I’ve been getting more and more interested in the historical geography of West Dayton.  Usually thought as developing later (and it mostly did) than the Oregon and points east, it actually has one of the oldest plats in the city limits, outside of the original Dayton town plat. 

 

So,  look at the first of West Dayton,  Dayton’s lost country village of Greencastle.

 

Greencastle predates the canal, predates west Third Street, predates the Oregon, and is one of the older plats in Montgomery County, being platted in 1826. 

 

Though west of Dayton town this was not a bridgehead settlement,  as the plat was actually somewhat removed from the river crossing, as I suspect bottom land and flooding might have made a close-in site undesirable.  One notes the town site was on the rise out of the bottom lands, just east of the junction of the Eaton and Germantown Roads.  So this would have been on the main route into Dayton from the west.

 

 

One can also see how a diagonal lane (my assumption) shoots off to cross Wolf Creek and then gain the covered bridge at “Dayton View” as an alternate to fording the Great Miami.  This diagonal lane would be the ancestor of Williams Street or Broadway.

 

A close up of the ford area, where one can see how the Cincinnati and Germantown roads meet the river and then cross to connect with what became Perry Street (Perry’s angle was due to it making a direct route to the ford, off the original Dayton town plat.

 

 

Greencastle first appears in this early 1850s map of the city.  Greencastle would have been over 20 years old by then, and one can see a note of a “Wohls Tavern” in the village, western edge. 

 

 

Greencastle was a “stringtown” plat, only one block wide and strung out along a road or turnpike.  For comparison here are plat maps of three other stringtown plats in Montgomery County.  Greencastle’s’ block layout was closest to Chambersburg

 

 

This 1875 image of Beavertown (another stringtown) gives an impression of what these places looked like.  Looking at the structures in a detailed 1869 map downthread and comparing with this pic,  one can see some buildings here that might have been found in Greencastle.

 

 

The 1869 Titus atlas has a very good detail map of Greencastle showing the original town plat plus additional platting activity of the 1840s.  One can see property lines, structures, and a slaughterhouse.  Germantown Road is labeled “Main Street” while in the village.

 

 

Redrawing the plat (the bold red boxes are the 1826 plat) one can make some guesses as to out lots reached by little lanes between the lots, the location of Wahl’s Tavern of the 1850s, a slaughter house on a back lot (perhaps a good place to put a small stockyard?).  The early west side did have some slaughter houses and (after 1879) a stockyard.  Perhaps this was a precursor of that industry?

 

 

One can see that there might have been an initial land purchase and that the village was platted off it

 

Some speculation on the form of the plat and how it was tweaked to local conditions, mainly roads and adjacent platting activity.

 

 

 

By 1875 not too much has changed, but one can see some town lots being platted off the country lane heading south of the village, an extension of Broadway, and the extension of Summit south, vacating a town lot.

 

 

By 1885 Greencastle still appears as somewhat distinctive street plan off of Germantown, as development hasn’t extended too much beyond it yet, to the south.  It’s unknown how long this little community kept its identity as distinct place, before it was subsumed into “the West Side”.

 

 

The 1898 Sanborn gives better detail, showing houses on site.  Difficult to say if these are the same shown on the 1869 map.  One can still see some remnant of the early platting, such as the little side lanes, and the cross street, renamed “Greencastle Street” here. Yet the large town lots have been re-subdivided in most cases.  The original lot and lane pattern is shown in red

 

 

A few of these might be still on site, the houses on the lower left of the map.

 

Today the place is all but gone, destroyed by freeway construction and ongoing demolitions.  There are still a few buildings on site, though I suspect (based on the architectural styles) non are original.

 

 

Greencastle today

 

 

 

Playing around with photomontage at the intersection of Broadway and Germantown, with the US 35 freeway in the background.

 

 

 

Some of the last houses.

 

 

Germantown carry out/drive through, with appropriately Germanic faux half-timbering

 

 

Squint your eyes with these two and use your imagination to see Greencastle of yore, out in the country…..…

 

Houses (not originals) on the village plat coming up the rise out of the bottom lands, with open farm country (and the fork in the road to Eaton) just beyond

 

 

Looking down a side lane to the edge of town into the open country and farms south of the village (one can see where the side lane would have ended and future platting would have followed a N-S orientation.  Yellow dashed line marks the edge of the Greencastle plat.

 

 

Not known is the connection between Greencastle the village and Greencastle Cemetery and Miami Chapel UB church and church cemetery out in today’s Edgemont.  The little lane heading south of the Greencastle on the older maps leads to Miami Chapel and cemetery, so perhaps this is where the villagers buried their dead, and went to church (this is just speculation on my part, though).

 

 

Quite a journey of the mind that you pulled together, Jeffrey. As always, top shelf stuff. Very intriguing. It makes me wish that some local public TV station would put together a series about lost Miami Valley crossroads and villages.

 

    Thanks again for posting.

 

    It reminds me of another town that I happened to find. Hardensburg was an early town on the banks of the Great Miami River. Not only did it get absorbed by the nearby City of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and also nearly obliterated by highways, but it is also no longer on the river because the river shifted away. Today a few remnants of streets is all that's left of Hardensburg.

 

    In that Beavertown image I see people playing croquet!

^

LOL, yes I see that, far left of the pix! 

 

incidentally Beaverton is sort of "lost" too as combination of suburban development and widening of Wilmington Pike has pretty much obliterated it.  I think there are a few others like that, just gone for whatever reason.  One place that has been surrounded by suburbia but is still has a lot of old stuff is Riverside, formerly Harshmanville. 

 

There is also Alexandersville, the "Alex" of Alex-Bell Road.

 

 

 

 

 

awesome!

Interesting indeed. I've always found these "leapfrog" plats interesting.

 

A mile or so west of Middletown in Madison Township is a never built subdivision called Rose Hill. The plat was formally recorded and the lots and dedicated street r-o-w still remains today, but no roads, utilities, or development were ever brought to the property and a local hunting club owns all the parcels.

 

The numbered streets and street stubs of the plat make me believe it was envisioned that Middletown would extensively develop on the west side of the Great Miami, which it has yet to cross.

 

This "ghost town" thing that can still be readily observed is not unknown. I ran across the following. It is a plat map of the now-defunct village of Fort Ancient, Ohio, which is now completely subsumed by the Ft Ancient State Memorial land and Morgan's Canoe business. (This is a capture from the Warren County Auditor's Office property search.) It's showing streets and lots that can't possibly be discerned today.

 

Cool thanks!