Carryall Township, Paulding County

How Carryall Township, Paulding County began

Carryall Township, in the northwest corner of Paulding County, is the only township of its name in Ohio and contains the village of Antwerp in its south. Henry Howe, writing in 1888, recorded that the name comes from the resemblance of a rock in the river to a French carryall, or sleigh. Carryall was one of only four Paulding County townships already organized by 1842, and its most distinctive surviving landmark is an abandoned stretch of the Wabash and Erie Canal in its southeast, a physical remnant of the waterway that once ran the length of the county and that county residents dynamited apart at the nearby Six Mile Reservoir in 1887 or 1888 (sources differ). Its first settler, David Applegate, built a cabin in 1827, and the township was organized in 1829, the second in the present county.

Where the name comes from

Named, per Henry Howe's 1888 Paulding County chapter, "from the resemblance of a rock in the river to a French carryall or sleigh." Howe attributes this account to Judge A. S. Latty, an 1837 settler he interviewed at Paulding village in 1886, who also named Carryall as one of only four Paulding County townships already organized by 1842 (with Auglaize, Brown, and Crane).

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty site specific to Carryall Township is recorded. The county's Native history includes the Ottawa Oquanoxa Reserve, which lay to the east in present Brown Township, well outside Carryall Township's boundaries.

Nations recorded here: Odawa (Ottawa).

Timeline

1. 1827 — James Hinton settles in the township as a squatter in the spring; in the autumn David Applegate builds the first log cabin and becomes the first actual settler.
2. 1828 — Brasier Campbell, William Banks, Reason V. Spurrier, Thomas Runyan, Robert Murphy Sr., Zachariah Graves, Dennison Hughes and Samuel Holton follow Applegate into the township.
3. 1829 — Carryall Township is organized, the second in the present county; the first election is held in a log cabin half a mile north of present Antwerp with twelve votes cast, and Reason V. Spurrier is elected treasurer.
4. 1833 — William Roberts teaches the first school in the township, a select school of about fifteen pupils in a log cabin on the north bank of the Maumee about two miles northeast of Antwerp.
5. 1841 — Antwerp, in the township's south, is founded on the Wabash and Erie Canal.
6. 1842 — Carryall is one of only four Paulding County townships already organized, alongside Auglaize, Brown, and Crane; most of the rest of the county, including neighboring Harrison, Benton, and Latty townships, has no organized government yet.
7. 1847-09-20 — A third church organization takes place near McCormick's Corners, after Methodist and United Brethren societies had been formed earlier.
8. 1850 — John Lincoln and Henry A. Brown organize the first Sunday school in the township.
9. 1854 — Alexander Comparet erects the first saw mill in the township, run by steam.
10. 1872 — Peter Snook and James W. Johnson build the first and only flouring mill in the township, in Antwerp.
11. 1887-04-25 — Several hundred Paulding County residents dynamite and dig apart the Six Mile Reservoir east of Antwerp, ending the Wabash and Erie Canal era; an abandoned stretch of the canal survives today in the township's southeast. One account dates the raid to the night of April 25, 1887, another to April 25, 1888.
12. 1888 — Henry Howe's fuller account: about 200 men captured the reservoir's guards (who had been posted there since a previous attempt at destruction), dynamited two locks and the lower bulkhead, burned the gatekeeper's building, and spent the night cutting the dikes by hand with pick and spade. Ohio Governor Joseph B. Foraker proclaimed the raiders to disperse and sent General Axline with militia companies to protect the site, but the crowd had already dispersed and, given local sympathy for the raid, no one was identified for prosecution.
13. 1888 — Henry Howe describes Antwerp, ten miles northwest of Paulding village on the Wabash and Erie Canal, as a village with a Republican newspaper (the Argus, edited by W. E. and N. H. Osborn), a Presbyterian, a Catholic, and a Christian church, two large stave factories, factories making tobacco, candy, and jelly pails and wooden cans, a patent hoop manufactory, and a flouring mill; its 1880 population was 1,275 and its 1888 school census 471.
14. 1890 — Carryall Township's population is 2,638, up from 2,506 in 1880; it has ten school houses, including the two-story brick Union school at Antwerp, and seven churches.
15. 1980-09-23 — The Antwerp Norfolk and Western Depot, within the township, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

Johnny Appleseed's trees in Carryall

Wilson H. Snook, who came to Carryall Township from Warren County in 1834, served nine years as county commissioner and one term in the legislature. He built the township's first frame barn, and the orchard he planted beside it grew, the 1892 atlas says, from seed furnished by Jonathan Chapman, the follower of Swedenborg known as Johnny Appleseed. The atlas quotes Judge David C. Carey's recollection of the man in the Oakwood Sentinel: as a child of four or five Carey saw him stay at his father's house in rags, shoes tied on with strings, full of good words and religious tracts, happy as a lark. Carey remembered that Appleseed wore no good clothes and, when given a nearly new pair of shoes, packed them away as too good to wear and meant for some needy person. Appleseed sold or gave away catnip, pennyroyal and horehound along with the seeds; asked why he never married, he said that in the world to come he would have a spiritual wife.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Antwerp Village92% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Hicksville Village8% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Who holds office

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

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 4 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 2 of 2.

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 2026-02-05

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