Newville, Ohio

This area of present day Ohio was first inhabited by tribes such as the Wyandots, Iroquois, Shawnee, and Delawares. These groups grew crops such as corn, beans, squash, and other crops to complement a diet of hunted meat.[1] The tribes generally inhabited fixed villages with traditional long houses in small groups that responded to the topography and natural resources available in a certain area. Native American Tribes were expelled during the Indian removal following the Treaty of Greenville. Newville was then founded by John Frederick Herring and was platted in December 1823. It is situated upon section three, Worthington Township. Abraham Nye was one of the first settlers there, and was instrumental in inducing Mr. Herring to lay out the town. Newville lies in a small valley at the confluence of Slater's Run with the Clearfork of the Mohican River, nearly surrounded by tree-covered hills.

A photo of Newville from 1937

In 1811–12, John Frederick Herring built the second grist mill in Richland County. This mill was situate on the Clearfork, four miles west of Bellville, in what is now Perry township. Peter Weirick was employed to do the carpenter work, and while he was erecting the building, Mr. Herring drove to Baltimore with a six-horse team to procure burrs, wheels and gearings for the mill. After operating this mill for several years, Mr. Herring sold the same to Francis Baughman in 1815. In 1833, Mr. Baughman disposed of this property to John Hanawalt, who operated the same for about fifty years, and the mill is known in history as “Hanawalt’s.” This mill stood where the Lexington and Fredericktown road crosses the Clearfork.

After selling the mill west of Bellville, Mr. Herring entered another millsite, also on the Clearfork, fifteen miles down the stream, where he erected his second grist mill, and a few years later laid out the town of Newville.

The first settlers in Newville and vicinity were John Frederick Herring, Abraham Nye, Michael Hogan, Daniel Carpenter, George Armentrout and Luther Richard. Abraham Nye was the first tavern keeper, Daniel Stoner the first blacksmith and Michael Hogan the first merchant. Newville was named after Newville, Pennsylvania, the native place of the founder of the town.

At the time Newville was laid out, the volume of water in the Clearfork of the Mohican was larger than it is now, and the pioneers were wont to found towns along streams of water, for mill-power and other purposes. Great things and a bright future were predicted for the town, but the hopes entertained for its future greatness were never realized in the scramble for new counties back in the “forties.”

The early settlers of the Newville country came, mostly, along the old Wyandot trail, following up the Mohican and its Clearfork to Newville. Some of the later arrivals came along the Portage road - a military road cut through by a portion of General Harrison’s army in 1812. This road runs diagonally across Worthington township from the northeast to southwest. This was probably the first road in the township, and although it has been changed in certain places to conform to local conditions, it is still a public highway.[2]

Newville in 2022.

In the 1940s, the U.S. Corps of Engineers built a dam on the Mohican river, that would under some circumstances, cause the town to be flooded, and it was ordered abandoned. Some of the foundations and buildings are still standing in the forest just west of the lake.