Lenape settlements

Lenape settlements are villages and other sites founded by Lenape people, a Native American tribe from the Northeastern Woodlands. Many of these sites are located in Ohio.

Hell Town

Hell Town, Ohio is a village located on Clear Creek, known today as Clear Fork, near the abandoned town of Newville, Ohio.^[1] The site is on a high hill just north of the junction of Clear Creek and the Black Fork of the Mohican River.^[1] The reference to the village sitting on a "high hill" counters many popular misconceptions that the village was in low lying areas that would later be submerged by the daming of the ClearFork River to create Pleasant Hill Lake. Hell Town was located along a "war trail" used by Native Americans in the region, which ran from a point about 30 miles (48 km) south Sandusky, Ohio, north-northeast into the Cuyahoga River valley. This trail was later used by white settlers and is today known as State Route 95. Rerouted in the 1940s, a portion of this old road and war path are buried under Pleasant Hill Lake.^[2]

Helltown—town of the clear water—was situated a mile below Newville, on the Clear Fork of the Mohican, in what is known as the Darling settlement. Helltown was abandoned in 1782, after the massacre of the Moravian Indians at Gnadenhutten and a new village (Greentown) was founded on the Black Fork, where a more favorable site for defense was obtained. Greentown was named for Thomas Green, a white man, who was a Tory, and who after aiding the Mohawks in the Wyoming massacre of 1778 sought retreat and seclusion with the Indians in the west.^[3]

From History of Richland County. By A J. Baughman. CHAPTER XVI. Monroe Township: William Norris, who lives on a 500-acre farm in "Possum Valley" also owns a fine tract of land which was a part of the original Darling tract, at the site of the former Indian village of Helltown, where the first bridge below Newville crosses the Clearfork.^[4]

Mohican Johnstown

Mohican Johnstown was said, by 19th-century historians, to have been located south of Jeromesville, Ohio. However, surveys done in the 1760s (etc), located "Mohican Johnstown" in the vicinity of present-day Mifflin, Ohio. It is uncertain if the earlier "Mohican Johnstown" Indian village had perhaps been later moved to the alternate location; or if instead, local-historians merely misinterpreted the earlier "Johnstown" (on the Black Fork of the Mohican) to be the same location as "Jeromestown" (on the Jerome Fork of the Mohican). By 1808-09 early European-American settlers to the area of what is now Jeromesville in Ashland County, Ohio, on the Jerome Fork of the Mohican River found Delaware people living at the old Mohican village of Johnstown [note: the History of Ashland County (OH) refers to this specific Indian village as being named "Jeromestown" by 1808] (about three-fourths of a mile southwest of the present site of Jeromesville) near which was located the home of Old Captain Pipe. Many stories of the settlers and the remaining Delaware talk of Old Captain Pipe living there until 1812. However, the "Mohican John's town" of the 1760s, was apparently upon the Black Fork of the Mohican River (and probably near present-day Mifflin, Ohio).

The portages leading to and from Mohican Johnstown ["Jeromestown"] also branched off at Mohican Johnstown ["Jeromestown"], passing through Plain township by the “Long Meadow” or perhaps a little south by Mohican John’s Lake in Wayne county, thence across Killbuck some twelve miles south of Wooster where Rogers crossed that stream, and probably Col. Crawford also crossed and encamped near O’ Dell’s (formerly Mohican John’s Lake) on his expedition to the Moravian settlement on Sandusky creek, in Crawford county. There was another trail from Mohican Johnstown ["Jeromestown"] running north-west to Greentown, by or near the site of Goudy’s old mill, to the Quaker springs in Vermillion township; thence southwest over Honey creek to a point about three miles west of Perrysville. This trail, afterwards known as the Old Portage road, was the route of many of the pioneers in Green township. The trail continued in the direction of the site of Lucas to near Mansfield.

From Mohican Johnstown ["Jeromestown"] another trail ran up the Jerome fork, a favorite route of the Mohicans on their hunting excursions on the Black river; and the north part of Ashland county, to the junction of the Catotaway in the eastern part of Montgomery township, where it crossed and passed near the residence of Moses Latta and Burkholder’s mill, thence up the creek past the old Gierhart farm, where resided Catotaway, an old Indian hunter after whom the stream was named. There was another trail passed up in the direction of Vermillion lake and down the Vermillion river. Various other trails generally following the course of some stream branched out to different points.^[5]

Greentown

Greentown was located west of Perrysville, Ohio. It burned down during the War of 1812 in August 1812.

Coshocton

Coshocton was settled in 1778, when Lenape leader, Pipe, and the warlike members of his tribe, departed from the Tuscarawas and relocated on the Walhonding River, about fifteen miles above the present site of Coshocton, Ohio.

Kilbuck

Kilbuck is also known as Bucktown.^[6]

Notes