Johnson Township History

JOHNSON TOWNSHIP.

Johnson  township, named in honor of Silas Johnson, its first permanent settler,  was cut off from Concord township and is one of the several townships  of the county which fell within the limits of the original Mad River  township of 1805. Later, upon the organization of Concord township, it  was made a part of that township and subsequently was set off as an  independent political organization when it was sufficiently settled to  justify its erection into an independent township.

PROBABLY HIGHEST POINT IN THE STATE.

As  now organized Johnson township contains thirty sections of land or  nineteen thousand two hundred acres. It is the middle township of the  western tier, being bounded on the north by Adams township, on the east  by Concord and Mad River townships, on the south by Jackson township and  on the west by Miami and Shelby counties. It falls within ranges II and  12 of township 3. The township bears the unique distinction of having  probably as high an altitude as any one township in the state of Ohio.  It was stated in one of the state geological reports that Johnson  township had one point with an elevation of one thousand three hundred  and twenty six feet, but the latest map of the department of the  interior gives the highest point of the township as one thousand two  hundred and fifty feet. Of course, there may be higher points in the  township, but this altitude was the highest recorded by the government  surveyors in 1916. This point is in the southeastern corner of section  7, about a quarter of a mile north of the Pence school house.

DRAINAGE AND TOPOGRAPHY.

The  township presents a curious topographical study. Roughly speaking, its  surface falls into two watersheds, the south and east portion falling  into the Mad River valley with Nettle creek as the drainage factor, and  the north and west falling into the watershed of the Great Miami, with  Mosquito creek as the drainage agent. When the Detroit, Toledo &  Ironton railroad was built it passed along the watershed between Nettle  and Mosquito creeks. With the watershed to the east of the middle of the  township most of the territory falls within the basin of Miami river.  The only body of water in the county which approaches the dignity of a  lake is found in section 16, in the northern part of the township. This  lake is nothing more than an expansion of the creek of the same name. In  former years this expansion created a swampy lake of half a mile in  length, extending across the southwest quarter of section 16 from east  to west, but at the present time it is reduced in size to a few rods in  width and some score of rods in length.

The government map of  1916 dignifies it with the name of Mosquito lake. It requires no stretch  of the imagination to explain the origin of the names of these two  creeks. No doubt there are other creeks in the county inhabited by  mosquitos and bordered with nettles, but back in the dim. and misty past  someone was struck with the abundance of mosquitoes along the creek,  which was still unnamed, and in his way of describing this stream to his  neighbor he called it by the name which brought to him the most vivid  memories. Likewise he who named Nettle creek undoubtedly had occasion to  recall the warm reception which the festive nettle gave him as he  tramped along its banks. The Leatherwood stream finds the origin of its  name in the trees of that name which graced its banks in other days.

EVIDENCES OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD

In  no other township in the county has nature been so lavish with  topographical decorations. Sharply rising hills and correspondingly  precipitous valleys are to be found up and down Nettle and Mosquito  creeks and the many little streams which find their way into these  creeks. Hidden away in these hills are to be found bountiful beds of  gravel, and the geologist who walks over the township is greeted with  kames and eskers on every hand. Indisputable proof that the glacial  period found Johnson township submerged under a coat of snow and ice is  to be seen by the most casual observer. The farmer who hauls a load of  gravel to fill a mud hole in the barn lot does not stop to think that he  would not have that gravel if it had not been for the glacier invasion  of tens of thousands of years ago.

And if other evidences are  wanting that the glacial drift was partial to Johnson township, the  presence of thousands of granite boulders furnishes additional proof. It  is reported that an attempt was made some years ago to start a factory  in this township for the manufacture of granite ware, but before the  suggestion was acted upon it was found that the process would be too  expensive to make it profitable.

In addition to these granite  boulders, which, at the present time, command a good price, the township  has ample supplies of good brick and tile clay and there have been  hundreds of thousands of brick and hundreds of miles of tile  manufactured in the southern part of the township. The presence of  gravel, boulders and clay furnish abundant evidence of glaciation, and  if additional evidence is wanting, it may be found in the shape of the  beds of the watercourses and the regular contour of the watersheds of  the township. Along the larger streams are to be found beds of peat  which have never been commercially valuable. In connection with the beds  of peat are deposits of marl and muck both of which have a commercial  value yet untouched.

