Madison Township occupies a position in the southeast part of the county, and is bounded north by Harmony Township, east by Madison County, south by Greene County and west by Green Township.  Its width from north to south is five and a half miles, and its average length from east to wrest is seven and two-sevenths miles.  Its area is forty and one-fourteenth square miles, containing 25,650 acres.  Some of this territory was originally a part of Madison County, from which its name is taken, and, previous to 1819, it was called Vance Township.  When and for what reason the name was changed does not appear on the records, but it retained the name of Vance for about two years after the formation of Clark County.  It is reasonable that the original name came from a family of that name who were of the earliest and most prominent settlers.
     The lands of Madison Township are, for the greater part. Military lands, and lie south of the Little Miami River and east of Ludlow's line.  This line has its southern terminus at the source of the Little Miami, in the northeastern
part of the township.  The value of real estate in 1850 was $335,962; in 1860, it was $624,026; in 1870, $984,410; in 1880, $1,069,462.
     The Little Miami River has its. source in the northeastern part of the township, and flows westerly.  Massie’s Creek rises in the southeastern part of the township, flows southwesterly.  Willow Branch, in the southwestern part of the

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township, is a tributary of Massie's Creek.  These form the drainage of the township.
    

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EARLY TOWNSHIP OFFICIALS

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ROADS

OF EARLY TOWNSHIP SETTLERS

     The early settlers of Madison Township, like the pioneers of other parts of the great State of Ohio, were a peculiar people, and seemed providentially designed for their parts in life's great drama.  They were men and women of rude and unpolished manners, yet they were not lacking in the nobler qualities that fitted them to became the antecedents of a more polished civilization.  The following brief mention is made of some of these families, who, braving the privations of frontier life, laid the foundations of society, on which their descendants have built and flourished.

     George Buffenberger was a Virginian.  He and family came to Ohio and settled in Madison Township as early as 1807, locating on the head waters of the Little Miami.  He owned a large tract of valuable land, raised a large family of children, and was characterized as the most eccentric man of his generation.  He possessed great wealth, yet was careless, and often shabby in his dress, and defied the ordinary customs of civilized life.

     Christopher Lightfoot was a man of fine education, and a Scotchman.  He settled where William Watson now lives south of the Little Miami depot some years before South Charleston was laid out, and was one of the prejectors of that village.  He was a school teacher and surveyor.

     Elijah Pratt was probably the first physician of Madison Township.  He was practicing as early as 1818.  He lived northeast of South Charleston.  He was from New England.

     John Kolso was among the first Justices of the Peace of the township.  He lived on the Jamestown road, on lands now owned by Paullin's heirs.  He reared a large family of children, all of whom are non-residents of the township.

     William Holloway was an early settler near Selma, on the McDorman farm.  He was a Quaker, and for many years filled the office of Justice of the Peace creditably.

     William Willis was an old and and devout Quaker, and kept a hotel two miles west of South Charleston, on the State road from Xenia to Columbus, where Caleb Harrison lives.  This place, being on the commonly traveled road from Cincinnati to Columbus, it was widely known, and was a favorite stopping-place for the distinguished men of the early times.  Between the years 1830 and 18140,

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while Tom Corwin was a member of Congress, and was compelled to reach the national Capital on horseback, he made this hotel a regular stopping-place.  He was sometimes accompanied by Henry Clay, of Kentucky, on similar trips, and the high old times had at the u Old Willis Hotel” by these distinguished guests often tried the patience of the quiet host.  The house, a one-story log building of three rooms, still stands.

     Mungo Murray was a Scotchman, and located on Section 12, on the northern border of the township, in 1817.  His sons, James, George and Peter, were gentlemen of rare business qualifications.  The last named built the "Murray House,” of Springfield, and was at one time one of the foremost of the business men of that city.  The elder Murray died in August, 1830, at the age of fifty-five years.

     John McCollum was a native of Virginia.  He settled two miles south of South Charleston in 1814, on the farm now owned by D. V. Pringle.  He was twice married.  By the second marriage he became the father of eight children — Rebecca, Henry, John, Alvira, Evaline, Minerva, Seth O. and Russell B.  He died in 1848, aged seventy-three; his wife died in December, 1871, aged eighty-seven.

