Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 22 April 2005

The History of Warren County Ohio
Part IV Township Histories
Harlan Township by J. A. Runyan
(Chicago, IL: W. H. Beers Co, 1882; reprint, Mt. Vernon, IN: Windmill Publications, 1992)

Page
674

Rossburg acquired its name from one Enoch A. Ross, who started a tannery there about 1820, the first in this township. It is situated near the boundary between Salem and Harlan Townships. It was never laid out as a town.

The first church erected in Harlan Township was built here by the Methodist Episcopal Society about 1822. It stood on the north side of the turnpike and immediately opposite the late residence of Abram Butler, deceased.

The first store, also, it is believed, was started here by Daniel Holmes and brother, as early as 1824 or 1825; but this is not certain, as Lewis Sever kept a tavern and store about the same time near the old site of Edwardsville. Prior to these stores, the nearest trading points were Salem (now Roachester) and Lebanon.

The first postoffice in Harlan Township was established here it 1833, Jefferson Stevens being the first postmaster. In 1838 this office was changed to Butlerville.

The first Free Will Baptist Church was erected here about 1840.

With all these conveniences and advantages it can well be imagined that Rossburg became a village of no small importance in the early history of this township. Other towns, however, possessing superior advantages, superceded it, and its half dozen or more buildings remain to recall the early activity of the place.

The first town regularly laid out in what is now Harlan Township, was Edwardsville, on the line of the old State road of 1822. It was laid out by Edward Thomas in March, 1824. The town, as indicated by the plat recorded, consisted of forty-two lots—twenty-one on each side of the road, which was dedicated Main Street. These lots are represented in the plat by continuous lines, and in the rear of these lots, on each side, is a row of lots inclosed by dotted lines, corresponding to those laid out on Main Street, which lots, the surveyor adds, "are back lots and for the present merely surmised," evidently anticipating a rapid growth for the newly projected village. His hope was never realized, and the record alone exists to mark the place as the site or a proposed town.