Clarksfield Township, Huron County

How Clarksfield Township, Huron County began

Clarksfield Township's first house was built in the summer of 1817 by Samuel Husted and Ezra Wood, of Danbury, Connecticut, though the two returned east before settling permanently; Smith Starr and Simeon Hoyt, arriving shortly after, became the first families to actually make their homes there, with Hoyt's nearest neighbor miles away that first winter. Early settler Ezra Wood, besides his farming, worked as a hunter and what the 1879 county historian calls 'a sort of missionary among the Indians.' Clarksfield, on Huron County's eastern edge, is named for James Clark, one of the Connecticut 'sufferers' whose losses to British raids in the Revolutionary War earned him a Firelands claim of £1,048 6s 8d; the township was briefly called Bethel before taking its present name.

Settled summer 1817 (Samuel Husted and Ezra Wood, first house; Smith Starr and Simeon Hoyt, first resident families), by Samuel Husted and Ezra Wood, of Danbury, Connecticut; Smith Starr and Simeon Hoyt, first permanent settlers.

Where the name comes from

Both county histories say the township was named for James Clark, one of the 'sufferers' of the Firelands, whose losses in the British raids on Connecticut during the Revolutionary War were valued at £1,048 6s 8d (Williams, 1879) and who held a claim of 698 in the northeast section (Baughman, 1909). Commissioners named the combined Clarksfield-Hartland township Bethel in 1820, and the two were given their present names in 1826.

Before the town

Williams's 1879 history says the Native people who most often visited the settlement were Wyandots (Wyandottes) and Senecas, who brought venison to exchange for produce and whisky, and that they were generally civil to the settlers, whisky causing nearly all the exceptions. One drunken visitor to 'the hollow' called at the house of E. W. Barnum, took him for a Frenchman and insisted on killing him; he was tied up for the night, with one of his own tribe helping, and let go sober the next morning. Early settler Ezra Wood, an expert hunter, is called 'a sort of missionary among the Indians'. No village, trail or mound within the township is named in either county history. A second account, written in 1905 for the Firelands Historical Society by Charles R. Green, records that when Smith Starr moved to Clarksfield in the fall of 1817 his cow, turned out to graze, went missing; a friendly Indian guided him on a twelve- or fifteen-mile walk to the Native village at Milan, where they found Indian boys racing about with the cow's bell on one of them, and the cow was already killed and eaten. Green notes that the settlers lost cows and horses that way, though the horses could often be recovered.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Seneca (Mingo).

• Native village near Milan (visited by Smith Starr) (village) — Milan area, 12 to 15 miles from Clarksfield, on the Huron River, 1817 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1808 — The Firelands are divided among the Connecticut 'sufferers', and Clarksfield, in four sections, is assigned to 117 claimants whose losses of £8,339 are scaled down to $17,924 in value; many owners, unable to pay the survey tax, lose their shares at public auction.
2. 1810 — Benjamin Stiles of New York buys 1,295 acres from John Dodd in what becomes Clarksfield at a dollar an acre; he moves to the township in July 1818.
3. 1817 — Samuel Husted and Ezra Wood, of Danbury, Connecticut, build the township's first log house in the summer before returning east; Smith Starr and Simeon Hoyt arrive soon after and become the first families to settle permanently, Starr on lot eight and Hoyt, after a six-week ox-team journey, on lot six.
4. 1818 — Samuel Husted returns with his family after a nine-week journey and later builds the township's first frame house, in the area known as 'the hollow'; Benjamin Stiles, Solomon Gray, Aaron Rowland and Obadiah Jenney, a millwright who helps build the hollow's mills, all arrive this year.
5. 1818 — Millwright Obadiah Jenney arrives March 11 and helps build the mills at the hollow that summer; the first birth, Samuel Stiles, is on November 13, and Aaron Rowland and Ezra Wood reach Clarksfield on November 18 after six weeks on the road from Putnam County, New York.
6. 1819 — Brothers Eli and Ebenezer Barnum arrive from Danbury, Connecticut in July, founding a family that becomes prominent in the township's later merchant trade.
7. 1819-1820 — The township's first post office opens at 'the hollow' that winter, with Smith Starr as postmaster; a mail route runs from Norwalk to Medina, carried on foot through the woods by a Frenchman named Seboo. Around the same period, twelve-year-old Ephraim Seger becomes the township's first recorded death, dying three days after a rattlesnake bite while gathering chips for a log heap.
8. 1819 — Smith Starr builds the township's first sawmill on Spring Brook; his shop and shoemaking tools had been destroyed by fire.
9. 1820 — On March 8 the county commissioners organize Clarksfield and Hartland as one township named Bethel; they are given their present separate names in 1826.
10. 1821 — Obadiah Jenney marries Hester Paul, the Husted family's adopted daughter, on December 25, the first wedding in the township.
11. 1822 — Dr. Andrew McMillan, a New York-born son of Scottish parents, settles in Clarksfield in July as the township's first physician.

Stories

The mail carried on foot by a Frenchman

When Clarksfield's first post office opened at 'the hollow' in the winter of 1819-20, with early settler Smith Starr as postmaster, there was no road fit for a horse along much of the new mail route between Norwalk and Medina. The job of actually carrying the mail through the woods fell to a Frenchman named Seboo, who walked the route on foot between the two towns. It was a small, practical arrangement typical of the period -- long before rural roads or railroads reached this corner of the county, a single walking mail carrier was what connected Clarksfield's scattered farms to the wider world.

The man who took a neighbor for a Frenchman

Williams's 1879 history of Huron County says the Native people who most often visited early Clarksfield were Wyandots and Senecas, who traded venison for produce and whisky and were generally civil and well disposed toward the settlers. One day a visitor who had drunk too freely in the hollow called at the house of E. W. Barnum and, supposing him to be 'one Frenchman', insisted on killing him. Barnum's neighbors put the man in custody for the night, and one of his own tribe helped tie him up. Next morning he was let go, in the historian's words 'a little more sober if not better natured'. The same chapter says that whisky caused nearly every instance of trouble between the settlers and their Native visitors.

Smith Starr's cow and the bell

Smith Starr reached Clarksfield from Danbury, Connecticut, in the fall of 1817 with a team reduced at the end of the journey to a cow and a horse. While his cabin was going up the cow was turned out to find her own living in the woods, and she did not come back. A friendly Native man who knew the Clarksfield settlers offered to help, and led Starr on a walk of twelve or fifteen miles to the Native village at Milan. As they came near they heard the familiar tone of the cow's bell, ringing violently, and creeping up unseen they saw Native boys racing around the village after one who had the bell on. 'There is your cow,' said the guide. She had already been killed and eaten, and there was no easy way to prove whose people had done it or to be paid for her, so Starr went home wiser if poorer. His grandson Orlando S. Starr told the story to Charles R. Green in Kansas, who printed it in 1905-06.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Rural Lorain Co. Water A46% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Wakeman Village27% of residentsLake Erie
• Northern Ohio Rural Water11% of residentsLake Erie
• New London Village9% of residentsBuck Creek, impounded in New London's upground reservoir
• Firelands Manor MHP4% of residentsLake Erie via Avon Lake Regional Water (blended with Rural Lorain Co. Water Authority supply)
• Erie Co. Vermilion District3% of residentsLake Erie

Bridges rated poor (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 2 of 6 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 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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