Founding year: Wikidata; Wikipedia’s history section gives the same year. First post office: 1812. Name: Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Mount Pleasant Township’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Mount Pleasant Township is more historic than 96% of U.S. towns. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its age lowest.
A+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Mount Pleasant Township’s overall grade.
Ohio towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Ohio town has 2.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Mount Pleasant Township’s 66.5 sits above most of its state (91% of Ohio towns have fewer) while its 15 historic buildings outnumber those of 78% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from A to A+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±10.8 points). Two sources give 1803.
Founding year: Wikidata (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Mount Pleasant Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Mount Pleasant was laid out in 1803. It was named for its scenic landscape. An early variant name was Jesse-Bobtown. In 1802 Nathan Updegraff of the Pennsylvanian Op den Graeff family settled north in Mount Pleasant. His family belonged to the 19th-century Quaker families of Ohio and produced a lot of Quaker Ministers and elders.
In 1817, Quaker Charles Osborn established The Philanthropist, the first newspaper in the country advocating the abolition of slavery, in Mount Pleasant. The abolitionist James Birney would later adopt the name The Philanthropist for his anti-slavery newspaper, published in Cincinnati and distributed in New Richmond, Ohio beginning in 1836.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Mount Pleasant Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1905St Clairsville sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Mount Pleasant Township.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewBenjamin Stanton-ppmsca.26739, 1857
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Mount Pleasant Township’s page.
In 1803, according to Wikidata and Wikipedia’s history of the town. Mount Pleasant Township’s post office opened in 1812, and the census of 1810 counted 246 people here.
How does Mount Pleasant Township rank for history?
Mount Pleasant Township is more historic than 96% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Mount Pleasant Township?
39% of Mount Pleasant Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±10.8 points), against a typical 15% for an Ohio town; the median home was built in 1949.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (7), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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