Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Somerville, Ohio

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1911 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Milford Township. It lies in ZIP code area 45064. It stands on Big Cave Run. The Survey maps it on the Oxford quadrangle.

Somerville within Butler County

Then and now

1911 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 75 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Somerville, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of Somerville, surveyed 1911

Topographic sheets covering this place

11 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

12,534 words on this township

The Mound Builders : Being an Account of a Remarkable People That Once Inhabited the Valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, Together with an Investigation Into the Archæology of Butler County, O., published 1879 names this settlement in its chapter on Milford Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

In the village of Somerville, section three, occurs a mound. It is about one hundred feet in diameter at the base. It has been cut down to within four feet of the level, a partially-graded street running over it. On giving it a hasty examination, I was in doubt as to its being an artificial construction. The exposed limestone appeared to be in the natural position. Gravel and sand enter largely into the structure. I learned that on striking the stone with a heavy substance a hollow sound

Passage source: The Mound Builders : Being an Account of a Remarkable People That Once Inhabited the Valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, Together with an Investigation Into the Archæology of Butler County, O., published 1879.

Adam Hammerle, section nineteen, is another five feet high, evidently pk)wed over for many years. It is composed of clay, with limestone scattered through it. It is on the summit of a high hill, overlooking the city of Hamilton, the hills of SDutli and east Fairfield, and the hills to the northeast. The range of hills two miles to the southwest limits the view in that direction.

In section nine Four Mile makes an acute bend, and projecting into it is a headland, upon the top of Avhich is the farm of William Parker. In his orchard, on the very summit, are three mounds, the largest being the southern one. It is oblong and ten feet high ; its conjugate and transverse diameters are seventy-five and one hundred and twenty feet respectively. Near the top of this mound some human bones were exhumed, and in conjunction w^th them three co})})er hatchets. Three hundred and sixty feet north of this mound is another, ten feet high by ninety feet in diameter, composed of limestone and surface material. Between these two mounds, but not in a direct line, is a small mound about four feet high.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Milford Township - it names this place 15 more 15 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,997 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,997 specimens collected within 10 miles of Somerville between 1879 and 1975: 875 Fungi, 841 Animalia, 207 Plantae, 60 Protozoa, 13 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. V. J.; W. G. S., A.L.; Bucholtz, I. and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Taphrina communis (Sadeb.) Giesenh.	1888	J. L. James
unnamed	1893	B. Fink	Oxford.
Hordeum sativum Pers.	1895	Kellerman, W.A.	Oxford, Butler Co. Ohio.
Spiza americana (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)	1879	Porter, J.B.
Tringa solitaria A.Wilson, 1813	1879	Porter collection, J.B.
Charadrius semipalmatus Bonaparte, 1825	1880	not recorded
Chlidonias niger (Linnaeus, 1758)	1880	Porter collection, J.B.
Tringa melanoleuca (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)	1880	Porter collection, J.B.
Gavia immer (Brunnich, 1764)	1881	Porter, J.B.
Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758)	1881	Porter collection, J.B.
Taphrina pruni (Fuckel) Tul.	1888	J. L. James	Oxford.
Xylaria polymorpha (Pers.) Grev.	1888	James J. F.	Oxford

All 1,997 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Somerville: 1 plant. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Dingledine Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Plant

Every working recorded in Butler County

Storms near this place

5 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Somerville in 5 storm reports between 2003 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Somerville	$20,000	A portion of the metal roof and a window of a barn was damaged. Minor structural damage also occurred to two adjacent smaller barns, and some siding was removed from a nearby home. A boat parked on the property sustained minor damage. large tree limbs were downed as well.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Somerville	$5,000	A few trees were downed.
June 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Somerville	$4,000	A few trees and large limbs were knocked down.
April 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Somerville	$3,000	Two trees were downed.
June 2003	Flash Flood	Somerville	-	Several roads were flooded and closed across the northern part of the county. These included portions of US Routes 27 and 127 and State Routes 177 and 744.

Every storm recorded in Butler County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Jericho	2.2 miles	11
Collinsville	3.6 miles	9
Darrtown	4.8 miles	14
Oxford	6.9 miles	11
Seven Mile	7.3 miles	15
Jacksonburg	7.4 miles	9
McDonald (historical)	7.7 miles	16
Ogleton (historical)	8.2 miles	14

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1065345. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.