CHAPTER XXIII
Pg. 188
LOUDON TOWNSHIP
ITS BOUNDARIES - SOIL - POPULATION - SETTLEMENT -
VILLAGE OF KILGORE -
ENTERED BY GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE IN INDIAN WAR DAYS
The extreme southeastern
sub-division of Carroll County is known as Loudon civil township.
It once belonged to Rock Township in Harrison county. It is
composed of parts of Congressional townships 11 and 12, range 4, and
townships 12 and 13, in range 5. It is bounded on the north by
Lee Township, on the east by Jefferson County, on the south by
Harrison County and a small portion by Jefferson County, and on the
west by Perry Township. It contains twenty-one full and six
half sections of land.
The soil is a rich sandy loam and produces all that is
grown in this latitude and longitude. While the township has
no railway facilities it has a valuable soil and the crops and stock
here produced are of the best quality and the railways are not
far distant so that agriculture is easily and profitably carried on
by a prosperous, happy and generally contented people.
POPULATION
The United States reports
of census for different enumeration periods gives this township as
follows: In 1840 it had 966; in 1880 it was 965; in 1890 it
was 929; in 1900 it was placed at 909 and in 1910 it was 925.
EARLY SETTLERS
Jacob Gotshall came
in from Berks County, Virginia, and located in what is now known as
Loudon Township, about 1802. In a few years he was surrounded
by Peter Albaugh, Daniel Shawver, Solomon Stine, Thomas Lucas
and Adam Simmons, as neighbors. As most all the
pioneers had emigrated from Loudon County, Virginia, the county
commissioners who organized the township in which settlement was
effected naturally named it Loudon, hence the origin of the
township's name.
Among other early settlers in the township are recalled
the names of William Wincler, 1806; George Iden, 1815;
Samuel G. Queen in the spring of 1820.
GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE HERE
This distinguished American
soldier, after the Revolutionary war, when the missionaries
stationed in this portion of the great West (as Ohio was then
styled), asked for protection from the invasion of savage Indian
tribes, General Wayne was sent with
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soldiers in 1794 and crossed the southern part of Carroll County,
camping on section 4, township 12, range 5 in Loudon Township, about
two miles south of the present village of Kilgore on land later
owned by Joseph Wilson.
THE VILLAGE OF KILGORE
This little village
in section 6 of Loudon Township, is twelve miles southeast of
Carrollton. In the eighties it had two hundred population; a
Methodist Episcopal church, a Lutheran church and a Reformed church.
Its population is about the same today - less if any difference.
The place was laid out soon after the organization of
Loudon Township by John Able, in honor of Hon. Daniel
Kilgore of Cadiz, Ohio, then a member of Congress from that
district. The county plat-book says: "The above is a
correct plat of the town of Kilgore, situated in Rock township,
Carroll County, Ohio, in the northeast quarter of section 12,
township 12, range 5, of the Steubenville district, as surveyed for
John Able, the proprietor on the 17th and 18th days of
December, 1834."
A business directory of 1883-84 gives this on Kilgore:
Albaugh Brothers, stone-masons; J. D. Albaugh, pianos
and organs; William Albaugh, saw mill; James Campbell,
agricultural implements; S. M. Gottshall blacksmith;
Simmons & Son, furniture dealers; John H. Smith, hotel;
Spence, Tinlin & Company, general merchandise; with a few other
dealers.
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