Ironton, Ohio, was the dream of 24 iron furnace men and was established in 1849.
Naming: The founding of Ironton, Ohio, is an interesting one. The city was named before the town site was purchased… John Campbell and William D. Kelly gave more time to the paperwork in organizing the new town than did others.
Their office, Campbell, Ellison, and Company at Hanging Rock, was the new company’s headquarters.
The story was told by Charles Campbell, son of the founder, almost 50 years after the town was founded, that his father had several times stated that in naming the new town he wished to include the name “iron” but didn’t want a two-word name like Hanging Rock. They had talked about the iron being sold by the ton, yet they did not combine the two but referred to the new iron town.
It was in February 1901 that George T. Walton wrote from Burden, Kansas, to an Ironton newspaper and gave the following information… “After my father, Thomas Walton, made a topographic survey of the lands above Storms Creek, under the direction of John Campbell, William D. Kelly, and others.
I made a rough plat of grounds, and there was a meeting of the directors of the town company called to meet at the office. I think of Campbell, Ellison & Co., at Hanging Rock… There were present John Campbell, W. D. Kelly, Dr. Briggs, and the other members, and I had a plat that I had drawn… The general plat was accepted, subject to modifications, upon actual measurement of the grounds.
“The naming of the town was then discussed, pro and con, and several names were suggested. … I sat listening and conjuring up names… They wanted a name… one that would suggest the business of the new city to be… I thought, as the original of my family name was Wall-Town, why not write the city Iron Town, abbreviated as my name, to Ironton, Ohio… I wrote the name on a piece of paper and handed it to John Campbell… He jumped up as quickly as thought and said emphatically, “That’s it, George; that is the name — Ironton… Write it on the map, George.”
“No vote was taken, or question put… I suppose right there, at the office of Campbell, Ellison & co., the first time that word was ever written, I wrote it… It must have pleased Mr. Kelly, for, in a few days, he named his new baby boy Ironton Austin Kelly.”
Founding Fathers: The founding of Ironton, Ohio, is often said to be the result of a few dozen men. The 24 men who organized the Ohio Iron & Coal Co. were John Campbell, William Ellison, D. T. Woodrow, John Ellison, James Rodgers, Hiram Campbell, William D. Kelly, John Culbertson, John Peters, Dr. Caleb Briggs, William H. Kelly, Andrew Dempsey, Henry S. Willard, George Steece, Henry Blake, Joseph W. Dempsey, Washington Irwin, James W. Means, James A. Richey, James O. Willard, John E. Clark, Robert B. Hamilton, Smith Ashcraft, and H. C. Rodgers.
Becomes a Town: The town founding of Ironton, Ohio, was created by an act of the State Legislature on March 21, 1851… By this date, the new town was up and going and widely advertised… Section 1 of the act reads:
“Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, that so much of the township of Upper in the county of Lawrence, as is included within the following boundaries, to wit beginning at the lower line of the lands of Jacob Heplar on the Ohio river;
thence with said line northerly to intersect the line of William D. Kelly and Henry Blake;
thence east to a stake forty rods west of said Kelly’s northeast corner; thence north to the top of the river hill;
thence westerly with the meanders of the top of the hill to the south end of the railroad bridge across Storms creek;
thence down Storms creek with the meanders thereof, to the lands of James M. Kelly;
thence with the westerly line of said Kelly’s lands to the Ohio river;
thence up the Ohio river with the southern boundary line of the State of Ohio to the beginning, be, and the same is hereby declared a town corporate and politic, with perpetual succession, under the name and style of the town of Ironton, and as such shall be entitled to all privileges, and be subject to all the restrictions of an act entitles “an act for the regulation of incorporated towns,” passed February 16, 1838, and all such acts amendatory thereto.
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