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Page 126
About a mile east of the small community of Marcy, the No. 11 school once
stood. It was known as the Marcy school. Schools with community names were
not necessarily within those communities for which they were named. The
recorded date for the Marcy School is 1880.
The No. 12 District of Bloom Township was in the northeast corner of the
township. The school in that district was known as the Moore school and
named for the Moore's, who owned land across the road. This school, which
still stands, has been converted into a residence.
Of these one-room schools of Bloom Township, nine still stand. Eight have
been converted into residences and one stands abandoned. This is the
Jefferson School.
To preserve the past and service as a memorial to those who taught in
these country schools, one of these schools should be saved within the
county and restored to its original pattern.
May 13, 1967
Page 130
Bloom Township Pioneers
During the November, 1805, term of the Court of Common Pleas of Fairfield
County, the Board of Commissioners laid out a number of Fairfield County
Townships. One of these was Bloom Township, although much larger than our
present Bloom Township of approximately 36 square miles.
This new township in which Abraham Van Courtright’s home was selected for
the first township election, included not only the present Bloom Township
but also all of the present Violet Township. Why this township, known as
Township 14 in Range 20, is so named is not given in the histories of
Fairfield County.
Maybe there is some connection between this township name and that of
Violet Township, which was once a part of Bloom Township. The native plant
or shrub in bloom when this township was erected by the county
commissioners would have been witch-hazel, which would have been blooming
in the Rockmill gorge, where a mill was erected in 1799. This mill was the
eastern edge of what became known as Bloom Township. Of course, it’s only
a guess that Bloom Township received it name from witch-hazel.
Sketch map of Bloom
Township showing the dates of the first land patents in each
section. |
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Histories tell that the first settlers came to Bloom Township as early
as 1799 and 1800. However, they must have been squatters, since
this was Congress Lands and was not offered for sale prior to 1801.
There is one land transaction made in Cincinnati (according to a
reference in the Fairfield County records) in 1799 of a Joseph
Loveland. However it did not give the exact location. If
it was in Fairfield County, it would have been an illegal sale.
Congress Lands of what is now Fairfield County would not have been
available for purchase in that year.
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Page 131
There is a land patent reference for Section 25 of Bloom Township signed
by Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, and issued on January
5, 1837, to Joseph Buchwalter, an assignee by decree of the court. This is
the section of land on which the Rockmill is located. It could be that the
Joseph Loveland ownership of the Rockmill site was never honored by the
General Land Office.
Of those who are listed on the 1806 personal property tax list of
Fairfield County, 14 were land patent holders in Bloom Township of the
present day boundaries.
The first of these was David Wright, who land patent carried the date of
1802 and was signed by Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States.
David Wright was associated with Joseph Loveland in a land purchase in
Bloom Township, although no this 1802 purchase.
The next land patent date was in 1805, for Section 12, and was issued to
Henry Tomlinson (Tumbleston on the 1806 tax list). Judge John Chaney, in
his recollections, gives Tomlinson as one of his neighbors.
Those whose land patents in Bloom Township carried the date of 1806 were
Samuel Spurgeon, Michael Stine, Samuel Lee, Major Bright, and Martin
Falkner (Falkner spelled Felner on the 1806 tax list).
A year later, 1807, Zebulon Lee, John Hanna, Andrew Flick, Peter Hairoff,
Isaac Mason, Reuben Newkirk and Samuel Harper received their land warrants
(land patents) from the General Land Office at Washington, although these
purchases were made through the Chillicothe Land Office.
According to the recollections of Levi Stewart in Scott’s History of
Fairfield County, John Hanna was a resident of Greenfield Township, so
would not be considered a pioneer of Bloom Township although he bought
land there at an early date.
In 1808 we find (according to patent records) Thomas Holmes, George
Needles, Henry Alspach, Adam Schneider, and Wilkinson Lane owning land in
Bloom Township.
