Perry Township

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Map of Perry Township in 1875 Atlas of Licking County.
Perry Township is located in the northeastern quadrant of Licking County with Fallsbury Township to its north, Muskingum County to its east, Hanover Township to the south and Mary Ann Township on its western side. Perry Township occupies a rugged and rural portion of the county. A narrow series of bottomlands follows the Brushy Fork of Wakatomika Creek that flows from the northwest south before curving back towards the northeast . A number of smaller creeks and a short section of the Rocky Fork of the Licking River cut through the hills. It is one of the few townships in the county without a significant presence of ancient Native American mounds and sites.

Early European Settlement

The first European settler of the township was Samuel Hickerson, who built a cabin near the Brushy Fork in 1810. A steady stream of new arrivals followed until the township was organized. Named in honor of Commodore Perry, the district was a part of Hanover Township until being divided into its own district in 1818. [1]

Communities

Elizabethtown, known today as Perryton, is Perry Township's only settlement of note. It was founded in 1829 or 1831, by Elizabeth Lemert, who gave the settlement its name, and several of her children. [2] In 1866, the community had a school, two blacksmiths, two doctors, a grocery, and a cabinet maker that doubled as a notary public. [3] Elizabethtown had a population over one hundred inhabitants in 1881. [4] The Perryton post office opened in 1836 and the village was rechristened as Perryton in 1883. The post office closed in 1905. [5]

Denman's Cross Roads was surveyed and plotted as a village, but never became a significant settlement. Phillip Denman was one of the earliest settlers in the area, constructing a house in 1813 that, at eighteen by twenty-eight feet, was the largest home in the township. By 1881, the community possessed no more than six families a store and a couple of shops. [6] The area seems to be the same that would become the post office village of Reform, or Cooksey. There remains a cluster of buildings at the cross roads (Mary Ann Furnace Road and Reform Road), including the Perry Township Office building. [7]


The township retains its rural character in the 21st century with a total population in the 2010 census of 1,603. [8]


J.G.


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References

  1. ↑ Hill, N., History of Licking County, (1881), 584-585
  2. ↑ Hill, N., History of Licking County, (1881), 585
  3. ↑ Atlas of Licking County, ed. F. W. Beers (1866), 11
  4. ↑ Hill, N., History of Licking County, (1881), 585
  5. ↑ Ohio Ghost Towns: No 44 Licking County, ed. Helwig and Helwig, (1998), 68
  6. ↑ Hill, N., History of Licking County, (1881), 585
  7. ↑ Ohio Ghost Towns: No 44 Licking County, ed. Helwig and Helwig, (1998), 60, 64, 135
  8. ↑ https://lickingcounty.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=49111
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