In 1770, George Washington is believed to have acquired of land from his neighbor John Posey in exchange for forgiveness of debt. Washington was an absentee landlord and treated the property as a land investment. Today, this parcel of land includes what is now known as the Hickory Heights community located in the southwest corner of the township. (Note - no good historian accepts this as true. History shows that Washington's 2813 acres were actually several miles away in what is now Mt. Pleasant Township in Washington County, where there is a village called Hickory, which is perhaps the origin of the confusion.)