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From: "Linda Boorom" <>
Subject: [OHHAMILT] Harrison Twp., Hamilton Co. OH
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 06:49:04 -0500


HARRISON TOWNSHIP, HAMILTON CO., OH
from "History of Hamilton County Ohio" compiled by Henry A. Ford, A. M. and Mrs.
Kate B. Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881

page 312
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION
This township had its origin in the manifest need of a new municipality
for the
convenience of the increasing population in the northwestern part of the county,
which in
1853 caused the erection by the county commissioners of Harrison from Crosby and
Whitewater townships. It is the northernmost township of the county. Its
boundary lines
are wholly artificial, and begin on the dry fork of Whitewater, at the southeast
quarter of
section thirty-three, in range one, township three; thence westward three miles
to the
county and State line; thence north six miles to the Butler county line; thence
east three
miles to the northeast corner of section four; thence south to the place of
beginning.
Dearborn County, Indiana lies next to the westward; Butler county on the north;
four
miles of Crosby and two miles of Whitewater townships on the east; and
Whitewater
township on the south.

The only 'place' listed in Ford's History as in Harrison Twp. is on page 318:
HARRISON VILLAGE
This was the first town to be laid out in Hamilton County west of the Great
Miami,
except the early extinct Crosby, on the banks of that stream. Its recorded plat
is dated Dec
8, 1813, and is laid out that year by Jonas Crane, at the southeast corner of
section
eighteen and the northwest of section nineteen, just halfway across the present
township
of Harrison, on its extreme west line. A small part of it extends into Indiana.
The village is
described in the State Gazetteer of Ohio, in 1821, as on the Whitewater river,
twenty four
miles northwest of Cincinnati, laid off on the State line, with the main north
and south
street on that line, and half the village on each side. The post office, we
believe, has always
been kept on the Ohio side, but the railway station is a little way beyond the
line, in
Hoosierdom.
Twenty years later, in the state Gazetteer of 1841, Harrison is noted as
containing about
three hundred inhabitants, with three churches, four stores, two taverns, two
groceries,
two physicians, three clergymen, one apothecary's shop, sixteen mechanics'
shops, one
flouring mill, one carding machine, and one hundred dwellings. One-third of the
inhabitants then resided on the Indiana side. "The line of the Whitewater canal
passes
through the town, and is now in progress."
The village has had quite satisfactory growth, considering that it has no
special
advantages of position. In 1830 it had but one hundred and seventy three
inhabitants. In
1850, under the stimulus of the Whitewater canal and the general growth of the
country,
its population had advanced to nine hundred and forty; in 1860 to one thousand
three
hundred and forty three; and in 1870, to one thousand four hundred and
seventeen, of
course all in Hamilton County. Last year (1880) the census found one thousand
five
hundred and fifty inhabitants within its limits, on the Ohio side.
Mr. William F. Converse was the first mayor of the village. Among other mayors
have been Benjamin Bookwalter, 1866-8; and A. E. West, 1873-4.
In the years 1856-7 a large brick edifice was put up near Harrison for the
purposes
of a private academy, called the institute. The expense of its erection and
equipment was
borne mainly by Mr. George Oyler, whose son G. W. Oyler, then a recent graduate
of the
Farmer's college, at College Hill, was its first principal, and has since become
a
well-known teacher in the County.
The St. John's Catholic church, ministered to by the Rev. Father C. Eggers, is
located here.
In 1872 the Jackson Building and Loan association, for operations at Harrison,
was organized, its certificate of incorporation being filed with the secretary
of state, June
4th of that year.
The pottery operated here was started so long ago as 1829.

submitted by Linda Boorom

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