Attica

How Attica began

Attica, in Venice Township in the southeastern corner of Seneca County, was platted in 1833 and named for Attica, New York, the former home of a pioneer settler, Ezra Gilbert. The cemetery holds the grave of Clara Ayres, one of the first American women to die in the First World War, marked by an Ohio Historical Marker. Wikipedia says the village school district was later consolidated with Republic's into the Seneca East district.

Settled 1829, platted 1833-05-01, incorporated 1850 (first village officers elected April 6, 1850), by brothers William and Samuel Miller, of Pennsylvania, surveyed by David Risdon; Ezra Gilbert had settled and opened a tavern on the spot in 1829.

Where the name comes from

Named for a post office called Attica that pioneer Ezra Gilbert had already established at the site before the town was platted, itself named by Gilbert for Attica, New York, where he had formerly lived.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, trail, or treaty site specific to Attica itself is documented in the sources checked; the village was not platted until 1833.

Timeline

1. 1828-11 — At the petition of Ezra Gilbert, the county commissioners order a road cut diagonally through the future township; surveyor David Risdon locates it, and Gilbert, Johnson Ford and Samuel Halsted underbrush the whole line in six days, creating the cross-roads at which Attica later stands.
2. 1829 — Ezra Gilbert builds a cabin at the crossing and opens a public tavern; Nathan Merriman, from Bucyrus, soon opens a small stock of dry goods and groceries in a log building nearby.
3. 1831 — Henry Speaker builds a saw mill between Caroline and Attica, its power supplied by oxen on a tread-wheel; in 1832 it is converted into the first grist mill and carding mill in the neighborhood.
4. 1832 — The first post office at Attica opens, with tavern keeper Ezra Gilbert as postmaster.
5. 1833-05-01 — William and Samuel Miller, brothers from Pennsylvania, lay out Attica, surveyed by David Risdon, taking the name from the post office Ezra Gilbert had already established there and named for his former home of Attica, New York.
6. 1833-10 — A Presbyterian church is organized in Attica with thirteen members by Revs. E. Conger and E. Judson of Huron Presbytery; John Holmes and J. Ford are ordained its elders.
7. 1836 — Attica already has about twenty dwellings and a population of one hundred; eighteen more dwellings are added by 1840. The same year, Ebenezer and George Metcalf build a steam saw mill on the site of the later Heabler grist mill; it burns down in March 1840, and John and Frederick Steigmeyer erect the next steam saw mill there, later adding a grist mill.
8. 1845 — Theodore Baughman, later a scout in the West and author of 'The Oklahoma Scout', is born in Attica; the family moves to Michigan, where he enlists in the Nineteenth Michigan Infantry in 1863.
9. 1850-04-06 — The first officers of Attica village are elected: John L. LaMoreaux, mayor; Samuel Miller, clerk; William Rininger, treasurer; S. E. Martin, marshal.
10. 1853 — Fire destroys the old buildings on the site of the William Rininger building; in 1856 another fire sweeps away the William Miller Hotel at Main and Tiffin streets, then kept by H. M. Chandler, and the Chandler block is later built on the spot.
11. 1857 — A boy named Ephraim Groves, warming himself in front of the Attica mill's boiler on a winter morning, is fatally scalded when the boiler bursts; he lives a few days afterward but never speaks again before he dies.
12. 1875 — Attica Station is surveyed at the crossing of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Sandusky division of the Pennsylvania railroad; it is first named Detroit, later Siam when a post office opens, and Attica Station once the depot is built.
13. 1876-07-04 — Attica holds a Fourth of July centennial celebration at which H. J. Ford delivers a historical address on the township and village, later printed in the county histories.
14. 1900 — The census counts 694 residents in Attica, up from 663 in 1880.
15. 1918 — Nurse Clara Ayres, one of the first American women to die in World War I, is buried in the Attica cemetery; an Ohio Historical Marker titled 'A Nurse's Sacrifice in the Great War' later commemorates her there.
16. 1970 — Attica's population peaks at 1,005 in the 1970 census; it was 873 in 2020.

Stories

A road cut in six days

In November 1828 Ezra Gilbert petitioned the county commissioners for a road starting at the township line two and a half miles west of the future village and running diagonally south of east to meet the New Haven road near the Huron County line. The petition was granted, and county surveyor David Risdon located the line at once. Gilbert, Johnson Ford and Samuel Halsted then took their axes, carried their dinners into the woods, and underbrushed the whole route in six days, going home each night to a supper of corn bread and crust coffee. When Colonel James Kilbourne's Columbus and Sandusky turnpike was surveyed through the same ground, the two roads crossed where Gilbert opened his tavern in 1829. H. J. Ford told the story at the village's Fourth of July centennial in 1876, calling the two roads the nucleus of the village.

Theodore Baughman, the boy from Attica who became a scout

Theodore Baughman was born in Attica in 1845 and moved with his parents to Michigan. When the Civil War began he went to Coldwater to enlist but was turned away for his age, and in 1863 he joined the Nineteenth Michigan Infantry, which he served with from Resaca to Averysboro. After the war he entered government service as a scout in the West and Southwest and later wrote about his life, including a book titled The Oklahoma Scout. Looking back on his Seneca County boyhood, he wrote that farm work had not suited his notions and that during his army service he ought to have been at school.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Attica Village100% of residentsHoney Creek (via 2 storage reservoirs)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Public libraries (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-30

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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