     David Vance was a Kentuckian.  He settled in Madison Township in 1808 or 1809, one mile west of South Charleston, the farm now owned by James Pringle.  He was a cousin of Joseph Vance, tenth Governor of Ohio. His sons - Ephraim, John, Daniel, Joseph, Elijah and Elisha - were worthy citizens.  The last two were twins.

    James Pringle, Sr., came from Kentucky and settled in Madison Township in 1812, on Section 16, now owned by D. O. Heiskell.  His wife was a Vance.  They raised a large family of children, who in after years filled well their several stations in life.  Their sons were Thomas, David, William and James.  Mr. Pringle died in August, 1867, aged eighty-four.

     Isaac Davisson, about 1810, settled a short distance east of South Charleston. He married Sarah Curl in 1808.  His father, Isaac Davisson, Sr., was an early settler of Warren County.  Isaac, Jr., and his bride, made their wedding tour on horseback, Mrs. Davisson using a feather-bed for a side-saddle.  They passed through Springfield on their way from Todd’s Fork, in Warren County, to their new home, near Catawba.  At this time, Springfield had but a few houses, and these were in the brush.  After spending the first three years of their married life in Pleasant Township, they located in Madison, as stated.  He purchased fifty acres of land, and in time added several hundred acres to his estate.  He was of Methodistic stock, as well as his wife, and, in the years that followed their coming to the neighborhood, the early preachers held meetings in their humble cabin, and to the end of his days his devotion to the Master and his zeal for the church never waned.  His wife still lives, and has passed the ninetieth milestone in the eventful race of life.  They raised a large family of children; twelve of these lived to become married; they were William, Obadiah, Lemuel, Mary, Elizabeth, Nancy, Sarah J., Margaret, Julia Ann, Maria, James G. and Daniel.

     Phillip Hedrick and his wife (Foley) settled on the north bank of the Little Miami in 1811, on the farm now owned by K. P. Truitt.  Mr. Hedrick was a Kentuckian; his wife, a Virginian.  He bought 600 acres of land at $1.25 per acre.  The husband and wife died in 1838 and 1825 respectively.  They were married in Kentucky, and five children were born to them in that State.  Their children were Samuel, Lewis, David, Isaac, Henry, Joseph, Anna, Mahala and Rebecca.  He assisted to lay out South Charleston in 1815.

     Charles Paist was a native of Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  He married Abigail Perkins, of Wilmington, Ohio.  He settled on the head- waters of

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MRS. MATILDA KITCHEN
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ABRAHAM KITCHEN
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Massie's Creek, on the Columbus and Xenia road, in 1815, and there built a store and carried on merchandising several years.  He was the first merchant of Madison Township.  He moved to South Charleston in 1824, and there continued merchandising for some time.  He served one term as Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and was one of the leading Abolitionists of his time, being far in advance of the public sentiment of that day.  The first anti-slavery address ever made in South Charleston was made from the porch of his residence, on Columbus street.  He was a medley of contradictions, being a Democrat, a Quaker, an Abolitionist, and an ardent follower of Tom Paine.  His children - Isaac, William, Charles and Mary  (Mrs. D. O. Heiskell) inherited the sterling qualities of the father.  He died in 1858, aged sixty.  His wife died the next year, aged fifty-eight.

     Robert Houston was born in Scott County, Kentucky, April 11, 1800.  At the age of twelve years, he came to Ohio with his parents.  He studied medicine at Springfield, Ohio, and began the practice of his profession at South
Charleston in July, 1821.  He married Eliza Pearce Nov. 25, 1822, and became the father of twelve children.  He continued the practice of medicine forty four years successively in this village.  In 1865, he removed to Champion City, Ill., where be died July 11, 1872, aged seventy-two years.  He was an ardent Whig, a zealous Republican, and for nearly fifty years was a consistent and useful member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

     Samuel Thomas and family came to Madison Township about 1814, where he remained until his death, in 1867, his wife dying in 1871.  He was a native of Delaware, born in 1785, and was married, in Warren County, Ohio, to Mary St. John, a native of New York, born in 1783.  They had nine children, and their eldest child, John, is now residing in the township, at the age of seventy-two.

