Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/239

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

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��CHAPTER XXIII.

DIVISIONS INTO TOWNSHIPS.

Wayne Cocnty Fairfield County — Knox County— Eichland County, attached to Knox — Madison Township

Green Township — Richland County — Act for Organization — County Seat — First Division of the

County Madison, Green, .Jefferson and Vermillion Townships — Troy and Mifflin — Worthington

AND Montgomery — Blooming Grove, Springfield and Washington — Orange — Milton — Franklin — Leepsic (name changed to Perry) — Monroe — Plymouth and Sandusky — Hanover — Clear Creek — Sharon — Auhurn — North Bloomfield — Vernon — Congress — Formation of Crawford County — Ashland County — Morrow County — Jackson Township — Butler — Weller — Cass.

��IT will be uecessaiy, to give a clear explana- tion of the various divisions of Richland Count}-, to go back to the original county form- ations into which this part of Ohio was divided, and trace their alterations, made from time to time as the settlement of the country- required.

The present county of Richland was origi- nally a part of Wayne Count}- — the third erected in the Northwest Territory. Wayne was created by proclamation of Gov. St. Clair, August 15, 1796, and embraced all of Northwestern Ohio, Northwestern Indiana, Michigan, Northern Illi- nois and Wisconsin. This immense tract of coun- try Avas then practically uninhabited by Ameri- cans, save a few 'settlements in the central part of Ohio. The Indian war had closed, however, and people were rapidly occupying all parts of the West, hence a division of the county soon occurred. December 9, 1800, Fairfield County, embracing a lai'ge tract of countr}- now included in Licking, Knox, Richland and other counties, was created, and Lancaster made the county seat. Again, the increase of settlements ren- dered the formation of new counties out of Fairfield necessary, and, in compliance with the urgent petitions of the people residing in the interested localities, on the IGth of January-, 1808. a bill passed the (jreneral Assembl}' of

��Ohio, creating the counties of Knox, Licking and Richland. By the provisions of this act, as expressed in its seventh article, Richland was placed under the jurisdiction of Knox County, '-until the Legislature ma}- think proper to organize the same." June 9, 1809, the Commissioners of Knox County declared " the entire county of Richland a separate town- ship, which shall be called and known by the name of Madison."

This township of Madison, the original Rich- land County, was thirty miles in extent each way, save on the east line, which lacked a few miles of this length. This was occasioned by the southern boundary being made on the old northern boundary line of the Greenville treaty, which diverges slightly northward about the middle of Range 17. At the date of its creation there were very few settlers in the county, so few that at the election of 1809, but seventeen votes were polled in the entire township ; the year following, this number was increased only two. The same year, several families moved into what is now Mifflin Town- ship ; a few came to the vicinity of Perrysville, near where the Indian town of Greentown ex- isted, so that it was deemed expedient to divide Madison Township. January 7. 1812, Green Township was made by dividing Madison as

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