Coshocton County, Ohio - Chapter 1: Territorial Limits and Subdivisioxs of the Country, 1876

The territory embraced in what is now the State of Ohio (and even a large territory adjacent *) was at one time divided into only three counties - viz.: Washington, Hamilton, and Wayne. The boundaries of Washington county, as constituted in 1788, were as follows: "Beginning on the bank of the Ohio river, where the western boundary line of Pennsylvania crosses it, and running with that line to Lake Erie ; thence along the southern shore of said lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river ; thence up said river to the portage between it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum river; thence down that branch to the forks at the crossing above Fort Laurens (near the present town of Bolivar) ; thence with a line to be drawn westerly to the portage of that branch of the Big Miami on which the fort stood that was taken by the French in 1752, until it meets the road from the Lower Shawneetown to Sandusky ; thence south to the Scioto river ; thence with that river to its mouth, and thence up the Ohio river to the place of beginning."

Out of this territory nearly thirty counties as they now exist have been erected. The northern central part of Washington county was, in 1804, erected into Muskingum county, and in 1811, by the Legislature then in session at Zanesvillc, the northern part of Muskingum county was setoff under the name of Coshocton* county; Guernsey, Tuscarawas, Knox, and Licking having all been previously organized. As originally constituted, Coshocton county embraced a considerable part of what is now Holmes, extending to the Greenville treaty line, six miles north of Millersburg; but that county having been organized in 1824, the limits of Coshocton county were fixed as they now are. Prior to the adoption of the present State Constitution, in 1851, there was considerable agitation about a new county to be formed out of parts of Guernse}^, Tuscarawas, and Coshocton, with ISTew Comerstowu as the county-seat. There was also a movement contemplating a county, with Walhonding as the county-seat. But that instrument rendered such movements hopeless. The territory embraced in Coshocton county is part of that designated as United States Military Land District - so called from the fact that Congress, in 1798, appropriated it to satisfy certain claims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War. These lands were surveyed into townships five miles square, and these again into quarter townships, containing four thousand acres, and subsequently some of these into forty lots, of one hundred acres each, for the accommodation of soldiers or others holding warrants for that number of acres. What land was not required for the satisfaction of the militar}'' warrants was subsequently sold by act of Congress, under the designation of Congress land. Twentytwo and a fraction of these original townships were embraced within the limits of Coshocton county as finally fixed in 1824. Owing to the inconvenience arising from the intermediate rivers, part of Tuscarawas township was attached to the one west of it.f As the population of the

*ThG name is unquestionably a modification of the name of the old Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum - Qi osclxachgunli - as somewhat variously spelled according to sound by the old chroniclers in different languages. Different and quite contradictory definitions of the name have been given.

townships warranted, they were named (having been previously designated as yet in all conveyances by numbers), and elections for justices of the peace and other officers ordered by the county authorities.

The townships first organized were Tuscarawas, Washington, Xew Castle, and Franklin, in 1811. The territory adjacent embraced in originally surveyed townships was connected with these for purposes of government and taxation, and afterward set off and organized as population might require. Oxford was thus set o±f in the fall of 1811, and Linton in 1812. Perry township was organized in 1817; the election for officers was appointed to be held in April, at the house of Elias James. Mill Creek was organized in July of the same year, and the election held at the house of John P. Wilson. Pike was organized in August, 1818, the .election being at the house of James Bryan. The next township organized was White Eyes, in 1823 ; then followed Tiverton and Monroe and Keene the next year. Bedford was organized in 1825, and Bethlehem and Jeffierson in 1826 ; Crawford, Virginia, and Jackson in 1828, and Clark in 1829. Adams tow^nship was organized in 1832, and Lafayette (the last) in 1835.

There are in the county at this writing one incorporated village - Coshocton - and the following other villages, viz.: Roscoe, Warsaw, West Carlisle, West Bedford, Jacobsport, ISTew Castle, Walhonding, East Union, Keene, ]^ew Bedford, Bakersville, Chili, Canal Lewisville, Spring Mountain, New^ Princeton, West Lafayette, Linton Mills, Mohawk Aallage, Plainfield, Evansburg, Orange, Bloomfield. Moscow, and Avondale.

Coshocton was laid out in 1802, by Ebenezer Buckingham and John Matthews, who called it Tuscarawas. In 1811 it became the county seat, and its name was changed to Coshocton. At that time a number of blocks of town lots at the southern end were vacated and laid out into what were designated as south out-lots, answering to those called east out-lots, being east of the present Fifth street. The town plat embraced a territory about three-quarters of a mile square. The first addition to the town plat was

Lamb's - a strip of several subdivided acres on the northeast, in 1837. For more than thirty years there was no further addition. Then, just east of Lamb's, Dr. S. H. Lee's addition was made. In 1869, the corporation limits were extended so as to include these additions; also the ground of the Aii'ricultural Society, still further east, subdivided at a later day, and that included in John Burt's subdivision and liickett's subdivision, together with adjoining tracts, making the village plat embrace territory a mile and a half square. The first subdivision was the " county commissioners'." The original proprietors of the town donated the square south of the present public square to " the public ;" but when the town was made a county seat, on petition of the proprietors, and subject to the approval of the lot-holders of the town, the Legislature authorized the county commissioners to subdivide that square and sell the lots, and use the proceeds for the erection of public buildings.-'' The next subdivision was De La Mater's ; and the principal ones of later date are James M. Burt's, Williams', John Burt's, Spangler's, Johnson's, Triplett's, Agricultural Society's, Steel Works, and Rickett's.

In 1808, a town cj^lled New Castle was laid out by Robert Giifin, but does not seem to have come to much. In 1830, John Clark laid out one called West Liberty ; and the new town and the old name became one some time thereafter. In 1816, James Calder laid out Caldersburg. After the Ohio canal was built, Ransom and Swayne made an addition on the north, and the town thus extended was called Hoscoe, after a then famous English author, Wm. Roscoe.

*The ownership of the public square has been much discussed. Originally it was given to "the public." It was never given to the town nor formally to the county, but impliedly in 1811 to the latter. The commissioners have controlled it from that time on. They authorized certain citizens of the town to build a school house on the square; they also leased a piece of it to the Presbyterians, and prol)Osed to lease another i)iece to the Methodists.

Wm. Brown and Wm. Henderson laid out West Carlisle in 1821, and John Gonser, New Bedford, in 1825. Evansburg was laid out, in 1830, by Isaac E%^ans ; Canal Leioisville, in 1832, by Solomon Vail and T. Butler Lewis ; Warsaw, in 1834, by Wm. Carhart - additions since by Eldridge and N. Buckalew ; Chili, in 1834, by John and Samuel Fernsler ; Walhonding, in 1841, by "Wm. K. Johnson, G. W. Silliman, and T. S. Humrickhouse ; Bakersville, in 1848, by John Baker; West Lafayette, in 1850, by Robert Shaw and Wm. AVheeler - Rue's and Ketchum's and James M.Burt's additions made since; and Mohawk Village, in 1859, by James and William Thompson.

The old-time chronicles telL of Lima, Newport, Maysville, Birmingham, Zeno, Providence, l^ew Princeton, Cavallo, and Rochester; but these, and even others, never got beyond the infantile condition, and some of them are now entirely undiscernable by the eye.