Transcription contributed by Leah L. Furnas 2 May 2005

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

Page
703

The first settlers were without roads. Indian trails were used as guides in traveling from point to point; trees were blazed, and paths or roads hacked through the forest as occasion required, avoiding the hills, streams and swamps as much as possible, in the spring and wet season, and having more direct paths for the dry fall or frozen winter.

The College Township road, passing from Chillicothe through Lebanon to Oxford, was established by the Legislature of Ohio February 18, 1804. On the same day, the route for a road, passing from Chillicothe through Hopkinsville and Montgomery to Cincinnati, was determined and the first appropriation for laying out these roads made. They are on the same route, viz., from Chillicothe to a point in Clinton County west of Cuba, and about a mile and a half southeast of Clarksville, where they diverge, the College Township road, running through by Smalley’s and Fort Ancient, to Lebanon, crossing Todd’s Fork at Smalley’s, the Montgomery road, running south of it, to Miranda’s and Hopkinsville, crossing Todd’s Fork below Smalley’s at the Cree farm (now Stanfield’s).

On the 20th of February, 1820, the Legislature made an appropriation for a new road, from Wilmington through Clarksville, in Clinton County, which was laid out in 1816, to intersect the road leading to Cincinnati that crosses the Little Miami River near Jeremiah Morrow’s, commonly called the Montgomery road; the intersection to be made at some convenient point in Warren County; $125 was appropriated in Clinton County and $30 in Warren County on the same day for opening the road. Francis Austin was appointed Commissioner to expend the money in Clinton County, and Mahlon Roach in Warren County. This road passed through Clarksville, down the Little East Fork, crossing the stream at John Barkley’s, and intersecting the Montgomery road on the east bank of Todd’s Fork in Warren County.

The Bull Skin road was laid out from a point on the Ohio River, called Bull Skin, to run as nearly due north as the nature of the ground would permit, to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, Old Town (Old Chillicothe, near Xenia) and Urbana being points on the road.

This road ran mostly in Warren County, diverging eastward north of Smalley’s into Clinton, and re-entering Warren about a half mile north of the Lebanon & Wilmington road. In an early day it was much used, but now in this section it is mostly vacated so that most traces of its existence are lost.

The road from Lebanon to Wilmington was laid out during or prior to the war of 1812; the record of its location cannot be found at this date, being mislaid. It crossed the Little Miami at Mather’s mill; a man named Holcraft cut it out east of the river.

At an early day a road was established running along the east bank of the Little Miami, southward, crossing the river at Millgrove, and running thence down the river to Deerfield. The building of the L. M. R. R., in 1845, forced this road to the west side of the river, from Mather’s to Fort Ancient, where it is discontinued. The remaining roads in the township, intended to accommodate the citizens traveling in a north or south direction, are angular or zigzag in their course.

In 1837, the Cincinnati, Goshen & Wilmington Turnpike was located, passing through the southeastern part of the township, and crossing the Bull Skin road near the Clinton County line. This turnpike supplanted the Bull Skin road for travel for that part of the township lying southeast of Todd’s Fork.

About 1837, a charter was procured for the Cincinnati, Montgomery &

A county road was cut out from Titus’ to Lebanon, by Millgrove, at an early day, but it has since been materially changed. In 1881, a free turnpike was located from Millgrove, by William H. Strout’s, to intersect the Montgomery pike at Benjamin Guttery’s farm.

In 1858, a free turnpike road was begun from Lebanon, by Freeport, to Harveysburg, which was finished after the war of the rebellion.

In 1870, a free turnpike was located on the College Township road to Clarksville from Fort Ancient, which diverged southward at a point about one and a half miles west of the county line, and intersects the Morrow & Montgomery road near Todd’s Fork, making one iron bridge (rebuilt in 1880) answer the purposes of both roads, and vacating the old road from the point of divergence to Clarksville, in Clinton County.

The same year, the Mather Mill and Bethany Church and Springhill free turnpike roads were located, the latter being a continuation of the former to Clarksville. They were built and an iron bridge built over Todd’s Fork by the Commissioners of Clinton County in 1880. This road follows the Lebanon & Wilmington road to Springhill Schoolhouse, running thence southeastwardly three miles to Clarksville; from Springhill east to the Clinton County line, one and a third miles, is all that remains of a continuous pike road from Lebanon to Wilmington, a distance of twenty-one miles.

The Little Miami Railroad was built in 1844 in this township, which materially changed the industries of the people, and the building of the Cincinnati, Wilmington & Zanesville road (now the Muskingum Valley road), in 1853, along Todd’s Fork, completed the change. A complete revolution in the carrying of goods and the products of the farm was the immediate effect.

A free turnpike is now building from Freeport to intersect the Lebanon & Wilmington road at Olive Branch Schoolhouse.