Chatfield

How Chatfield began

Chatfield was founded by pioneers Silas and Oliver Chatfield in the 1820s along the Sandusky Turnpike in northwestern Crawford County, on land that had been Wyandot hunting ground and included a large cranberry bog to the east. Growth was slow — the settlement was not really a community until around 1825 — and the surrounding swamp forest was later drained into the farmland that surrounds the village today. A state historical marker commemorating the village was placed in 1976.

Settled c. 1820, by Silas and Oliver Chatfield.

Where the name comes from

Named for pioneer settlers Silas and Oliver Chatfield, who established the settlement in the 1820s.

Before the town

For centuries before settlement, the area that became Chatfield was used by Native people as a hunting ground; Indian hunting camps are recorded on the headwaters of Sycamore Creek nearby. A large cranberry bog covered much of the land to the east, within a swamp forest of elm, ash, beech, pin oak and maple that shaped both Native use of the land and its slow settlement afterward. No specific village, trail or mound at Chatfield itself is named in the sources checked; the historic nation associated with hunting in this part of Crawford County is the Wyandot.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1820 — Crawford County opened to settlement (Maumee Valley land opened February 20, 1820); the nucleus settlement at Chatfield dates to this period.
2. c. 1825 — The Chatfield settlement, founded by Silas and Oliver Chatfield along the Sandusky Turnpike, grew large enough to be considered a community.
3. 1827 — Silas and Oliver Chatfield, English-descended brothers after whom the township was probably named, though the 1881 history says this is not definitely known, build cabins on the Columbus & Sandusky Turnpike.
4. 1830 — Settlers, mostly of English descent from eastern counties, enter land along the Sandusky Turnpike, among them Richard Davidson, David Tipton, John Robinson, John Hamilton, David Clute and Ichabod Smith; the road gives them an outlet north and south.
5. 1832 — Richard Frisbee and Nathan Anthony open separate taverns on the turnpike about a mile north of Richville, serving droves of hogs and cattle and wagons of grain bound for the lake ports; Garton Frisbee follows in 1833.
6. 1833 — Silas Chatfield is elected a township trustee and Oliver treasurer; on November 11 the trustees divide the township into three school districts.
7. 1834 — Settlers from Germany begin arriving in numbers about now, taking up all the township's land within about half a dozen years.
8. 1960 — Chatfield's school district merged with Tiro and New Washington to form Buckeye Central Local School District.
9. 1976 — A historical marker commemorating the village of Chatfield was erected by the Crawford County Historical Foundation and the Ohio Historical Society.
10. 2000 — The census counts 218 people in Chatfield, 189 in 2010 and 205 in 2020.

Stories

A bog, a turnpike, and two brothers

Before the 1820s, the land where Chatfield now sits was a swamp forest of elm, ash, beech, pin oak and maple, with a cranberry bog to the east that stood under water most of the year, and it served as hunting ground worked by Native people camped along the headwaters of Sycamore Creek. Pioneers Silas and Oliver Chatfield settled the spot along the new Sandusky Turnpike in the 1820s, but growth came slowly; the marker placed on the site in 1976 records that it took roughly five years, until about 1825, before the little settlement could really call itself a community. Later generations drained the swamp and the bog into the flat, productive farmland that surrounds the village today.

Photographs

Local history sources: remarkableohio.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Bloomville Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-13
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-13

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