Cass Township, Hancock County

How Cass Township, Hancock County began

Cass Township was organized March 1, 1833 from 15,360 acres in Township 2, Range 11 East, in the northern part of Hancock County, and named for Gen. Lewis Cass, who had recently served as Territorial Governor of Michigan. The first land entries were made in March and May 1832 by David P. Day, John Franks and Elam Day, and most of the earliest settlers came from the eastern part of Ohio. A planned town, Frankford, was platted by John Franks on section ten but never sold a lot and reverted to farmland. No village was ever incorporated within the township's boundaries, and it remains a rural township of farms and country churches; Salem Cass United Methodist Church, built in 1958, still stands on County Road 236.

Settled 1832, incorporated 1833, by organized as a township March 1, 1833; first land entries by David P. Day, John Franks and Elam Day in 1832.

Where the name comes from

Named for Gen. Lewis Cass, who had recently served as Territorial Governor of Michigan when the township was organized in 1833.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, mound or treaty cession is recorded within Cass Township itself. County-wide sources for Hancock County record roughly ten to fifteen Wyandot families living in the county in the early settlement period, described as friendly to the first settlers, and note that the county's land was ceded through treaties affecting the wider region (including the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids and the 1831 Treaty of Wapakoneta, which covered Shawnee and Ottawa reservations elsewhere in the county).

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1832 — First land entries in the township are made: David P. Day (March 10), John Franks (March 12), and Elam Day (May 3).
2. 1832 — The Day and Fairchild families, the first to settle in the township, arrive that summer and fall; Rev. Elam Day is a regular Methodist Episcopal minister and David P. Day a local preacher.
3. 1833 — Cass Township is organized, comprising 15,360 acres in Township 2, Range 11 East, and named for Lewis Cass.
4. 1833 — Cass holds its first election on the first Monday of April with fewer than a dozen votes; on July 10 John Franks, Sr. lays out Frankford, 72 lots on the northwest quarter of Section 10, which never gets a lot sold or a building.
5. 1835 — The township's first schoolhouse is built.
6. 1835 — Rudolph Brandeberry and his sons Andrew, Jacob, Isaac and John, with six daughters, come from Ashland County and settle in Section 9; each son receives an eighty-acre farm from the father.
7. 1837 — A post office is established in the township, discontinued in 1867, with Daniel Fairchild and James Vickers serving as postmasters.
8. 1843 — The township's first church, a Methodist Episcopal congregation known as Vickers Church, is built.
9. 1850 — Twelve sections of Cass are taken to help form Allen Township, leaving it with 24 sections.
10. 1866 — James Vickers, Sr., postmaster of Cass since Daniel Fairchild, dies, and the Cass post office, open since 1837, is discontinued (the 1881 history says 1867).
11. 1880 — The population is 823 and the township has six school houses with 278 youth of school age.
12. 1881 — The New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad is under construction from east to west through the township, and the Lake Erie & Western crosses its southeast corner.
13. 1883 — Windland post office, the only one in the township, opens on January 2 at the house of Cyrus Stacy in the northeast corner of Section 28.
14. 1958 — Salem Cass United Methodist Church, a brick church on County Road 236 west of Arcadia, is built.
15. 2020 — The census counts 1,008 people in Cass Township.

Stories

The town that never was: Frankford

John Franks, one of the township's first landowners, entered his claim in March 1832 and laid out a town called Frankford on the northwest quarter of section ten: seventy-two lots, regularly laid out, with a public square or plaza in the center. The 1881 county history says the prospective city existed only in name and would long since have been forgotten had it not been a matter of record. Perhaps no lots were sold, and the town returned to its original state, a cornfield.

Methodists on the ridge

The first families to settle Cass Township, the Days and the Fairchilds, arrived in the summer and fall of 1832 on the sand and gravel ridge in the north of the township. They were Methodists: Elam Day, who had entered land in May from Wood County, was a regular minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and his brother David P., from Wayne County, a local preacher of the same denomination. Charles W. Goldsborough and his family, who settled on Section 1, were among the organizers of the first Methodist Episcopal class in the township. The Days and Fairchilds later moved to Iowa. The congregation built Vickers Church on the ridge in 1843, the first church building in the township, and by 1881 both of the township's churches were Methodist Episcopal.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com

Mostly private wells The water here

• Findlay City75% of residentsFindlay's two upground reservoirs, filled by pumping from the Blanchard River
• Arcadia Village25% of residentsEast Branch Portage River (via 6 storage reservoirs)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026 edition (Directory of Officials): county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-05-20

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