Brown Township, Paulding County

How Brown Township, Paulding County began

Brown Township, one of eight townships of that name in Ohio, holds the villages of Melrose in its southwest and Oakwood in its southeast. It also has the best-recorded Native American history in Paulding County: the Ottawa Oquanoxa Reserve, a tract reserved along the Auglaize River by the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs, and the unincorporated community of Charloe, platted in 1840 on that former reserve and named for the Ottawa chief Charloe Peter, whose band remained in the township until forced removal in 1842.

Where the name comes from

Named for Fort Brown, a small stockade built in 1812 at the confluence of the Big and Little Auglaize rivers and held briefly by a detachment of General Harrison's army under Colonel Brown, according to the 1892 Historical Atlas of Paulding County; Henry Howe's 1888 county chapter says only that the township is named from Fort Brown at the junction of the canals.

Before the town

Brown Township has the best-recorded Native American history in Paulding County. The Oquanoxa Reserve (also called Occonnoxee's Reserve, after an early Ottawa chief) was set aside along the Auglaize River here by the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids (Fort Meigs). A 1962 pictorial history of the village of Charloe, compiled by the Antwerp Bee-Argus, records that most of this Ottawa band sold the reserve and moved west around 1820, but that 'a number of straggling groups' remained in the township into the late 1840s under a chief remembered locally as Charloe Peter, until federal policy forced a choice between US citizenship and removal; the band chose removal, and in 1842 left for a new home near the mouth of the Kansas River. The village of Charloe, platted by Benjamin F. Hollister in 1840 directly on the former reserve, took its name from the chief and briefly served as the Paulding County seat (1840-1851) before declining once the county government moved on.

Nations recorded here: Odawa (Ottawa).

• Oquanoxa Reserve (Occonnoxee's Reserve) (treaty) — along the Auglaize River in Brown Township, near the unincorporated community of Charloe, established 1817 by the Treaty of Fort Meigs; largely sold and vacated by about 1820, with a remnant band remaining until 1842 (ia801900.us.archive.org)
• Charloe Peter's band (village site) (village) — on the Auglaize River at the site of present Charloe, remained after the main 1820 land sale until forced removal in 1842 (ia801900.us.archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1812 — The Fort Brown stockade is built at the confluence of the Big and Little Auglaize rivers and occupied briefly by a detachment of Harrison's army under Colonel Brown; the township later takes its name from it.
2. 1817-09-29 — The Treaty of the Maumee Rapids (Fort Meigs) establishes the Oquanoxa Reserve for the Ottawa along the Auglaize River in what becomes Brown Township.
3. 1826 — Christian Shroufe, the first white settler of Brown Township, builds a cabin about a mile south of the later village of Oakwood on the Litchenberg farm.
4. 1830 — Brown Township is organized, the third in the county, with its first election at Fort Brown and about forty-five votes cast; Dr. John Kingery is the first justice of the peace, and Rev. J. J. Hill preaches the first sermon and founds a church near Charloe.
5. 1834 — Pierce Evans builds the first grist mill and saw mill in the township on the Little Auglaize near its mouth, and John D. Carlton teaches the first school in an unoccupied cabin near Charloe.
6. 1840 — Benjamin F. Hollister plats the village of Charloe on the former Oquanoxa Reserve, naming it for Ottawa chief Charloe Peter; Charloe becomes the Paulding County seat the same year.
7. 1841 — C. B. West organizes the Charloe Union Sunday school, the oldest in Paulding County; it has had only three regular superintendents in fifty years.
8. 1842 — Chief Charloe Peter's remaining Ottawa band is removed to a new home near the mouth of the Kansas River, the last documented Native residents of Paulding County.
9. 1851 — The county seat leaves Charloe for the new village of Paulding, and Charloe's post office, opened in 1840, continues on its own into the early twentieth century.
10. 1852 — Dwight G. Blakeslee erects the first steam saw mill in the township and the county at Charloe; it is still in use in 1892 with its old upright saw.
11. 1858 — Large blocks of buff magnesian limestone from the Noble quarry south of Charloe are sawn at the Canal Port stone mill and exported until about 1863.
12. 1872-09-17 — William C. Hedges lays out Oakwood as a village on the Auglaize; Melrose, laid out about 1854 by Gibson & Pennington, begins to grow after the Nickel Plate opens in 1881.
13. 1890 — Melrose village, in the township's southwest, records a population of 430, its nineteenth-century peak.
14. 1892 — Brown Township has ten school buildings, seven churches and post offices at Charloe, Oakwood and Melrose, and Melrose's packet 'Willie' still runs on the canal to Defiance and Delphos; Canal Port, St. Andrews and Newbergh have been absorbed.
15. 1905 — Charloe's post office closes.

Stories

The County Seat That Left With the Chief

When the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs set aside the Oquanoxa Reserve for a band of Ottawa along the Auglaize River, the land was meant to stay in Native hands. It did not stay long: by about 1820, according to a 1962 local pictorial history, most of the band had sold the reserve and moved west, though a remnant group stayed on under a chief remembered locally as Charloe Peter. In 1840, with the reserve's main tract now open, Benjamin F. Hollister platted a village directly on the old reservation ground and named it Charloe, in the chief's honor -- even as the chief and his remaining followers were still living nearby. That same year Charloe became the Paulding County seat, a status it held for roughly a decade. In 1851 the seat moved to the more centrally located village of Paulding. Chief Charloe Peter's own band had already been forced out nine years earlier, in 1842, sent west to a new reserve near the mouth of the Kansas River under a federal policy that gave Ohio's last scattered Native residents a choice between adopting US citizenship or leaving. Charloe survives today as an unincorporated community; its post office closed in 1905.

The Royal Oak Grocery

Newbergh was laid out on May 7, 1851 by David Shriver and Leonard Kimmel in Brown Township, but the place was known by another name. In 1850 A. L. Darling opened the first business there, a small grocery kept in the front room of the cabin in which he lived. On a small white oak in front of the house he nailed a piece of a store box and traced on it in rude charcoal characters the words 'Royal Oak Grocery'. The sign gave the place its name, and the Royal Oak post office served the neighborhood for years until Newbergh, St. Andrews and Canal Port were absorbed by Melrose when the Nickel Plate arrived in 1881.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · ia801900.us.archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Oakwood Village80% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Paulding Village19% of residentsPaulding Reservoir, fed by Flat Rock Creek
• Continental Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-18: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 1 of 1 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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-01-13

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