Amboy Township, Fulton County

How Amboy Township, Fulton County began

Amboy Township occupies Fulton County's northeastern corner along the Michigan line and was organized on June 4, 1837. Its land lay in the strip Michigan claimed until December 1836, so its first settlers of 1833 and 1834 paid taxes at Adrian as residents of Fairfield Township, Lenawee County. Jared Hoadly, who entered land in July 1833 and built a cabin on section 7 in January 1834, is recorded as the first settler; most early families came from central and western New York. The township holds the village of Metamora, which grew around a grist mill of 1845 on Ten Mile Creek and was incorporated in 1893, and the Catholic parish and hamlet of Caragher, south of Metamora. It is the only Amboy Township in Ohio.

Settled 1833, incorporated Organized June 4, 1837, by Jared Hoadly (first settler, 1833).

Where the name comes from

No source consulted explains the origin of the name Amboy for this township; neither Aldrich's 1888 county history nor Reighard's 1920 history gives an account. It is the only Amboy Township in Ohio, and the name recalls Perth Amboy, New Jersey, though that connection is not confirmed for Fulton County's township in any source checked here.

Before the town

No named Native village, mound or trail within Amboy Township is recorded in the sources checked. The county histories describe the township as a favorite hunting ground that Native people kept using for several years after white settlement began in 1833; Mikesell (1905) says they were permitted to make annual hunting visits after the land was ceded. Aldrich (1888) records that Native people lived near the first settlers for trade, helped raise cabins and told the settlers of newcomers for miles around, and that relations were peaceable. None of these sources names the nation. The land lies inside the tract ceded at the 1807 Treaty of Detroit.

Timeline

1. 1807-11-17 — The Treaty of Detroit cedes the tract of northwest Ohio that includes the future township's land.
2. 1833-07 — Jared Hoadly enters land in the future township and moves onto it late that fall; he later plows the first ground broken in Amboy.
3. 1834-01 — Hoadly builds a cabin on section 7, the first cabin of record in the township; the Blain, Steadman, Roop and Gilson families also arrive in 1833 and 1834.
4. 1830s — First settlement is made at Metamora, in the township's northeast, where Frank O'Neil builds the first cabin.
5. 1835-07-31 — Hiram Bartlett moves to Amboy from Port Lawrence, the settlement that became Toledo, where he had lived nine years.
6. 1836-12 — Congress settles the Toledo War boundary and the strip holding Amboy, until then under Fairfield Township, Lenawee County, Michigan Territory, passes to Ohio under Lucas County.
7. 1837-06-04 — Lucas County commissioners meeting at Toledo organize Amboy Township; the first election is held at the house of David Duncan.
8. 1841 — A post office opens at Metamora; it is the township's only post office until about 1880.
9. 1841-03-01 — The township's southern part, town ten south, range four east, is set off to form the new Fulton Township.
10. 1845 — Hezekiah Culver and Delbert Compton build a grist mill at Metamora, the first and only grist mill ever built in the township; Culver sells the first goods there in 1848.
11. 1846-06-02 — Lucas County commissioners meeting at Maumee transfer sections 31 through 36, Amboy's south tier, to Fulton Township, fixing Amboy at about 26 sections.
12. 1850 — A plank road from Toledo is laid over the old Vistula, or territorial, road through the township from east to west (a later recollection dates the plank road to 1852 or 1853); Aldrich dates the township's prosperity from it.
13. 1867 — By the parish's own history, Jacob Berrens donates two acres for a Catholic church and cemetery at Caragher; the frame church raised that year is dedicated in 1869 (Aldrich dates the first church to 1864).
14. 1868 — Benjamin Davis of Royalton opens the Amboy cheese factory on section 7.
15. 1870 — The Methodist Episcopal church at Metamora is built; about the same year German residents led by Peter Kohl build the Reformed Church of Zion on section 9.
16. 1874 — Sarah Blain, mother of pioneers Charles and William Blain, dies in Amboy Township at the age of 104.
17. 1880 — Siney post office is established on the township's western line to serve western Amboy, the township's second post office.
18. 1890-11-08 — The brick church of St. Mary's Assumption at Caragher, 80 by 40 feet with a 90-foot steeple, is dedicated.
19. 1893-06-01 — Metamora is granted corporate powers as a village; James H. Garnsey is its first mayor.
20. 1910-02-01 — The Caragher parochial school opens with fifty children, taught by the Sisters of St. Dominic.
21. 1920 — The preliminary census count gives Amboy Township 1,522 people, Metamora included.

Stories

The sealed bottle of rum

Hiram Bartlett learned the hatter's trade as a young man in New York. At his twenty-first birthday party, where rum stood on the sideboard as was the custom, he filled a bottle with rum, corked and sealed it, and declared before the guests that he would never drink alcohol unless it was needed to save his life, and then only if a council of five doctors so decided, in which case the prescription was to come from that bottle. He came to Amboy from Port Lawrence (Toledo) on July 31, 1835, with four children. He died about 1875 with the bottle unopened, and in 1888 it was still sealed and kept by his son Russell Bartlett, who farmed the Amboy homestead.

Metamora in 1849

Lewis S. Hackett, whose family came from Macedon, New York, in September 1849, wrote in 1912 that the village then held one grocery store about 14 by 20 feet, kept by Hezekiah Culver, with a barrel of whisky in the corner. Culver also owned the saw mill across the road on the creek bank and the land the village stood on, and he was building a larger store that he moved into that winter. In the fall of 1851 he raised a hotel, and soon a blacksmith shop and an ashery followed. The plank road from Toledo to Morenci, built in 1852 or 1853, carried the produce of the country west of Metamora to Toledo and made hotel business good. A printed invitation found in 1913 inside a farmhouse wall announced a ball at Culver's Fulton House in Metamora on October 8, 1858, with Hancock's Quadrille Band and tickets at two dollars.

The parish at Caragher

Catholic families began settling in Amboy Township about 1850, and the first mass in the area was said in 1853 by the Rev. F. Foley in the home of a Mr. Forester, about six miles west of the later church. In 1867, by the parish's own history (Aldrich gives 1864), Jacob Berrens donated two acres for a church and cemetery, and a plain frame church was raised that year but not finished until 1869 for lack of funds. The parish received a resident priest in 1877 and laid the cornerstone of a brick church in 1888; that church was dedicated on November 8, 1890, and enlarged in 1906 to a length of 127 feet. A parochial school opened in the old parish hall on February 1, 1910, and a new brick school was dedicated on June 8, 1916. By 1920 the parish counted 140 families and about 110 pupils.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Swanton Village75% of residentsSwan Creek, stored in Swanton Reservoir
• Delta Village13% of residentsBad Creek, stored in Reservoir No. 2 (feeds Maumee River)
• Arrowhead Lake MHP5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Swanton Meadows5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Toledo City Of3% of residentsLake Erie
• Swancreek Water District0% of residentsLake Erie

Public schools (3)

Private schools (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 8 of 8 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-05-26
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-27

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