LARGEST BUCKEYE TREE IN THE STATE.

The  township was originally heavily forested with all kinds of hardwood  trees peculiar to this latitude. In all their majestic splendor there  were to be found the poplar, ash, walnut, maple, oak, beech, sugar,  hickory and buckeye. Everywhere the sugar and beech were to be found on  the upland and the oak and hickory on the lower levels. But these  forests have practically disappeared and today only scattered clumps of  trees are to be found in the township, the most extensively forested  tracts being found on the high lands bordering Mosquito and Nettle  creeks.

Johnson township boasted in 1876 of the largest buckeye  tree in the state of Ohio. It was announced that the state should be  searched over in the spring of 1876 for the largest buckeye tree to be  found, the intention being to exhibit boards of the tree at the  centennial exposition in Philadelphia. The state's forests were searched  diligently and when the reports were in from all over the state it was  found that the largest buckeye tree in the state was on the farm of E.  H. Furrow (section 22), about four and one half miles north of St.  Paris. The tree was cut and found to be seventy feet in height with a  diameter at the base of three feet and eight inches, the bole continuing  for practically the same diameter for thirty feet. While there was no  dispute that the Johnson township tree was the largest in the state, yet  it was found when it was cut open that portions of it were not sound  and for this reason it was not shipped to the exposition.

FIRST SETTLER IN TOWNSHIP.

Silas  Johnson, the first settler in the township bearing his name, was born  in Virginia in 1758, later locating in Fayette county, Kentucky, and  came to what is now Johnson township in the spring of 1802 with his two  sons, James and Charles. They cleared a site for a cabin and spent the  summer clearing up the tract of ground surrounding the cabin. It would  be interesting to present on the page in this connection a photograph of  this first house in Johnson township, but there were no kodaks in 1803.  The house was only a rude log affair, this first cabin in Johnson  township, but it was home to Silas Johnson, his wife, Phebe, and their  children seven - Walker and James (twins), Charles, Silas, Jr., Rebecca,  Elizabeth and Phebe. To this humble cabin came these nine members of  the Johnson family in January, 1803, but the little cabin soon proved  too small and they built a large one a few hundred feet below the site  of the old one. Here they lived until after the land on which they had  squatted was surveyed. Then the settlers began to pour in and when  Johnson's land was valued by the government appraisers they fixed a  value of eight dollars an acre on it, which meant that Johnson would  have to pay that much in order to keep it. Rather than pay this much he  decided to move and accordingly moved to an adjoining section on the  north.

On his new farm he built two cabins, about two feet apart,  both of logs and about eighteen by twenty feet in size. Each one had  one low door and one window without glass. The roof was only clapboard,  the hinges of his doors were of wood, the chimney was of mud and sticks,  the door was of split puncheons and the floor was of the same quality  of timber. And this was the first dwelling house on a tract of entered  land in Johnson township. Here Silas Johnson continued to live until  1818, when he moved to Adams township, dying there the following year.  His remains lie in the churchyard along Indian creek.

Silas  Johnson was a typical pioneer; a veteran of the Revolutionary War and a  major of the War of 1812, with three of his sons with him in the latter  war. His children were remarkably long lived, pearly all of the family  living to the age of eighty, Rebecca dying on October 1, 1880, in her  eighty sixth year. Johnson is set down in local annals as a high minded  man, a Christian man, interested in the civic life of his township and a  great worker in getting the township organized.

OTHER EARLY SETTLERS.

