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

West Florence, Ohio

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1915 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Jackson Township. It lies in ZIP code area 45320. The Survey maps it on the Fairhaven quadrangle.

West Florence within Preble County

Then and now

1915 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 71 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of West Florence, surveyed 1986
Topographic sheet of West Florence, surveyed 1915

Compare 1915 against another survey:

Topographic sheets covering this place

13 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Jackson township, The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From History of Preble County Ohio, published 1881 - Jackson Township

Early Burial Places

The first graveyard in the township is in section nineteen, on the Indiana line, on the farm now occupied by Jacob Crowell. It was laid out by the pioneers of the- Elkhorn settlement. The first person buried there was a young man named Thomas Hollett, killed by a falling tree. Hereare buried John Bozworth, Michael Crowell, Elijah Wade, and others of the fisrt settlers.

Read the rest of this passage

In the county-history sources

75,976 words on this township

History of Preble County Ohio, published 1881 names this settlement in its chapter on Jackson Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Frank Swisher was born in Dixon township in 1852, and is the son of Martin Swisher, who now lives in Eaton. In 1872 he was married to Alice McWhinney, the daughter of Matthew McWhinney; she was born in 1854. To Mr. and Mrs. Swisher was born one child, Eddie M., born in 1872. Mr. Swisher and his motherin-law, Mrs. Miriam McWhinney, run the general store in West Florence, which is kept in connection with the post office by Mr. Swisher, who is deputy postmaster. George Scarse, son of David and Rebecca Scarse, was born in the State of Indiana, October 25, 1836. His father died at Richmond, in 1866, where his mother still resides. He settled on one hundred and sixty acres of land in section seven of Jackson township. His wife was Miss Cynthia Swisher, whom he married in 1860;

Passage source: History of Preble County Ohio, published 1881.

The first school-house was erected in 1814, where West Florence now is. Here also was the first store, kept by John McCowen, and here, May 17, 1839, was established the first post office, of which Warren C. Emerson was postmaster.

Passage source: History of Preble County Ohio, published 1881.

The first school-house in the township was built of hewed logs, and stood where West Florence now is, opposite the old store. It was erected in 1814. John Taylor, familiarly called *the little Scotchman," offered to become the teacher, at a salary of one hundred and twenty dollars per annum. But the sturdy pioneers found accumulating work for their sons and daughters, and it was with great difficulty that twenty-five scholars were at last assembled in the little log school-house. Under the management of the little Scotchman the school prospered. Ebenezer Paddack, the only one of the original twenty-five scholars now living, says that the pastime of the boys, when they wanted a little fun, was to chop and haul wood from the present site of the old store to the school-house near by. John Taylor afterwards taught school in the Elkhorn settlement.

Passage source: History of Preble County Ohio, published 1881.

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 Jackson Township - it names this place 6 more 6 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 873 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 873 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Florence between 1876 and 1975: 812 Animalia, 35 Fungi, 26 Plantae. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A.R. Gaufin, H.H. Ross, Arden R. Gaufin, B. Fink 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.1877Matthes,B.USA, Ohio, Hamilton County, Camden
Specimen of Equisetum arvense L.Equisetum arvense L.1940HoermansCamden.
A photograph of the species Hedwigia ciliata, not of this specimenHedwigia ciliata (Hedw.) P.Beauv.1876not recordedNew Paris
A photograph of the species Uria lomvia, not of this specimenUria lomvia lomvia (Linnaeus, 1758)1896Stewart, R. T. (Robert T.)Israel Twp, Fairhaven, Preble, Ohio, USA
A photograph of the species Septoria oenotherae, not of this specimenSeptoria oenotherae Westend.1901W. A. Kellerman
A photograph of the species Porella platyphylla, not of this specimenPorella platyphylla (L.) Pfeiff.1910Braun, Lucy E.
A photograph of the species Collybia zonata, not of this specimenCollybia zonata (Peck) Sacc.1911Overholts, L. O.Camden
A photograph of the species Crinipellis zonata, not of this specimenCrinipellis zonata (Peck) Sacc.1911L. O. OverholtsCamden
A photograph of the species Gymnopus dryophilus, not of this specimenGymnopus dryophilus (Bull.) Murrill1911L. O. OverholtsCamden
A photograph of the species Gyroporus castaneus, not of this specimenGyroporus castaneus (Bull.) Quél.1911L. O. Overholts
A photograph of the species Hygrocybe conica, not of this specimenHygrocybe conica (Schaeff.) P.Kumm.1911L. O. OverholtsCamden.
Marasmius cohaerens (Pers.) Cooke & Quél.1911L. O. OverholtsCamden

All 873 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Campbellstown3.0 miles12
Corvin (historical)3.2 miles11
New Hope4.1 miles8
Sugar Valley4.4 miles11
Lake Lakengren5.2 miles11
New Westville5.7 miles12
Belfast (historical)6.4 miles12
Eaton6.6 miles11

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on West FlorenceAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q22344612The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1061738. 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.