Roseville, OH

Roseville began as New Milford, the village Ezekiel Rose laid out in 1812 beside Moxahala Creek. A sawmill followed, the post office changed the name to Roseville around 1830, and pottery soon became the local signature. William Lenhart opened a pottery in 1838; by 1866, nine potteries were operating in or near the village, producing stoneware. The creek valley and the old mill-and-pottery pattern still define the village's two-county location in Muskingum and Perry counties.

Roseville and neighboring Crooksville have shared the Crooksville-Roseville Pottery Festival since 1966, alternating the host park each year and opening with a plate-breaking ceremony. The festival's proceeds support the Clay Center of Ohio, keeping the pottery connection active beyond the old factory sites. Roseville also has a branch of the Muskingum County Library System and municipal departments on Main Street, while Moxahala Creek remains the geographic line through town. This is a place where the names on the map—Roseville, Crooksville, Potter's Alley, Moxahala—still point back to the same clay-and-creek economy.