History of the Township & cemeteries

History of Harrison Township

Harrison Township was set off from Twin Township in 1815. The first elected officials began serving January 1, 1816. There were three trustees, a treasurer, clerk, an appraiser, three road supervisors, two constables, two overseers of the poor, two fence viewers, and two justices of the peace. Township officials were elected for only one year until 1886 when trustees were elected for three-year terms and the clerk for a two-year term. It was not until 1956 that the trustees and clerk were elected to four-year terms.

Walter Stockslager served as a trustee for twenty-two years from 1932 to 1954. Frank Heeter served as clerk from 1934 to 1954. Russell Steiner was the clerk for twenty-eight years, retiring in 1984. Alden Weaver served as a trustee for twenty years and retired in 1990.

In 1990, the first woman trustee. Brenda Studebaker, was elected. Trustees in 1990 were Johnny Hosbrook, Jerry Hargis and Brenda Studebaker. Jack Koeller was clerk.

Preble County in 1808

Herbert Koeller began working in the cemetery in 1934 and was sexton until his death in 1975. His son Jack started working in the cemetery in 1973 and was appointed sexton in 1975. Harrison Township was and is primarily rural. At one time a farmer could get a permit to let his livestock graze along the roads. Livestock was earmarked and the mark was registered with the township clerk.

ROADS When the township was settled, mills sprang up along the streams, with distilleries and tanneries close by. Limestone was quarried from several places but the largest quarry was Marble Cliff Quarry. Stone from the quarries was used to build and maintain roads, which usually followed the streams. After the paving of township roads in the 1940s, Marble Cliff Quarry closed. The National Road (U. S. Route 40) was built through Harrison Township between 1840 and 1842 but it was not paved until 1930. It was the main east-west road. The Greenville Pike (State Route 503), built in 1842, was the main north-south road and was a toll road. Many drivers would go miles out of their way to keep from paying the ten cent toll.

Interstate-70 was built through the township and opened to traffic on December 1, 1964, making travel across Ohio easier and faster.

BRIDGES lron bridges were built over Twin Creek and Prices Creek beginning in 1868. Some have been replaced by concrete bridges but a few iron spans remain. Harrison Township also had covered bridges and two remain open to traffic.

RAILROADS The railroads were built here in the 1880s. The Dayton-Western Line ran through West Sonora and the Cincinnati-Northern ran through Lewisburg. Today the trains have been discontinued and track, rails and bed have been removed. Only a spur line running through Verona from Dayton to Continental Grain Company in Darke County is operating.

SERVICES Harrison Township is served by Dayton Power 81 Light Company and also by Darke Rural Electric, which provides electricity to some rural residents.

The township purchases rural Fire protection from Lewisburg, Verona and West Manchester. A 1953 tax levy provides the funding.

County zoning was approved in 1965.

The Lewisburg Emergency Rescue unit was formed in 1976. Trustees provided rescue service for township residents with Federal Revenue Sharing money until that program ended in 1980. Since that time, a tax levy funds the service.

HARDSHIPS The township was hard-hit by the stock market crash in 1929. The Verona Bank closed and Lewisburg’s Peoples Bank closed for the bank holiday declared by the government. Emergency Relief Funds helped pay the salaries of those unemployed and hired by local businessmen. In addition to relief assistance from the township and county, the Red Cross sent twenty barrels of flour to be distributed to poor families.

Nineteen seventy-eight began with the big blizzard. Snowmobiles were used to rescue stranded travelers and to deliver groceries and other supplies to those snowbound. The township hired Kelchner’s bulldozer to open drifted roads; Yohe Road had drifts five to six feet high. The county brought in the snow blower from Wright-Patterson Airbase to open roads.

INDUSTRY The township is fortunate to have a number of major industries and businesses. They are Akey’s Feed Additives, Henwood Feed Additives, Iams Pet Food Company, U. S. Precision Glass Company, Parker-Hannifin Corporation, Lewisburg Container Company, Anderson Pallet Company, Zumstein Trucking Company, and Penn-Terra Golf Course.

