Spencer Township Hall in Columbia-Tusculum

Spencer Township was a

civil township A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States that is subordinate to a County (United States), county, most often in the northern and midwestern parts of the country. The term town is used in New England town, Ne ...

in southeastern

Hamilton County, Ohio Hamilton County is located in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 830,639, making it the List of counties in Ohio, third-most populous county in Ohio. The coun ...

. It was established in the early 1840s and annexed to

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

in stages from 1855 to 1909.

Name

Spencer Township was named after Colonel Oliver Spencer, an early resident of Columbia Township. Statewide, other townships named Spencer are located in

Allen Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to: Buildings * Allen Arena, an indoor arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee * Allen Center, a skyscraper complex in downtown Houston, Texas * Allen Fieldhouse, an indoor sports arena on the Univ ...

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

Lucas Lucas or LUCAS may refer to: People * Lucas (surname) * Lucas (given name) Arts and entertainment * Luca Family Singers, or the Lucas, a 19th-century African-American singing group * Lucas, a 1960s Swedish pop group formed by Janne Lucas Perss ...

, and

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

counties.

History

The land that would become Spencer Township was included in the 1794

Symmes Purchase The Symmes Purchase, also known as the Miami Purchase, was an area of land totaling roughly in what is now Hamilton, Butler, and Warren counties of southwestern Ohio, purchased by Judge John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey in 1788 from the Contine ...

. It included Columbia, the first white settlement in the historical

Miami Valley The Miami Valley is the land area surrounding the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio, USA, and includes the Little Miami, Mad, and Stillwater rivers as well. Geographically, it includes Dayton, Springfield, Middletown, Hamilton, and other c ...

, in the present-day

Columbia-Tusculum Columbia-Tusculum is one of the 52 neighborhoods of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1788 and annexed in 1871, it is the city's oldest neighborhood. The population was 1,523 at the 2020 census. History Columbia was founded in 1788 on the Little Mi ...

neighborhood of

. In 1791, the area became part of Columbia Township. In the early 1840s, Spencer Township was carved out of the suburban southwestern portion of Columbia Township, which was otherwise largely rural. On January 1, 1855, the shipbuilding village of Fulton, which had already withdrawn from Spencer Township as Fulton Township, was annexed to Cincinnati following a vote by residents of the village.

Spencer Township Hall The Spencer Township Hall is a historic former government building in the Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. One of Cincinnati's oldest extant public buildings, it has been designated a historic site because of it ...

was built in 1860 to serve as the seat of government as well as the local lodge of the

Independent Order of Odd Fellows The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) is a non-political, non-sectarian international fraternal order of Odd Fellowship. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Wildey in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Evolving from the Odd Fellows, Order ...

. In 1870,

annexed East Walnut Hills, O'Bryonville and Mount Lookout. Cincinnati annexed Columbia and Pendleton (not to be confused with the Cincinnati neighborhood of that name) in 1871 and Tusculum in 1875. As late as 1881,

Linwood Linwood may refer to: Places Many of the place names for Linwood come from the presence of linden trees. Australia * Linwood, South Australia *Linnwood, Guildford, 11-35 Byron Road, Guildford, New South Wales Canada * Linwood, Ontario * Linwood, ...

, East Linwood, Russell's, Turkey Bottom, and part of Red Bank remained within the township. In 1893, Cincinnati annexed Linwood. In August 1909, Cincinnati annexed the southern part of Spencer Township, including Turkey Bottom, on the way to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, which desired the city's police and fire protection after

Coney Island Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...

opened there. The rest of Spencer Township became part of the city in September 1909 and was attached to Cincinnati Township in October 1909.

Geography

At its inception, Spencer Township was bounded by the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

to the south,

and Millcreek Township to the west, Columbia Township to the north, and Anderson Township to the east across the

Little Miami River The Little Miami River () is a Class I tributary of the Ohio River that flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 26, 2011 through five counties in southwestern Ohio ...

. This area today is wholly located within the Cincinnati city limits, corresponding to parts of Evanston, Hyde Park, Mount Lookout,

, and the East End.

Demographics

In June 1880, there were 2,543 residents in Spencer Township, of whom 995 resided in areas annexed to Cincinnati.

References

External links