BERNE TOWNSHIP – Samuel Carpenter designated the forty-seven square mile southeast township as Berne to honor his ancestral home of the Canton of Berne, Switzerland. The township encompasses all of township fourteen, range eighteen, except for the one and one-half sections in the northwest corner that belong to Lancaster, and also includes parts of township thirteen. The Hocking River enters from the northwest and runs south, continuing into Hocking County. The two main tributaries, Pleasant Run and Rush Creek, travel from the north and join the Hocking River before leaving the county; Rush Creek joins south of Sugar Grove. The landscape of Berne Township offers a rough and hilly surface except for the narrow valleys which skirt the streams. The hillsides offer argillaceous soil, while the outcroppings consist of sandstone with a subsistence of gravel.