Carlisle Township, Lorain County

How Carlisle Township, Lorain County began

Carlisle Township, surveyed as number five in the seventeenth range, was first settled in 1815-16 by John Bacon of Vermont. Before its 1822 organization, its two halves informally carried different names -- Murrayville in the west, after early settlers of that name, and Berlin (favored by settler Phinehas Johnson for his native town in Connecticut) in the east -- and when residents could not agree, they compromised on 'Carlisle.' The township today wraps around parts of Elyria and Grafton and had 7,124 residents at the 2020 census.

Settled October 1815-early 1816 (John Bacon of Windham County, Vermont, arrives in neighboring Ridgeville in October 1815 and moves to Carlisle, settling on Murray Ridge, in early 1816), incorporated 1822, by John Bacon.

Where the name comes from

Before organization, the township's western portion was informally called Murrayville, after settlers of that name, while Phinehas Johnson and other eastern-portion residents wanted to name it Berlin, after Johnson's native town in Connecticut. Unable to agree on either name, residents compromised on 'Carlisle.'

Before the town

A few Native men, whom the 1879 county history calls Senecas, still made their rendezvous at a place called Indian Hollow in Carlisle Township in the 1830s, riding out after deer and sometimes camping in Lagrange to the south. The county history does not locate Indian Hollow more closely, and no mound or village is recorded. The township sits along the east branch of the Black River, where the Wyandot and Delaware hunted and where James Smith spent the winter of 1755-56.

Nations recorded here: Seneca (Mingo), Wyandot.

• Indian Hollow (rendezvous) (camp) — Carlisle Township, exact location not given, 1830s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. October 1815 — John Bacon, of Windham County, Vermont, arrives by horse team and wagon in neighboring Ridgeville.
2. Early 1816 — Bacon moves to Carlisle and makes the township's first permanent settlement, on what is now called Murray Ridge.
3. Spring 1816 — Abel Farr, Bacon's brother-in-law, follows from Vermont and settles on the north line near the center; a son born to William and Clarissa Bacon Saxton on Murray Ridge is the first child born in the township.
4. April 1819 — Samuel Brooks and family, of Connecticut stock, arrive by ox team after a 600-mile journey and build the first log house in the township's eastern part.
5. November 5, 1819 — Several more families -- Hezekiah Brooks, James Brooks, Phinehas Johnson, Elisha Brooks and Riley Smith, among others -- arrive within weeks of each other and crowd thirty people into Samuel Brooks's log house before building their own homes, founding the settlement later known as La Porte.
6. September 1819 — Hezekiah Brooks, Captain James Brooks and the families of Phinehas Johnson and Riley Smith leave Middletown, Connecticut, and after about six weeks with ox teams reach Elyria and then Carlisle, crowding in with Samuel Brooks until their own homes are ready.
7. 20 October 1819 — Carlisle and Elyria townships, then in Huron County, are organized together as one township under the name Elyria.
8. Spring 1820 — Phinehas Johnson begins keeping a house of entertainment, the beginning of the hotel he opens formally at La Porte about 1830.
9. Fall 1820 — Cornelia Johnson marries Dudley Griswold at her father's house, the township's first marriage, performed by Sherman Minott of Elyria Township.
10. 1820-1821 — Philo Murray and his family settle on the western ridge that bears his name; Salmon Sutliff of Erie County, New York, comes in January 1821.
11. 4 June 1822 — Carlisle is detached from Elyria and organized as its own township, on petition of Obed Gibbs and others, under the compromise name Carlisle.
12. 29 October 1822 — The 'Congregational Church in Carlisle' is constituted by the missionaries Joseph Treat and Alfred Betts, with Hannah Johnson, Samuel and Sophia Brooks and Hezekiah Brooks among the members; it is removed to Elyria and merged into the Presbyterian church there in November 1824.
13. 19 February 1823 — Phinehas Johnson's bond as the township's first justice of the peace is dated.
14. 23 August 1823 — Lucretia Johnson, eighteen, dies; her slab in the La Porte cemetery is the township's earliest marked death.
15. 4 April 1825 — The first recorded township election chooses Lyman J. Frost, Obed Gibbs and Samuel Brooks as trustees; a post office is opened at Johnson's house about the same time.
16. 1830s — Two large stagecoach hotels operate at La Porte, and Murray's Mills in the west has a post office called Murrayville until it closes in the spring of 1853.
17. 2020 — Census records 7,124 residents.

Stories

Thirty people, one log house

Carlisle's eastern settlement grew almost overnight in the fall of 1819. Samuel Brooks and his family had arrived that April by ox team, after a six-hundred-mile journey from Connecticut, and built the area's first log house. On November 5, a wave of relatives and neighbors arrived together: Hezekiah Brooks and his wife and three children, James Brooks (father of Samuel and Hezekiah) with his wife and two more sons, Phinehas Johnson and family, plus Elisha Brooks and Riley Smith and his wife, who had arrived two weeks earlier. All of them moved into Samuel Brooks's cabin at once, for a total of thirty people under one roof, until separate houses could go up. The settlement that grew from that crowded beginning became known as La Porte, and for a time supported a small cluster of mills and workshops before later losing its prominence to Elyria.

Murrayville, Berlin, or Carlisle

When Carlisle was set off from Elyria in 1822, its two halves disagreed about the name. The western settlers around Murray Ridge and Murray's Mills had come to call their end Murrayville, for the Murray family who lived there. In the east, Phinehas Johnson, one of the first two families, wanted Berlin, after his native town in Connecticut, and neither side would give way. The citizens compromised on a third name, Carlisle and the name has stuck. The Murrayville name lived on in the post office at Murray's Mills until it was closed in the spring of 1853.

Indian Hollow and a blazed portrait

By the time the settlers of Lagrange were clearing farms in the late 1820s and 1830s, most Native people had left Lorain County. A few still gathered at Indian Hollow in Carlisle, rode through the woods after deer, and camped for a time in neighboring townships. One hunter, Jeremiah Filley, quarreled with a party of them and escaped only by pointing his rifle at them while they stood away from their own guns. Later he found his full-length portrait blazed on a tree, ringed by figures of Indians aiming at it. The 1879 county history, which tells the story under Lagrange, names Indian Hollow in Carlisle as the party's usual place of meeting and calls them Senecas.

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

Lake Erie, drawn through two separate offshore intakes serving the Lake Road filtration plant The water here

• Elyria Water Department47% of residentsLake Erie
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A36% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Lagrange Village5% of residentsLake Erie
• Grafton Village5% of residentsLake Erie
• Oberlin Water Department3% of residentsWest Branch Black River, via Oberlin Upground Reservoir
• Pheasant Run Association2% of residentsLake Erie
• Amherst City1% of residentsLake Erie (mainly via Elyria)
• Sheffield Village1% of residentsLake Erie
• North Ridgeville City0% of residentsLake Erie (mainly via Avon Lake Regional Water)
• South Amherst Village0% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Private schools (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 2 of 2 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.

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