Canaan Township, Morrow County

How Canaan Township, Morrow County began

Canaan Township, in northwest Morrow County, was organized in 1817 as a much larger township that also took in what are now Tully, Scott and Claridon townships across the line in Marion County; the present boundaries date from 1821. John Rice, Comfort Olds and Abraham Andrews settled beside a prehistoric mound in 1821, and the Merritt brothers founded Denmark the next year. Two mounds in the township, once joined by an embankment, were read by early historians as a fortification. Denmark was the birthplace of railroad financier and U.S. Senator Calvin S. Brice, and the township had 900 residents in 2020.

Settled 1821 (John Rice, Comfort Olds, Abraham G. Andrews), incorporated 1817 (organized as a township; present bounds fixed 1821), by John Rice, Comfort Olds and Abraham G. Andrews.

Where the name comes from

The 1911 county history says tradition credits a Mr. Stewart, a pioneer in the section, with giving the township its name; Wikipedia says only that the name alludes to the biblical land of Canaan, a common choice for Ohio townships.

Before the town

The 1911 county history records that two mounds in Canaan Township were 'formerly connected by an embankment, and were evidently used' as a fortification, and separately that 'there is a mound in Canaan township erected by the Mound Builders'; Abraham Andrews entered land immediately south of that mound in 1821. It gives no precise location, builder culture or excavation. When John Rice reached the township in spring 1821 he found 'the Indians roaming at large'; the settler Grandmother Merritt later told of a squad of Indians who came to her cabin and laid out scalps and tongues of white men on the floor and left without harm. An army trail blazed from Chesterville to Upper Sandusky crossed the township and was in use before roads.

• Canaan Township mound (mound) — Canaan Township, near the land Abraham Andrews entered in 1821 (exact spot not given), prehistoric, builder not stated (archive.org)
• Two mounds joined by an embankment (earthwork) — Canaan Township, Morrow County (precise location not given), prehistoric, undated (archive.org)
• Army trail, Chesterville to Upper Sandusky (trail) — through Canaan Township, pre-1820s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. Prehistoric — Mound builders raise a mound in the township and two other mounds joined by an embankment, which the county historian reads as a fortification.
2. 1821 — John Rice arrives from Fairfield County in spring, finding an unbroken forest, a swamp and the Indians roaming at large, and only two settlers, Comfort Olds and Abraham G. Andrews; he buys Andrews's claim beside the mound and moves his family in August after a four-day journey.
3. 1821 — The present Canaan Township takes its boundaries; it had originally covered what are now Canaan in Morrow County and Tully, Scott and Claridon townships in Marion County. Nathan Arnold and Asa Gordon also build cabins this year.
4. 1822 — Matthew and Thomas Merritt settle in the center of the township and call the place Denmark; its post office was named Merritt's.
5. 1824 — The first township election chooses justices, trustees and other officers, with only ten voters, some of whom had to hold two offices.
6. 1825 — Rev. William Matthews forms a Presbyterian society at Denmark, and William Shaffer builds the first water-powered sawmill about this time on the Middle Fork of the Whetstone.
7. 1833 — Rev. James Wilson organizes a five-member Methodist class at North Canaan with Jacob Geyer as leader; its log church comes in 1846 and a frame church dedicated in the fall of 1861 still stood in 1911.
8. 1845 — Calvin S. Brice, later a railroad financier and U.S. Senator for Ohio, is born September 17 at Denmark.
9. 1849 — The Methodist Episcopal church at Denmark is organized with Rev. John Orr as pastor; its building goes up the next year, in the Iberia circuit.
10. 1891 — Brice takes his seat as U.S. Senator from Ohio, serving until March 1897; his birthplace in Denmark burned shortly before 1911.
11. 1911 — Denmark has fewer than fifty people and a general store, no post office (it is served by rural free delivery); Climax, on the Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad in the northeast, has about a hundred inhabitants, a United Brethren church, a town hall and a post office.
12. 2020 — The township's population is 900; it has no incorporated municipality.

Stories

A fortification remembered only in a paragraph

The county history published in 1911 says that in Canaan Township there are two mounds that were 'formerly connected by an embankment, and were evidently used' as a fortification, and adds elsewhere that the township holds a mound raised by the Mound Builders, near which Abraham Andrews entered land in 1821. That is the whole record: no builder is named, no place beyond 'Canaan township' is given, and no excavation is reported. The historian only reflects that prehistoric mounds 'speak of bygone ages, of people over whom time has spread its pall of silence'.

Friends in need on the Whetstone

John Rice came to Canaan Township from Fairfield County in the spring of 1821 and found the forest unbroken and only two neighbors, Comfort Olds and Abraham Andrews. Led to Olds by the sound of his ax, he bought Andrews out, built a cabin and brought his wife and three small children in August on a four-day journey. Olds was very poor, and Rice shared the supplies he had brought. Then came the sickly year: squirrels stole the corn crop, and corn was a dollar a bushel. By then Olds had moved to the plains in Marion County and built a horse mill. When Rice went to him for two bushels, Olds would take no pay, because Rice had been a friend in need.

Denmark's Senator

Calvin Stewart Brice was born September 17, 1845 at Denmark, then a crossroads of a few houses founded by the Merritt brothers in 1822. He went into the law and then into railroads, helping rescue a Toledo coal-fields line in 1871, building the Nickel Plate Road in 1882 and becoming president of the Lake Erie and Western in 1887. The Democrats sent him to the U.S. Senate from 1891 to 1897. The county history says the house in which he was born, near the center of the village, burned a few months before the book was written, leaving only ashes. He died in New York on December 15, 1898, aged 53.

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

Del-Co's East Knox wellfield at Bryant and Lucerne Rds, Wayne Twp, about 5 miles WSW of Fredericktown The water here

• Del-co Water Company, Inc.93% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells
• Aqua Ohio - Marion7% of residentsScioto River and Little Scioto River intakes, blended with local groundwater wells

Bridges rated poor (3)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-01-01: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-18

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