Chagrin Falls Township, Cuyahoga County

How Chagrin Falls Township, Cuyahoga County began

Chagrin Falls Township was created in March 1845 by the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners, a year after Chagrin Falls village itself incorporated, on the application of the village and neighboring farmers, with land taken from Solon, Orange and, through Orange, a few lots formerly in Russell, Geauga County; its government took shape at a meeting at Griswold's Tavern on April 7, 1845. Unlike most Cuyahoga County townships, it was never fully absorbed by incorporated villages: today it is one of only two civil townships remaining in the county, alongside Olmsted Township, though only 129 people live in its unincorporated remainder outside Chagrin Falls village, Moreland Hills, and its other incorporated neighbors.

Incorporated Organized March 1845 by the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners; government seated at Griswold's Tavern, April 7, 1845, by Trustees Stoughton Bentley, Ralph Russell, and Boardman H. Bosworth; Treasurer Thomas Shaw; Clerk Alanson Knox; Assessor Rev. John K. Halleck.

Where the name comes from

The township takes its name from Chagrin Falls village, incorporated a year earlier in 1844, which takes it from the Chagrin River and its falls. A footnote in Johnson's 1879 county history says the many stories that the name comes from someone's 'chagrin' are fanciful and that it is undoubtedly derived from an old Indian word, spelled something like 'Shaguin' in the scan, that appears on maps issued before the Revolution and may mean 'clear,' though that is less certain.

Before the town

No specific, named Native American village, mound or treaty site is recorded within present Chagrin Falls Township; the land was previously divided between Solon and Orange townships, on ground ceded to the United States by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Johnson's 1879 county history adds that when the first settlers came there was an old deer lick near the site of the upper paper mill, with brackish mineral water, where bark hammocks still hung in the tops of low beech trees in which Indians had lain in wait for deer; the Indians had by then stopped visiting this part of the county.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Deer lick near the upper paper mill (other) — near the later site of the upper paper mill at Chagrin Falls, before 1834; Indians had stopped visiting by then (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1815-05 — Serenus Burnet moves his wife and son to the west side of the Chagrin River two miles north of the later village, becoming the first resident of the township.
2. 1831-02 — The Rev. Adamson Bentley, a Disciple minister, moves to the forks of the Chagrin River, builds a sawmill and gristmill, and starts the hamlet of Bentleyville.
3. 1833 — Noah Graves buys 210 acres at the falls from Gen. Edward Paine for $2,000 and, with Dr. S. S. Handerson, begins laying out the village of Chagrin Falls.
4. 1836-03 — The first religious society in the township, the First Congregational Society of Morense, is formed.
5. 1836-07-04 — Sidney Rigdon, a leading Mormon preacher, gives the Fourth of July oration at Chagrin Falls and predicts one great city of the Saints from there to Kirtland, fifteen miles north.
6. 1837-07-04 — Aaron Bliss and Almeda Vincent marry in the first wedding in the village and probably the township.
7. 1844 — Chagrin Falls village incorporates, a year before the township that takes its name is organized.
8. 1845-03 — The Cuyahoga County commissioners create Chagrin Falls Township in the first part of 1845 on application of the village and neighboring farmers, taking land from the northeast of Solon, the southeast of Orange, and three lots of Orange that had formerly been part of Russell in Geauga County.
9. 1845-04-07 — Township government is put in place at a meeting at Griswold's Tavern, with Stoughton Bentley, Ralph Russell, and Boardman H. Bosworth as trustees.
10. 1861-09-03 — The Chagrin Falls Soldiers' Aid Society is organized, led by Miss Jane E. Church; by June 1865 it has raised $832 in cash and $406 in supplies, and 109 township men have enlisted.
11. 1865-09 — A monument to the township's men who died in the Civil War is dedicated in the cemetery overlooking the village.
12. 1868 — A new grist-mill at Griffithsburg, the hamlet on the Aurora branch of the river that was planned in 1836, fails before its machinery is installed; Bentleyville has ceased as a place of business.
13. 2010 — Total township population (including all incorporated villages within it) is 4,233.
14. 2020 — Total township population is 4,317, of whom only 129 live in the unincorporated portion outside village limits.

Stories

A township that outlived its own purpose

Chagrin Falls Township was organized in 1845 specifically to give a unified local government to residents who had been awkwardly split between Solon and Orange townships, with founding trustee Ralph Russell -- already known regionally as the man who had founded the North Union Shaker Community in 1822 -- among its first officials. Villages within the township gradually incorporated on their own over the following century, leaving the township government with, as the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History puts it, 'no legislative (or other) function to perform for the village' of Chagrin Falls itself, even as township taxes still apply. That odd survival makes Chagrin Falls Township one of only two civil townships left in all of Cuyahoga County today, alongside Olmsted Township -- a level of government that outlasted most of what it was created to administer, now covering only 129 unincorporated residents.

Three towns on one river

In the 1830s the Chagrin River valley was to have three cities. Rev. Adamson Bentley, a Disciple minister, bought land at the forks in 1831 and built mills; his Bentleyville prospered for twenty years and seemed likely to become the principal village. In 1833 Noah Graves, a Massachusetts man, bought 210 acres at the falls from General Paine and with Dr. Handerson began a rival village. In 1836, in the 'flush times,' General James Griffith found waterpower on the Aurora branch and ten investors planned Griffithsburg. Chagrin Falls won. A bank charter was sought, but the 'bank' was a shanty in a hillside with a resident styled the cashier, and a college was chartered in 1835 to stand on College Hill. Bentleyville's industries went down, one after another, 'under the adverse power of floods, and time, and competition,' and by 1879 it had entirely ceased as a place of business.

Sidney Rigdon's prediction

On July 4, 1836 the village of Chagrin Falls invited Sidney Rigdon, second only to Joseph Smith as a Mormon preacher, to deliver its Independence Day oration, because he was known as an eloquent speaker and the church had not yet taken on the features the writer called offensive. Rigdon did so, and among other predictions said there would soon be one great city extending from Chagrin Falls to Kirtland, fifteen miles north, inhabited by the saints of the Lord. The city never came. The summer of 1837 brought the collapse of paper money, and, as Johnson's county history puts it, business all over the country came to a standstill and Chagrin Falls made little progress for several years.

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

The Five Mile Crib, a small structure about 5 miles out in Lake Erie north of Cleveland's Edgewater Park The water here

• Cleveland Public Water System57% of residentsLake Erie
• Chagrin Falls Village36% of residentsLake Erie
• Paw Paw Lake6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Basic Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-05-07
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-20

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