Histories of Madison County Ohio were written in 1883, 1915 and 1976.  There is also a Wikipedia article about the county’s history. The three written books are available at the Madison County Historical Societyy and the Madison County Genealogical Societyy, both located in London, Ohio. The first two histories are available online. The first two editions were written by subscription. The publisher hired college students who traveled around the county offering the book if you subscribed by paying a fee. You could have information about your family and it would be added to the  book before publishing. The first two are very important for genealogical research. The early histories continued many pages of information common to all Ohio counties published. The 1883 edition finally gets around to saying something about Madison County on page 272. The third history contains many important county images, especially of long-since torn down buildings, schools, businesses, homes and old cemetery images. Well worth the visit. In addition, a very valuable source providing multiple website links for Madison County information is Madison County, Ohio Genealogy • FamilySearch. 

So why this book? The problem with published paper history books are that they are obsolete the day they are published. The 1976 book, although interesting and valuable has no history after 1976. If I were to write a book today called future history of Madison County, it would be a work of fiction. No one can see into the future. Time moves on. This online book can be constantly updated as events occur. It will never be completed. I work on it daily and will continue to do so, adding events and expanding. I plan to leave it to to the Madison County Historical Society in my will, who then can continue the history as long as desires by paying the annual fee for the domain (madisonhist2024.net) and the editing software. I can also allow others to add information by granting them access, making this website a joint venture. Another reason is my love of history, and the desire to leave a legacy, a book that might be used by teachers and those doing historical research or by anyone who wants to know more about the place they live.

At the present time, I am researching newspaper archives since the U.S. Bicentennial and and adding historical information such as disasters, crime, major events, etc. Since this is about the county, I welcome information from anyone who can share stories, photos or other historical information to include.  Please share. My e-mail for this website is music@thepenry.net.