Braceville Township, Trumbull County

How Braceville Township, Trumbull County began

Braceville Township, established in the 1810s out of the Connecticut Western Reserve and named for land agent Jonathan Brace, is the only township of its name in Ohio and holds two of Trumbull County's more unusual place-name stories. Phalanx, in the township's south, takes its name from the Trumbull Phalanx, a Fourierist utopian socialist community that farmed roughly 2,000 acres and housed about 200 people between 1844 and 1852 before dissolving; Center of the World, at the junction of State Routes 82 and 5, was the ambitious creation of investor Randall Wilmot, who hoped to make it a major regional hub before the railroads chose Warren instead. The township also holds the 1828 John Wesley Mason Gothic Cottage, northwest of the unincorporated village of Braceville itself.

Incorporated 1810s.

Where the name comes from

The township is named after Jonathan Brace, a Connecticut Land Company land agent, in the same pattern that gave neighboring Hubbard its name from an agent and Champion its name from an investor; it is the only Braceville Township in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native village, camp or treaty event specific to Braceville Township is recorded in the sources we reviewed. The township lies within the wider Mahoning-valley region the county's 1882 history describes as Delaware-occupied hunting ground used seasonally by Seneca and Mingo bands through the 1700s, but no source found names a site inside the township's present boundaries.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Seneca, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

Timeline

1. 1810s — Braceville Township is organized out of the Connecticut Western Reserve, named for land agent Jonathan Brace.
2. 1828 — The John Wesley Mason Gothic Cottage is built northwest of Braceville village.
3. 1844 — The Trumbull Phalanx, a Fourierist utopian socialist community, is founded in the township's south, eventually housing about 200 people on up to 2,000 acres with a farm, grist mill, saw mill, oil mill and clothing works.
4. 1848 — The Trumbull Phalanx's first phase ends.
5. 1849 to 1852 — The Trumbull Phalanx operates a second, final phase before dissolving.
6. 1872 to 1902 — A post office operates at Phalanx (Phalanx Mills), the community that grew from the former utopian settlement's site.
7. 1975-11-12 — The John Wesley Mason Gothic Cottage is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
8. 1990 — The census records enough population at the township's Turnpike Interchange area to support a census-designated place, a designation that ends after this census cycle.

Stories

A socialist utopia and a would-be capital, a few miles apart

Braceville Township holds two of Trumbull County's most improbable nineteenth-century stories within a few miles of each other. In the township's south, from 1844 the Trumbull Phalanx put Fourierist socialist theory into practice on roughly 2,000 acres, housing about 200 people who pooled a farm, a grist mill, a saw mill, an oil mill and a clothing works in common -- one of a wave of American Fourierist communities inspired by the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier's writings on cooperative living, and, like nearly all of them, ultimately unsustainable; the community wound down for good by 1852, though a post office at the site, renamed simply Phalanx, kept the name alive until 1902. Not far away, at the junction of what are now State Routes 82 and 5, investor Randall Wilmot planned something almost opposite in spirit: a private commercial hub he confidently named Center of the World, betting his money that the railroads converging on the Mahoning Valley would make his crossroads its economic capital. The railroads chose Warren instead, and Wilmot's ambitiously named settlement never grew past a small unincorporated crossroads community -- so that Braceville Township ended up home to one place named for a vanished socialist commune and another named, with unfulfilled confidence, for the whole world.

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

Every historic place in Trumbull County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Newton Falls City61% of residentsEast Branch Mahoning River
• Warren City24% of residentsMosquito Creek Lake (Mosquito Creek Reservoir)
• Trumbull Co. - Warren Twp13% of residentsMosquito Creek Lake (Mosquito Creek Reservoir)
• Trumbull Co. - Braceville Twp2% of residentsEast Branch Mahoning River

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-08-24: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 6 of 6 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 3 of 3.

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 2026-06-16
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-27

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