Following  Johnson came an aged pioneer by the name of Carter, who with two sons  and two daughters and two sons-in-law, Cox and Fleming, made a temporary  stop of three years in the township. The Carter contingent left en  masse in 1807 for regions farther west. In the same year John and Philip  Long came to the township from Horseshoe Bend, Rockinham county,  Virginia. There were two John Longs, who, in conformance with their  relative sizes, were known as "Big" John and "Little" John. "Big" John  and Philip were brothers, while "Little" John, although from the same  Virginia neighborhood, was of different family and came somewhat later  to the township. To add to the John Long confusion a third Long bearing  the same prefix arrived in the township and it became necessary to find a  descriptive adjective for him. Whether he was big or little, history  does not record, but he was probably about the size of either "Big" or  "Little" John, and for this reason he was known to his neighbors as  "Cucumber" Johnwhy the cucumber prefix is not known. "Big" John located,  on one hundred and sixty acres on the southwest corner of section 2.  His first wife died childless, and he had only one child by his second  wife, a daughter of a neighbor, Brubaker. "Big" John, whose weight is  handed down as three hundred pounds, finally went West, where there was  more room, and died. Philip, the brother of "Big" John, entered the  southeast corner of section 2, built a log cabin and was one of the  first settlers of the township to boast of having glass in his window he  had one four light window. He died in 1837 and lies buried on the farm  he entered, as does his wife. He left one daughter, Rebecca.

VICTIMS OF SMALLPDX SCOURGE.

Acory  Berry, a son-in-law of Lewis Hanback, came from Shenandoah county,  Virginia, to Johnson township in 1807. Berry and his wife came to the  township shortly after their marriage and settled in township 6, where  they entered half a section. They had four children, all born in the  township, and all, if reports are to be trusted, destined to be carried  off by the smallpox scourge which swept over the county in the forties.

The  year following the arrival of Berry and his wife in the township his  father-in-law, Lewis Hanback, came to Johnson township and entered one  hundred and sixty acres on section 14, paying two dollars and twentyfive  cents an acre. Hanback brought with him his wife, Barbara, and three  children, and later three children were born in this township. Hanback  served in the War of 1812 and while he was at the front one of the  children was born and before he returned his faithful wife had cleared  nearly three acres of ground.

Philip Comer arrived in 1808 from  Shenandoah county, Virginia, on a prospecting trip and decided to buy  the Silas Johnson farm, which the latter left because the government  appraised it at eight dollars an acre. Between the time that Johnson  left it and Corner applied for a patent it had depreciated to four  dollars an acre and this was all it cost Comer. He entered it in the  fall of 1808 and in the following spring put out twelve acres of corn.  In the fall of that year he returned to Virginia and sent his son,  David, back to harvest the corn. David harvested the crop in the fall of  1809, remained in the county all winter, clearing in the meantime about  five acres, and in the spring of 1810 planted the whole third tract  into corn. In that spring Philip Comer returned to the West and this  time he brought with him his wife and his other children - Martin,  Peter, Joseph, Reuben, Catherine, Barbara, Lizzie, Susan and Rebecca.  The family lived west of Millerstown, Reuben being the last to survive.  He survived until nearly his ninetieth birthday, passing his declining  days on the old homestead a mile west of Millerstown.

PIONEER CONDITIONS.

It  seems to the present generation impossible for people to have lived as  our forefathers had to live. The fact of the matter is that they  probably lived just as happy and contented lives as we of today, and  could they be permitted to spend a few weeks with us in our modern homes  and be compelled to participate in all the many things which make up  our modern complex life, they would prefer to return to the simple life  they enjoyed a century ago. Take the case of the Silas Johnson family of  a hundred years ago, or the Comer family which later settled on the  Johnson farm.

The Johnsons had "deadened", as they called it,  about fifteen acres, and Comer's son, David, added probably as much  more, so that when the large family of Comers arrived on the scene  things were in shape to start at once to farming. The long trip from  Virginia consumed four weeks and four days and they made the journey in  better time than any of the Virginians who had thus far come to the  county. This notwithstanding the fact that they had a large five horse  wagon. There were still plenty of friendly Indians in the neighborhood,  and some of them were present when the family arrived. The Comer farm  was the site of a former Indian village and thirteen Indian huts were  still standing when the Corners appeared on the scene in the spring of  1810. There were other huts in a dilapidated condition, but thirteen  were still in a good state of preservation. They were made of small elm  poles, stacked up in somewhat the same fashion that the first settlers  made corn cribs, the whole surmounted by a bark covering for a roof. The  Indians called this village of their Nettleton, the name being  suggested by the nettles which grew everywhere in lavish profusion.

