Coitsville Township, Mahoning County

How Coitsville Township, Mahoning County began

Coitsville Township, in the northeastern corner of the Connecticut Western Reserve portion of Mahoning County, is named for Daniel Coit, a Connecticut Land Company proprietor who bought the township before 1798 but never lived there himself, sending land agent Simon Perkins and surveyor John P. Bissell in his place. Revolutionary War veteran Amos Loveland arrived in 1798 as the township's first settler, and the township organized formally on December 4, 1806. Its best-known resident arrived as a child: the family of Alexander McGuffey settled on a farm on the township's Gravel Hill in 1802 (one biography of McGuffey instead has the family moving to Tuscarawas County that year), and son William Holmes McGuffey grew up there until 1818 before going on to write the McGuffey Eclectic Readers, the best-selling series of American school textbooks of the nineteenth century. The family's farm survives as the William H. McGuffey Boyhood Home Site, a National Historic Landmark since 1966 and now a wildlife preserve. Coitsville remains an unincorporated township that by the early twentieth century had already become, as one local history put it, 'a favorite residence suburb for Youngstown people.'

Settled 1798 (Amos Loveland, first settler), platted Purchased by Daniel Coit before 1798; surveyed and first built upon by John P. Bissell in 1799, incorporated Township organized by Trumbull County commissioners December 4, 1806; first township election April 6, 1807, by Daniel Coit (Connecticut Land Company proprietor, land purchase); Amos Loveland (first settler).

Where the name comes from

Coitsville Township is named for Daniel Coit, a Connecticut Land Company proprietor who purchased the township before 1798. There is no evidence Coit ever lived in Coitsville himself; he administered the land through his agent, Simon Perkins of Warren, and surveyor John P. Bissell.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, or site specific to Coitsville Township is documented in the sources consulted. The township lies within the Connecticut Western Reserve, land ceded by the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee, Delaware, Shawnee, and Potawatomi in the 1805 Treaty of Fort Industry.

Timeline

1. 1798 — Amos Loveland, a Revolutionary War veteran, purchases about 424 acres and becomes the township's first white settler; Daniel Coit's agents also survey the land this year.
2. 1799 — John P. Bissell builds the township's first structure at its center after surveying the land, then relocates his family from Lebanon, Connecticut in a forty-day journey; Loveland's daughter Cynthia, born in June, becomes the first white child born in the township.
3. 1802 — The family of Alexander McGuffey, including two-year-old son William Holmes McGuffey, settles on a farm on Gravel Hill in Coitsville Township, by most accounts; one biography of McGuffey places the family in Tuscarawas County instead.
4. 1806 — Coitsville Township is formally organized by Trumbull County commissioners on December 4.
5. 1811 — Surveyor John P. Bissell dies, leaving landholders' finances in disorder and forcing renegotiation with land agent Simon Perkins, a hardship compounded by poor weather and the War of 1812 draft.
6. 1814 — The McGuffey family purchases the 165.5-acre farm it has occupied since 1802.
7. 1818 — William Holmes McGuffey, then 18, leaves the family farm, having spent his boyhood there before going on to write the McGuffey Eclectic Readers.
8. 1832 — William Stewart and R.W. Shields establish a tannery, one of the township's more successful early industries.
9. 1836 — Coitsville's first church buildings go up as Methodist and Presbyterian congregations organize.
10. 1966 — The William H. McGuffey Boyhood Home Site is designated a National Historic Landmark on May 23 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15.

Stories

The reader that outsold nearly everything

In 1802, by most accounts, a two-year-old named William Holmes McGuffey moved with his family to a hillside farm in Coitsville Township that his father Alexander would not formally purchase for another twelve years. William grew up there until 1818, walking the same Gravel Hill fields that survive today as the McGuffey Wildlife Preserve, before going on to a career as an educator and college president. What made him a household name across nineteenth-century America was not his teaching career directly but the textbook series he wrote afterward: the McGuffey Eclectic Readers, first published in the 1830s, sold well over 100 million copies through 1960 and, for generations of American schoolchildren, ranked alongside the Bible and Webster's Dictionary as one of the most widely owned books in the country. The Coitsville farm where McGuffey spent his boyhood -- not the Pennsylvania farm where he was born, but this one -- was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, Mahoning County's clearest physical link to a figure whose influence on American education outlasted the farm's own working life by well over a century.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Aqua Ohio - Struthers78% of residentsEvans Lake (Yellow Creek impoundment)
• Hubbard City20% of residentsShenango River / Shenango River Lake (Pymatuning area) surface intake
• Youngstown City2% of residentsMeander Creek Reservoir + Berlin Reservoir (Mahoning River basin)
• Stoneybrooke Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Valley Mobile Homes0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Girard City0% of residentsMeander Creek Reservoir (via Niles/MVSD, blended)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Police stations (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-17: county board of elections.

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-18
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2025-09-23

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