POLL-BOOK OF AN ELECTION HELD IN VANCE (MADISON) TOWNSHIP, CLARK COUNTY, OHIO, APRIL 6, 1818

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     In the year 1847, the Assessor of Madison Township, R.C.Clark, enrolled the following named citizens as subject to do duty as militia:

A REMINISCENCE.

REMINISCENCE OF THE PAST.

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SOUTH CHARLESTON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

THE SOLDIERS OF 1861-65

     Madison Township soldiers have a record of which her people may well be proud.  From that memorable day in April, 1861, when hostile traitor hands

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CHURCHES OF MADISON TOWNSHIP

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SELMA

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Edmund H. Keifer
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GREEN PLAIN MONTHLY MEETING (FRIENDS).

ORTHODOX

GREEN PLAIN MONTHLY MEETING (HICKSITES).

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SELMA METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

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GREEN PLAIN BAND OF HOPE

AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (SELMA)

     The colored Methodists of Selma organized a society in 1870, by the instrumentality of John Janitor and J. Underwood.  They held occasional preaching at the schoolhouse and other places before building a house of worship.
     A frame house costing $1,000 was built by this society in 1875.  The principal contributors to the building fund were Mrs. Perry Larkins, Mrs, Matlock, Nimrod Gibson, William Nickens, Levi Atkinson, John Scanland and E. Hollingsworth.  At that time, the society numbered thirty members.
     The Pastors who have served the church since its organization have been William Johnson, Edward Taylor, James Ross, Benjamin Combash and John Hammond.  A vigorous Sabbath school is maintained the year round - John McCarrel, Superintendent - and the society promises well for the future.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

     As early as 1830, the agitation of the subject of human slavery stirred up the people of Selma.  Parts of the Quaker and Methodist Churches of the village were particularly bitter in their opposition to any measure that tended to favor the peculiar institution of the States of the South.  This sentiment grew in strength and bitterness as years increased, until both the Methodist Episcopal and the Hicksite Quaker Churches suffered disruption on its account.  But the extremists never faltered.  They were not outlaws; but they recognized no human law which made them tools to capture and carry back to bondage the fugitive human chattel of an inhuman master.  For many years they labored and suffered for those in bonds, as bound with them.  For many years they bowed in Christian love before God, and prayed for an oppressed people.  With an unwavering faith and a tireless energy, they worked in fraternal union for the freedom and enfranchisement of their despised colored brethren, and shared to-

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gether with odium attached to the name of Abolitionist, and, though many of them died before the dawning of the day of jubilee, they left to their descendants a legacy of daring devotion to a cause which redeemed the land from the curse of slavery, though with the atoning blood of many a battle-field.
     For many years preceding the outbreak of the rebellion of 1861, Selma was known as a station of the underground railroad.  This fact was nearly as well known in Kentucky and Canada as in Ohio.  Slaves escaping from their masters in Kentucky were, by a succession of night drives, or by weary nights on foot, brought by parties further south to this point on the route.  Here they waited only long enough to change the manner of travel, or to make some necessary preparation for the remainder of the journey to Canada, and again were off in the direction of Mechanicsburg, Springfield or Marysville.  The agents and employes of the route were well organized; their trips were made on time, their trains seldom collided, and, during many years of active business, no article of freight was ever lost.  The road has gone down for lack of business.  The descendants of Thomas Borton, William Thorne, Isaac Newcomb, Daniel Wilson, Joseph A. Dugdale, Richard Wright and Pressly Thomas have no reason to
blush at the mention of the daring deeds of their heroic fathers in connection with the history of the underground railroad.

SOUTH CHARLESTON.

     The village of South Charleston was founded by Conrad Critz on the 1st day of November, 1815.  The original plat contains eight squares of four lots each, and was surveyed by John T. Stewart.
     The following description of the plat is taken from authentic sources:
     "Surveyed for Conrad Critz the foregoing platted town in Madison County.  Stokes Township, described as follows:  Columbus street runs north, sixty-one degrees east, crossing Chillicothe street at right angles.  Chillicothe street runs south, twenty-nine degrees east.  Given under my had this 1st day of November, A.D. 1815. - John T. Stewart."
     The affidavit of Conrad Critz in acknowledgment of the above was made before John Kelso, a Justice of the Peace of said Stokes Township, and is dated Jan. 18, 1816.
     Charle Paist, Robert Evans, Maddox & Heiskell, Albert Munson and Thomos Norton were early merchants and business men of South Charleston.

