Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/244

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUXTY.

��change made it seven miles long, hence the Board thouglit best to organize it into a sep- arate township, and did so. Its sliape remains the same at this day.

A year from tliis date, the Legislature again listened to the appeals for new county seats, for which new counties must be created, and, I'^ebruary 18, 1846, erected Ashland County. tJiereby making a seat of justice of Ashland, the principal town in Montgomery Township. This act took from Richland the entire tier of the most eastern townships, two-thirds of Clear (^reek and Milton, and a little over one-third of Mifflin; in all al)out 240 square miles of ter- ritory. March 17, the County Commissioners met, and ordered that the remainder of Clear Creek Township, in Richland County, should constitute a separate township, and retain that name ; also the same with. Mifflin, while what remained of Milton should be attached to Franklin.

Two years after this was done, Mount Crilead, an enterprising town near the southwest corner of the county, asserted her claims to a county seat so strenuously that the new county of Morrow was created, of which Mount Gilead was made the seat of justice. This new county took from Richland all of Congress and Bloom- ticld Townships — the latter known as North Bloomfield, since the creation of Bloomfield in Knox County, now also a part of Morrow County — the west half of Perry and the west half of Troy, save Sections 28 and 33. This last act reduced Richland to its present size, an area of 485 square miles.

The creation of these new counties, it will be observed, left again irregularly shaped townships, some of which contained only twelve sections.

��No act of the Commissioners seemed to have been passed regarding the portions of Troy and Perry in this county. They seem to have been simply allowed to retain the original names, and as such yet exist. In the northern part of the county, however, the inhabitants soon expressed a desire for new divisions, and. in compliance there with, the next year after Ashland County was created, the citizens of the eastern part of Sharon petitioned the court for the erection of a new township. ^larch 2. 1847. the request was granted, and Jackson Township was created.

In the spring of 1849, the citizens of Clear Creek and the eastern part of Blooming Grove requested a similar organization, and, March 5, 1849, Butler Township, comprising two miles in width of the eastern part of Blooming Grove, and all of Clear Creek, in all four miles wide by six in length, was erected. June 5, in re- sponse to a request from the residents of the eastern part of Franklin Township, four miles in width of that township were erected into a new township, and named Weller.

When Butler was organized, it left Blooming Grove an equal extent of territory. Plymouth was now left with its original six by six miles in extent, and that part of Auburn remaining in Richland County, when Crawford County was created. The residents of the eastern half of Plj^mouth asked for a separate organization in the autumn of 1849, and. December 6, the Board granted the request, creating Cass Town- ship. The erection of Cass completes the list of divisions in the county, leaving it with its present organizations. In all there have been about thirty divisions of the county made since 1807, each division until 1845 marking an in- crease in population.

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