Auburn Township, Crawford County

How Auburn Township, Crawford County began

Auburn Township, in the northeastern corner of Crawford County, lies on land the 1912 county history says the Indians ceded to the United States in 1805; Maxfield Ludlow surveyed it in 1807, finding the north a vast, cranberry-bearing swamp. The hunters John Pettigon and Jedediah Morehead built cabins about 1814-15 and William Green, from Massachusetts, became the first farming settler in December 1816, followed by New England and New York veterans of the War of 1812. It was the western half of Plymouth Township, Richland County, until the Richland commissioners made it a township on April 3, 1820, and it took the name Auburn from Auburn, New York, at the suggestion of two brothers. Its places are Waynesburg (platted 1833 and abandoned), Mechanicsburg, North Auburn and Tiro, the village that has never had a saloon. The township had 738 residents in 2020.

Settled 1814-15 (John Pettigon and Jedediah Morehead, hunters); 1815-16 (William Green, first farming settler), platted Waynesburg, spring 1833 (filed May 16, 1833); Tiro, 1874, incorporated April 3, 1820 (created by the Richland County commissioners); Tiro incorporated 1890, by Richland County commissioners; named for Auburn, New York at the suggestion of Palmer and Daniel Hulse.

Where the name comes from

Named for Auburn, New York, at the suggestion of brothers Palmer and Daniel Hulse, who had formerly lived in that New York township and proposed the name when Crawford County settlers met to choose one for the new township.

Before the town

The 1912 county history says Auburn Township was part of the land ceded by the Indians to the United States in 1805, and that when the first settlers came 'there were many Indians in the neighborhood, the Wyandots and Delawares being the principal tribes,' with Senecas and others; they gathered cranberries in the northern swamp, hunted the abundant game, and sold venison for whiskey. The township's best-documented Native site is a burial ground on Enoch Baker's farm in the northwest, on a small mound: digging a well in 1833, Baker found four skeletons side by side, two with heads east and two west, eighteen inches down; nine more were found together digging a cellar in 1866, and the 1881 history counts as many as thirty on the farm. No weapons, tools or clothing were found, and the bones crumbled in the air; one skeleton was very large, its jaw wide enough to fit over an ordinary man's and its upper arm four inches longer than average. The 1881 history judged the burials to have been made long before the pioneers came, while the 1912 history calls the mound 'once a large Indian burying-ground'; neither names a culture, and no modern examination was found.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Seneca.

• Baker farm burial mound (burial) — Enoch Baker's farm, on a mound in northwestern Auburn Township near Waynesburg, undated; found 1833-1881 (skeletons without grave goods); the 1881 history says before the pioneers (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1805 — The township is part of the land the 1912 county history says was ceded by the Indians to the United States in this year.
2. 1807 — Maxfield Ludlow surveys the township, noting that he could not get a drink of water for 48 hours in the south, and calling the northern swamp the most 'hedeous' land of his seven years' survey work, much of it two feet under water.
3. 1814 — The hunters and trappers John Pettigon (1814) and Jedediah Morehead (about 1815) build cabins; their traps were still being unearthed in roadwork decades later.
4. 1815-1816 — William Green, a native of Massachusetts, enters 160 acres on Section 27 in 1815, builds a log cabin and moves his family from Licking County on December 16, 1816, becoming the first farming settler; later he owned a full section.
5. April 3, 1820 — The Richland County commissioners create Auburn Township from the west half of Plymouth Township, naming it for Auburn, New York at the suggestion of the Hulse brothers, who cast the deciding votes.
6. April 2, 1821 — The first township election is held at the house of Palmer Hulse; Jacob Coykendall is clerk and justice, and he marries Harvey Hoadley and Elizabeth Blair that year.
7. 1821 — The first schoolhouse, of round logs, is raised in a day on Robert Cook's farm and taught that winter by John Talford to about fifteen pupils.
8. December 12, 1825 — Rodolphus Morse is appointed the first postmaster, with the office in his cabin (called both Tiro and Auburn); the 1881 history dates the township's first post office 'as early as 1834, and perhaps earlier.'
9. 1827 — David Cummins builds the township's first sawmill, on Honey Creek near the township center.
10. 1833 — Enoch Baker digs a well on his farm and finds four skeletons; in the spring John Stewart plats Waynesburg, named for Gen. Anthony Wayne, with 26 lots for Aaron Cory and Richard Millar, filed May 16; lots sell at auction for $8 to $10.
11. January 3, 1835 — David C. Morrow succeeds Morse as postmaster, holding the office for twenty-six years.
12. 1840 — The recluse Andrew Varnica dies, leaving $2,200 in gold hidden in a gate post; a Baptist congregation builds a frame church on Section 16.
13. July 13, 1848 — The post office Wellersburg opens at Waynesburg with James K. Davis as postmaster; it is discontinued July 8, 1877.
14. about 1845-1850 — Mechanics settle half a mile north of the later Tiro at a crossing of two roads, forming the unplatted hamlet of Mechanicsburg, with blacksmiths, a cabinetmaker, a cooper and a grist mill.
15. 1866 — Nine more skeletons are found together while digging a cellar on the Baker farm.
16. 1872 — J. and B. S. Van Tilburg open the first store at the new Mansfield, Coldwater & Lake Michigan Railroad station, called De Kalb, where J. D. Brown has laid out 40 lots; the Tiro post office is moved there on January 22, 1874.
17. 1879 — St. Mary's Catholic Church is begun at North Auburn; the Pittsburgh, Akron & Western later passes it, and the North Auburn post office opens January 17, 1891.
18. 1890 — Tiro is incorporated as a village; its first ordinance prohibits ale, beer and porter houses, and in 1912 it is the only village in the county where saloons never existed.
19. 1910 — Tiro has 321 residents (293 in 1900).
20. 2020 — The census counts 738 residents in the township.