     Clement Stickley conducted a tannery on the western suburbs, near the residence of Henry Wilkinson, about 1825.  The early settler remembers a large pond that extended from the present site of the post office to and beyond the Town Hall.  It was a fine place for duck-shooting.  An unpretentious school-house was built near the present residence of Dr. Bamwell.  It was 12x18 feet in size, and constructed after the plea of that day.  Here Christopher Lightfoot dispensed the rudiments of education, and the generation whose footprints have since marked the sands of time conned dull lessons.

     Absalom Mattox, Asbury Houston, K. Brown, John Buzzard, Milt Houston and R. B. McCollum have been the Postmasters.

     The building of the P. C. & St. L. R. R., in 1848, gave new and lasting impetus to the business interest of the then little village, and from that day to the present it has enjoyed a fair share of prosperity.
     Of the old residents in and about the village, and who were connected with its history and early growth, the names of David Vance, John briggs, Nathan Low, James Pringle, Sr., Isaac Davisson, Jesse Ellsworth, Jeremiah Bodkin, Samuel Thomas, Seth Saint John and John McCollum appear as most prominent.
     Population - 1850, 413; 1860, 516 1870, 818; 1880, 933.

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     In December, 1863, the First National Bank of South Charleston was organized.  L. W. Haughey being elected President and Milton Clark Cashier, this institution doing a good business until Mar. 24, 1877, at which date it surrender its charter and continued as a private bank, under the name of the Bank of South Charleston, John Rankin becoming President and Mr. Clark still holding the position of Cashier.  In 1871, a few of the more enterprising moneyed men of the town erected a large, commodious building for a hotel, which is called the Ackley House, in honor of one of the projectors who was most prominent in the movement.  The P. C. & St. L. and Springfield Southern Railroads pass through South Charleston, giving good facilities to shippers.  The town has also a live newspaper—the South Charleston Republican—published by Rice & Vanmetre, which is a newsy sheet, and wields its influence for good.

SOUTH CHARLESTON OFFICIAL DIRECTORY.

MADISON TOWNSHIP OFFICIAL DIRECTORY

SECRET SOCIETIES

     Clark Lodge, No. 166, I. O. O. F., South Charleston -

     South Charleston Encampment, No. 200, I. O. O. F. -

     Fielding Lodge, No. 192, A. F. & A. M., South Charleston - C

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SOUTH CHARLESTON CEMETERY.

     This beautiful place of the dead is situated a short distance from the village, and nearly north.  It was purchased by the Town Council in September, 1855, and is under the care of a Superintendent.  Thelot contains eight acres, and was purchased of T. Mattison and George Murray for $800.  The location is a very desirable one, and the whole is inclosed by a neat and substantial fence.  The lot is platted into lots of convenient size, and the  greater part of the walks and drives is properly graded and graveled, while numerous ornamental trees help to adorn and beautify the place, evincing taste and affection on the part of the living.  Numerous shafts of marble and granite mark the resting-places of the departed of all ages, wile here and there rests the body of one who gave his life that the country might live.  To these, affection has recounted, on marble tablets, how nobly they fought and how heroically they fell; and here, when the joyousness of springtime come to gladden the earth with flowers, the people meet, and, with twining leaves and flowers, bedeck the graves of those upon whose deeds the nation ahs built a proud history.

STATISTICS OF THE SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT OF SOUTH CHARLESTON, IN MADISON TOWNSHIP, CLARK COUNTY, OHIO, FOR THE YEAR ENDING AUGUST 31, 1880.
 

SCHOOL STATISTICS OF MADISON TOWNSHIP, FOR THE YEAR ENDING AUGUST 31, 1880

     Total receipts for the school year, $9,634.97; amount paid teachers for school year, $2,979.15, fuel and contingent expenses, $729.29; other expenses, $1,982; total expenditures, $5,690.44; balance on hand Sept. 1, 1880, $3,944,64.
     Number of subdistricts, 6; houses built during the year, 1; cost, $1,442; member of schoolhouses, 8; total value of school property, $8,000; average wages paid teachers - gentlemen, $45; ladies, $45; rate of school tax (mills), 2.7;

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EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES FURNISHED

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I. N. KITCHEN
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