Wilkinson Lane came from Huntington County, Tennessee, in1808 and settled
on Section 8 of Amanda Township. This land, he discovered, was being
purchased by Thomas Cole, as he came north and took up land in Section 32
of Bloom Township.
The Hoys were among the first to settle in Bloom Township. Daniel Hoy
received his land warrent in 1809, and 1816 is the date of Adam
Page 132
Hoys land patent. It was in 1809 that Phillip Glick, a neighbor of the
Hoys, received his warrent for Section 30. Six years later he became
owner, along with Daniel Wortering, of Section 19, the next section north.
The greatest number of government land sales in Bloom took place during
the years of 1811 to 1815. During these years there were more than 40
sales of government lands. The last sale, except for the assignment made
by the court in 1837, was made for government land in Bloom Township in
1832, according to the records in the Fairfield County Courthouse.
In 1802 or 1803 Christian Crumly (Crombich on land patent) came to Bloom
Township and settled along the headwaters of the Hockhocking. However, he
discovered he had settle on the wrong land. He crossed to the other side
of the streat and took up government land sometime prior to 1812, the date
of his land patent.
It was in 1813 that Jacob Baugher received the land patent for the east
holf of the section where Lithopolis is located. It was Frederick Baugher
who laid out the community of Centerville, now called Lithopolis.
George Hosher, immediately after making his initial payment on land in
Section 3, laid out in 1806 the town of Jefferson. It was in 1811 that he
received the patent for this land.
Jesse D.Courtright received his land warrent in 1814 and one year later
laid out the community of Greencastle along the first road to pass through
what is now Bloom Townshipo. This was the road between Lancaster and
Franklinton.
Section 16, the school lands of Bloom Township, were sold by Ohio
governors Douglas McArthur and Wilson Shannon in 80 acre tracts. These
sales took place between 1831 and 1839, and the money from these sales was
deposited with the treasurer of Fairfield County, to be used for school
purposes within Bloom Township.
Nearly 100 land patents were issued by the General Land Office to lands
within Bloom Township. Since the dates of these patents were in the early
1800s, these patent holders could be considered the pioneers of Bloom
Township. There are many who did not take up land in the township but
arrived during the early days and spent their lives there. They, too,
should be considered settlers, since they helped make the township what it
is today
August 4, 1973
Columbus Dispatch 5-18-95 by John Switzer
Imagine for a moment how it was when Franklinton was laid out in 1797.
There were no roads then in what is now Franklin County, only trails for
horse trains. The settlement was surrounded by unbroken forest wilderness.
The first road built out of Franklinton (which later became Columbus) says
the "History of the City of Columbus, Ohio by Alfred Lee" went to
Lancaster. The reason for that was to link Franklinton with Zane's Trace,
a road that went from Wheeling, W.Va to Maysville, Ky. Ebenezer Zane laid
it out in 1797. The trace passed through Lancaster and Zanesville.
"For many years it was the principal, indeed the only traveled route
through the Ohio wilderness," Lee's history says.
In 1803 a road was built from the public square in Franklinton to
Lancaster. Part of that road (from near Groveport to Lancaster) is now
Lithopolis Road, says the book "Crossroads and Fence Corners" by Charles
Goslin.
The part of the road from Lancaster to a place once called Rock Mill in
Fairfield County was built a bit earlier. The place gets it name from a
grist mill built there in 1799. Rock Mill Road is still on the map.
You have to remember this road building through the wilderness was going
on 30 years earlier than the National Road (Rt. 40) was built.
Jo Riegel, director of community services at Wagnalls Memorial Library in
Lithopolis, told me that Lithopolis was once named Centerville because it
was halfway between Lancaster and Columbus. The name was changed because
there was another Centerville in Ohio.
In 1836 a local doctor suggested Lithopolis, which is the Greek word for
"village of stone". He chose that because there was a large sandstone
quarry in town in those days. The ravine that runs the length of the town
is the old quarry, Riegel said.
So if you stumble across Lithopolis
Road in your travels, remember that it was the first road in these parts.
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