A GOOD INDIAN STORY.

So  many stories have been handed down concerning these early settlers that  a volume could easily be written about their varied experiences. One  Indian story of Silas Johnson and two of his sons is worth repeating.  About sundown one evening Silas Johnson and two sons were grouped around  the fire in the woods cooking their meager supper, when a couple of  Indians approached them and began talking in a loud and threatening  manner. The Indians were indignant to find the whites encroaching upon  what they thought was their hunting grounds, although they were  perfectly aware that all the territory in Champaign county had been  bought from the Indians and that they had no right to contest the title.  But there was no telling what an Indian might do. In the midst of the  heated harangue of the Indians, Johnson thought that one of the Indians  was casting his eye toward his (Johnson's) gun, and instantly Johnson  made a dive for his gun and at the same instant the agile Indian did the  same. Johnson got the gun and the next instant pointed it at the  Indian. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, he hesitated, thinking  that it might be better to spare his life. Then like a flash he  conceived the notion of disposing of the Indian temporarily by giving  him a sound whack over the head with the gun. This he did and the Indian  promptly laid down in his tracks, while the other Indian just looked on  and grinned. It was a way the Indians had of doing things. Strange to  say the Indian who was thus suddenly laid out and down, had nothing to  say when he recovered his wits - just got up and walked away. And the  Johnsons had no more trouble with those Indians.

SMALLPDX CLAIMS MANY PIONEERS.

When  the Comers arrived in the spring of 1810 Adam Hite was already settled  on an adjoining section with his family. Peter Smith had also found a  home in the neighborhood, and it was at his house that Philip Comer  stayed when he was making his prospecting trip to the county. Philip  Comer died in 1824 and he and his wife and several of the children are  buried on the old Comer farm, the family cemetery being about a mile  northwest of the present village of Millerstown.

When the Comers  came in the spring of 1810 the families of Jacob Maggart and Jacob Judy  came with them, Maggart entering on section 7, where he reared a family  of five children, Moses, Adam, David, Elizabeth and Jane. Maggart seems  to have been the first one in the community to have died with the  smallpox, and following his death with the dread disease, several in the  county succumbed to the scourge. Acory Berry buried Maggart and was in  turn soon to be buried of the same disease and shortly after practically  the whole Berry family was wiped out with the smallpox.

A TRANSPLANTED VIRGINIA COMMUNITY.

It  is an interesting study in local history to follow the early settlers  back to their native states. A study, for instance, of Johnson township  would show that when a group of settlers from any Virginia county once  got settled in Champaign county, that the next few years would see many  more coming from the same locality and making their homes in this  county. Thus it was with the community in Shenandoah county, Virginia.  The Comers, the Judys, the Maggarts, and others came one after the  other, singly and in groups, and thus the little community around  Millerstown in Champaign county was nothing more than a transplanted  Virginia community.

It was from the same Virginia county that  Joseph Kizer came in 1811. He was probably a relative of one of the  families already in the Nettle creek valley; at least, he was one of  their neighbors in the old Dominion state. He came with his wife and two  children and entered a tract near Millerstown, in section 2. He was the  first justice of peace in the township and according to some  authorities it was his defeat of Silas Johnson for the office in 1816  that led the latter to forsake the township bearing his name and cast  his lot with Adams township to the north. At any rate Johnson did leave,  whatever the cause may have been and this furnishes a plausible, if not  the real reason for his hegira.

SQUIRE KIZER AND "OLD SIMON."

Kizer  was one of the most influential citizens of the township for many  years; he was a justice of the peace continuously until 1827; he reared a  large family to lives of usefulness; all records concerning his life in  the township until his death in 1869 bespeak his worthiness. Along with  the account of this worthy pioneer should be mentioned his old horse,  affectionately known as "Old Simon", the horse which carried him back  and forth to and from his old Virginia home. This faithful horse lived  to the advanced age of thirty three and at his death was buried with all  the equine honors due his distinguished career.