Although Harrison Township is still an agricultural community, most farms today are grain farms. Livestock is on the decline and only a few farmers raise cattle or sheep. Fences have been taken down, leaving the fields wide open.

The township has grown by the building of housing developments. Some have been annexed by Lewisburg; others remain in the township. In addition, many new country homes have been built.

The population of the township was 815 in 1820. The 1980 census showed 4,280 residents.

Why the name 'Harrison'?

In the presidential campaign of 1840, warrior-politician, General William Harrison came to Lewisburg over the still unfinished National Road accompanied by our Rev. Arthur Elliott. The General was revisiting old scenes. He had stopped occasionally at Frederick Black's home here during the war of 1812. There were many still living in the area who had fought under him and the township had been named for him.

On February 9, 1773, our 9th President, William Henry Harrison was born in Virginia. As an adult, he settled in North Bend, Ohio, a village overlooking the Ohio River (roughly an hour and a half from Lewisburg)

A big parade formed east of town and escorted the campaigners to James Bolens’ store (117 So. Commerce St.) where a log platform had been erected and decorated with coon skins, jugs of hard cider, etc. The General made only a few brief remarks and the Rev. Elliot-t took over. The speech that followed was so full of brimstone and vilification against Van Buren that before it was finished, opposition forces were carrying out store boxes to build a platform for their own speaker in front of Godfrey Pampel’s store, now the location of the Masonic building.

Before the General and the Reverend had left for West Alexandria, State Senator John Saylor of Lewisburg was declaiming strong rebuttal to Rev. Elliott’s tirade from the top of a cracker barrel at Pampel’s store.

History of Roselawn Cemetery

When the log church was abandoned in 1848 - 50, the building was sold and removed and the space thus vacated became more burial ground. (If you look for the old church site be sure to note that it contains no grave stones dated prior to 1848.) In 185l the little cemetery was so nearly full of graves that several church congregations restricted burials in it to deceased members of their own churches until they could obtain more ground. This was done in 1856 when they bought all of the area lying between their cemetery and the District No. 4 school ground from Michael Horn and his nephew, John Kizer. The boundary line between the cemetery and school lot is now the central drive way into Roselawn cemetery. A state law, circa 1870, placed responsibility of “public” cemeteries with township trustees and in 1878 the Schwartzen cemetery was sold to the Harrison Township trustee for $200. The original burial plot now is but a small section of our present Roselawn cemetery.

History of Lower Lewisburg Cemetery (E.U.B.)

In 1840 the newly established U B Church bought 55/100 of an acre lying along the old pioneer Lexington-Green- ville trail from the heirs of Henry Horn for a burial ground. The purchase price was $35. In 1844 the same parties made transfer of about the same acreage to the church for $50. For some reason Lewisburg Village Lot No 60 had been measured off so that it was over three times wider at the north end than it was at the Dayton Street end. This caused a small triangle that projected into the cemetery and in 1847 the church paid the owner Phillip Hinkle $5.00 for the triangle and thus squared up their burial ground. The graves of Alexander McNutt and wife, Bishop henry Kumler, Bishop Joseph Hoffman, Vincent Homan, Perry Turner and many other prominent people are found there. The cemetery was sold to the township trustees in 1871 and is now known as the Lower Lewisburg Cemetery.

History of Verona Cemetery (West Baltimore)

This cemetery standing in the exact center of Section 12, Harrison Township, was begun as a joint family burial ground for four families, the McGrews on the S. E., Harts on the S. W., C(K)Links on the N. W. and Keltners on the N. E. The Hart farm had been the location of Tobias Tilman’s settlement in 1805 and Tobias’ father, John Tilman, Sr., may have been the first person buried in the cemetery for a family account says “he was buried just north of his son’s buildings.” The grave was either unmarked or the headstone destroyed and no one seemed to know just where it was. The Swamp Creek or Schencksville Road originally ran in an almost straight line from the Zachariah Hole Mill past the S. E. corner of the cemetery where it crossed Swamp Creek and straight on to the center of present day Verona. The West Baltimore cemetery was sold to the Harrison Township trustees in 1871 although the public was using it freely long before then.

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