Stories

The hermit and his buried gold

Among Auburn Township's earliest residents were two unmarried recluses, a German immigrant named Varnica and a Yale-educated man named Wadsworth, who lived alone in caves they dug into embankments rather than in cabins. Varnica, believed by neighbors to have once been an officer in a European army, possibly under Napoleon, spoke almost no English, dressed in rags, and shunned everyone but his dogs, yet was known to have money hidden away. When he died in 1840, his will left his land and savings to a young man named James Wilson who had lived with him, with instructions to give the remainder to poor and friendless women; the will also revealed that $2,200 in gold had been hidden inside a bored-out gate post, plugged with a wooden pin cut to match. Wadsworth, a Yale graduate who had apparently once trained for the ministry, lived similarly alone, carrying his produce to market on his back though bent nearly double, and refusing his wealthy Boston relatives' repeated attempts to bring him back east; he died around 1838, and his property passed to those same relatives. Neither man's history before Ohio, nor the sorrow that seemed to weigh on Varnica for life, was ever explained to the neighbors who buried them.

The bones under the well

In 1833 the early settler Enoch Baker dug a well on the small rise of ground where his house stood, in the northwest of Auburn Township. About eighteen inches down he found four human skeletons laid side by side, two with their heads to the east and two to the west; no weapons, tools or clothing lay with them, and the bones crumbled to dust when exposed to the air. More turned up: nine together in a cellar in 1866, and by the early 1880s as many as thirty in all (the 1912 history counts fifteen found after the first four), buried within a foot or two of the surface. One was strikingly large, its jawbone wide enough to pass over an ordinary man's and its upper arm four inches longer than average, with a corresponding thickness. The 1881 county historians concluded that the people buried there had died many years before the pioneers came, and the 1912 history called the mound once a large Indian burying-ground. Baker kept farming it, and spent more than $1,000 of his own to cut Honey Creek a straight channel half a mile east of his house, since the water had stood around the mound for half of each year.

Tiro, the village without a saloon

Tiro grew up at the railroad station the Mansfield, Coldwater & Lake Michigan built in the 1870s, first called De Kalb, on land of J. D. Brown, who had forty lots surveyed that were promptly sold. By 1890 the village was incorporated, and its first council, led by Charles McConnell as mayor, borrowed $300 from Miss Viola Chapman at six percent, every councilman signing the note. Its first ordinance, introduced by John O. Davis, prohibited ale, beer and porter houses and every place selling intoxicating liquor at retail. The 1912 county history called Tiro the only village in the county where saloons had never existed, and told of a hoax played by village wags, who posted notices of a Sunday football game between two neighboring towns; the whole town turned out in protest, the mayor 'looked blue,' and no teams came. Wikipedia notes that the village now has a spring festival run by its tavern.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Shelby City77% of residentsCity reservoirs (Nos. 2 & 3) fed by Black Fork Mohican River/Marsh Run
• Plymouth Village23% of residentsWest Branch Huron River, stored in Willard's upground reservoir

High-hazard dams (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 1 of 1 passed.

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, 2021 to 2023, released 2024-12-19

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