The year 1812  saw more of Virginia's sons coming to Champaign county. Louis Lyons, his  wife, Mary, and two children, came to the township in that year and  located on the quarter section lately owned by Isaac Good. David and  Jeremiah Huffman arrived from Virginia in 1813 and located in section  18, including the present site of St. Paris. David Huffman had six  children who married and settled in Johnson township: John, Julia,  Samuel, Mary, Jacob and Reuben.

In 1815 Samuel Brubaker, the  first of the numerous representatives of this family in the county, came  to Johnson township and located north of Millerstown in the same two  cabins which had been built by Silas Johnson. Samuel was a son-in-law of  Comer and when he came to the county had five children, Isaac, Jacob,  Mary, Daniel and Rebecca.

Other early settlers in the eastern  part of the township included the following: David and Harry Long,  Virginians, who settled along Mosquito creek; Frederick Pence, also from  Virginia, who located in section 15; Christian Morah, who seems to have  been in the Nettle creek valley with his family as early as 1805, but  he must have soon left, since there were no records left of the family a  few years later; David Campbell, a son of John and Magdalene Campbell, a  native of Virginia, came to Johnson township and located in section 7,  having previously lived with his parents in Warren county, Ohio.  Campbell married Catherine Kesler and they reared a family of seven  daughters and four sons.

It will be noticed that all of the  settlers thus far enumerated located in the eastern and southern part of  the township, and this may be explained because of its closer proximity  to the county seat and for the fact that the western part of the  township was swampy and without roads. When land was from one dollar and  twenty five cents to two dollars and twenty five cents an acre and  there was plenty of it, a shrewd Yankee was not going to take a wet  piece of ground and try to make a living on it. He did not care to  bother draining it, but the land which our forefathers looked on with  contempt a century ago and even half that many years ago, is now the  best farming land in Champaign county.

FIRST COMMERCIAL CENTER IN JOHNSON TOWNSHIP.

These  good settlers of the Millerstown vicinity had to have a few commodities  brought in; not very many, but still a few. They had to have salt,  powder, shot, a little calico and a very few other articles. Someone had  to keep a store and someone must perforce start a mill. These two  institutions were absolutely essential. Thus it came to pass that a  settler answering to the name of Shrofe had the first store. Just what  he kept in stock, we do not know, but he was a very necessary adjunct to  the life of the community. His little shop was in one of the log houses  built by old pioneer, Silas Johnson. He had to haul his goods in and it  is no stretch of the imagination to picture the inside of his little  store - the few shelves, the few barrels, the few boxes. The odor of  various and sundry pelts and furs permeated the atmosphere, and some of  these odors were very unlike the perfume which has made Arabia famous.  This Shrofe, or at least a man by that name, had a vision to the effect  that a village, probably a city, might be built in the eastern part of  Johnson township. To put his vision into execution was an easy thing.

Thus  was the village of Elliott born - one of the several "dream" towns of  Champaign county. As early as 1835 the Mt. Pleasant Baptist church had  been established in about the center of section 20 and it was  surrounding the church that Shrofe conceived the idea of building his  village. It is a matter of local tradition that he went so far as to  have the ground surveyed and laid out into lots, but an examination of  the deed records shows that such a man never owned any land in section  20, nor is there any record of a town by the name of Elliott being laid  out in this or any other section of the township.

FIRST MILL IN TOWNSHIP.

The  first grist mill used by the settlers of Johnson township was located  in Concord township and was opened by John Norman on Nettle creek. It  was a crude water power mill, capable of only a limited daily output. In  later years mills were established in sections 26, 34, 15 and 24 in  Johnson township and in the towns of Millerstown and St. Paris. The  sawmill in section 26 was owned by Elisha C. Berry, one of the most  prominent of the early citizens in the township and county, and the  grandfather of Lou B. Berry, the present county treasurer. David Berry  operated a carding machine as early as 1827 and undoubtedly found plenty  to do, but it took so much of his time that he disposed of it to a man  by the name of Ford. The first grist mill appeared about 1823 on the  farm of William Hill, near where Mosquito creek widened out into what  was formerly called Mosquito lake. The first saw mill was built by Henry  Long in 1820 on Mosquito creek near the lake and was the only water  power mill in the northern part in the township. The first steam saw  mill in the township was built by Samuel McCord, a resident of Urbana at  the time, and stood along the railroad track about a mile west of St.  Paris. A saw mill was in operation at Millerstown shortly after the town  was platted, established by one of the sons of Elisha Berry and later  operated by the firm of Berry & Weller.

SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.

The  history of the schools and churches of the township may be found in  other chapters. It may be mentioned that the first school house in the  township was erected in 1817 on the Zerkle farm, and was a round log  building, eighteen by twenty feet, and as meagerly equipped as were all  the early school houses. Section 16 in this township was probably as wet  and swampy as any in it and consequently no one wanted to buy it. It  could not be farmed and hence could not be rented. Therefore the  township derived no revenue at all from a tract which was supposed to  bring sufficient money when sold to build at least three school houses,  or, if rented, to yield sufficient annual income to support one school.  The township finally sold the section and the proceeds were placed in  the school fund. As the township grew in numbers additional school  districts were added and by the seventies there were nine school  districts with as many different buildings.

The first church in  the township was erected in section I in 1821 on the site later occupied  by a school house. This church was a union building, erected through  the joint efforts of the Lutherans and the German Reformed church, the  official title of the new congregation being known as the "Salem  Lutheran and Reformed Union Church." This was a log building and was  used for religious purposes until 1842 when a frame church was built,  again by the joint congegations. The second church was moved to the  forks of the road in the southwestern part of section I, on the site  later occupied by a school building. About a year or two later the two  congregations finally decided to part their ways. The result was that  the Reformed branch had to leave and were compelled to erect a new  building. The congregation maintained its organization until 1865 when  it ceased its activities and joined in establishing another congregation  in St. Paris. At the present time there are only two churches outside  of St. Paris, with six churches in that city, and two in Millerstown.

MILLERSTOWN.

The  village of Millerstown, located in the center of section 2, along the  eastern side of Johnson township, was surveyed by John Arrowsmith for  John and Charles C. Miller, cousins and proprietors. The original plat  contained thirty two lots and was recorded on April 14, 1837. Five  successive additions have been made to the original plat: Two lots on  December 2, 1837, by C. C. Miller; six out lots on November 10, 1846; by  Abraham S. Stuck; one lot on March I, 1848, by Jacob Miller; two lots  on April 8, 1853, by Jacob Miller and Jacob Ammon, and one lot on  September 9, 1856, by Jacob Miller.

The little village has never  aspired to he more than a mere village; a few houses, a few stores, a  shop or two, a church or two, a school house - these constitute all that  the village has ever been or ever hopes to be. The first storekeeper  was Charles Miller, one of the proprietors, the owner of the first house  in the village and the first to open a store and tavern. The village is  not as prosperous today as it was years ago, when it contained as many  as three general stores, two blacksmith shops, two shoe shops, a saw  mill, a hotel, two regular churches and more than two. hundred  inhabitants.

Just eighty years have elapsed since the Millers  launched their town and these four score years have seen more than a  score of merchants come and go. The names of only a few of these have  been preserved, although some of them used that commodity of commerce  which is well known for its preserving qualities.

As early as  1868 John C. Norman and Isaac Comer formed a partnership for  merchandising and continued together until in the eighties. Peter Berry  opened his saw mill for operation in 1858 and for many years had the  only mill in the eastern part of the township. J. W. Weller was  associated with Berry in business in the seventies. In 1878 G. M.  Minnich started a general store which he conducted for a number of  years. In June, 1880, S. D. Harmon opened the first drug store in the  village and did a flourishing business for several years. J. M. Abbott  began blacksmithing in 1871 and usually had a partner associated with  him in the business. Abbott also sold agricultural implements in  addition to carrying on his regular trade. D. J. Corner and D. M.  Whitmer were the physicians during the seventies and eighties.

There  are two stores in Millerstown in 1917. One is operated by C. N. Pence  & Company and the other by Morton Moore. The Zerkle saw mill was in  operation for a number of years, but it has been closed down for several  years.

From: History of Champaign County, Ohio
Judge Evan P. Middleton, Supervising Editor
B. F. Bowen & Company Inc. (Publisher)
Indianapolis, Indiana 1917