Barely a year after starting the association, the founders decided to incorporate as a village the area south of Town Street (now Bryden Road).  This would have left the Jeffrey community to fend for itself as each area lacked sufficient population to incorporate separately and both were unwilling to be absorbed by Columbus.  Talk of combining the two groups soon began.

On a day early in the summer of 1908, one hundred and forty-four representatives of the two communities met on the terrace of Mr Jeffrey’s mansion and agreed to unite forces.  There was much disagreement, however, over a name for the proposed village.  The southern contingent proposed the name Pleasantridge while the northern group had other suggestions.

The dispute was resolved when Colonel Lincoln Kilbourne, after searching through some old English surveying books, came upon the name Bexley, a parish near his family’s home in the County of Kent, England.  The name met with almost immediate approval.