Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/566

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��HrSTOBY OF RICHLAND COUNTY

��D. Cover. G. G. Hiskey, H. Purely, W. Shauck, D. Riddle and Peter Thuma. The house used for worship was completed in November, 1849, is liuilt of brick, and cost $1,237- The present membership is thirty, and the annual contrilm- tions, for all purposes, $300. The Sabbath school was organized in 1845 ; membership fifty, in 1879.

The Baptist Church of Johnsville was or- ganized by Elder Wolfin, in Woodbury, in 1858. The leading members were W. H. Shank, A. and J. Kelly, and J. Fringer. A meeting-house was erected in Johnsville, in 1859. It is a neat frame, and cost $900. The membership, in March, 1880, is forty ; yearly contributions, for all puqjoses. $275. The Sabbath school was commenced in 1873, and has an attendance of fifty.

The Salem Baptist Church is located near the center of Section 5. Meetings were held in the locality of this church in the fall of 1846. and

��in January, 1847, the members met in the Lamb Schoolhouse, and organized under the leadership of Elder Benjamin Green. The principal members were Peter "Weirick, Abra- ham Hetrick and John Weirick. The meeting- house was finished in 1848. It was a brick, and stood till 1877, when it was torn down and a frame building was erected on the site, at a cost of $2,100. Elder Green was Pastor of the church until 1856, when superannuation ren- dered him incapable of further labor. Elder Milton Smith was the latest Pastor ; he died in February, 1880. The membership is twenty- eight.

A tributary- of the Owl Creek, called " Lost Run," rises in the central part of the township, and flows diagonallj' to the Knox County line. It received this name from a man taking a prospecting tour through the township, and getting lost, followed the stream to the settle- ments.

��CHAPTER LV.

PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP.

Organization — Survey and Physical Features — The Wyandot Trail — First Settlers and Settlements — First Marriages and Death.s — Yearian and the Bear — The Martial Band — Charles and Williaji BoDLEY- — "Entertainment" — First Post Office — First Frame and Brick Houses — First Preach- ers AND Churches — Plymouth Village — Its Location and Growth — The Settlements Around Plymouth — A Number of First Things — Mills and Distilleries — Churches — Change of Name — FiR.ST Mayors— Schools — Railroad — Wheat Market — The Call for Volunteers — The Cemeteries — Banics — Newspapers — Population — General Business, Etc.

��THIS township was originall}' part of Bloom- ing Grove, and was detached from it and organized into a separate township February- 12, 1818, being then twelve miles long from east to west, and six miles wide. This terri- tory was divided April 3, 1820, the east half retaining the name of Plymouth. December 6, 1849, Cass Township was erected out of the east two-thirds of Plymouth, and the latter ex- tended so as to take in two tiers of sections

��from Auburn. This reduced Plymouth to four by six miles in extent, in the northwest corner of Richland. This territor}- was surveyed l)y Maxfield Ludlow in 1807, several j'ears before an}' white man settled within its limits. The land is generalh* fertile, slighth- rolling, and across the center of the township, east and west, is a ridge which forms the dividing line between the waters of the Huron River and those of the Black Fork. In the notes of the survey, swamps

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