from Virginia followed. Job Sharp died on January 13, 1822, and Phebe, who had been the only physician in the neighborhood for many years and knew the simple remedies of pioneer life, asked to be buried not in the cemetery but at the roadside, so that friends might see her grave as they passed. A plain stone with her initials still marked it when the 1880 county history was written.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• North Lewisburg Village77% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Mountainview Mobile Village14% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• West Liberty Village9% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-30

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