Cranberry Township, Crawford County

How Cranberry Township, Crawford County began

Cranberry Township, in northwestern Crawford County, takes its name from a roughly 2,000-acre cranberry marsh in its southwest that was a well-known hunting and trapping ground for both Wyandot people, who camped nearby until about 1835, and white settlers. Its exact organization date was lost when an early courthouse fire destroyed county records, but it existed by 1827; German immigrant families arrived from about 1830 and drained its wet, marshy ground over decades. The village of New Washington, platted in 1833 by George Washington Meyers and nicknamed 'Dutchtown' for its German-speaking early population, sits mostly within its borders in the northwest and was incorporated in 1874 after the railroad arrived.

Settled c. 1823-1824 (a Mr. Bergin, earliest known cabin), platted 1833 (New Washington, by George Washington Meyers), by Organization date lost in a courthouse fire; existed as 'Cranberry' by 1827 and then included present Chatfield Township; principal settlement by German immigrant families from about 1830.

Where the name comes from

Named for an extensive cranberry marsh, about 2,000 acres, in the southwestern part of the township, long known to hunters and trappers, both Wyandot and white, who came when the marsh froze over to trap fur-bearing animals.

Before the town

Wyandot people camped in large, nomadic groups in the northern part of Cranberry Township as late as 1825, with visits growing less frequent afterward and ceasing altogether by 1835; a large band camped for many years before 1825 on a stream in the township's north to hunt and trap the frozen swamps in winter. In the winter of 1824-25, about seventy-five Wyandot hunters organized a large circular hunt across roughly five miles centered on the cranberry marsh, joined by five or six white settlers including Charles Doney and George Byers; after several hours the hunters closed their circle and killed a small herd of deer along with foxes, wolves and wildcats, though the group had hoped for bear, prompting one disappointed leader to say only 'Ugh! no bear; hunt no good.' Trapper Charles Doney, who settled near the marsh in 1825 and gave his name to Doney's Point, caught a Wyandot man stealing game from his traps and forced him at gunpoint to surrender his weapons before whipping him with a ramrod; the county history records that Doney's traps were not disturbed again afterward.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1807 — The eastern part of the township's land (the Three-Mile Strip) is surveyed by Maxfield Ludlow; the western part is not laid out into sections until after 1820.
2. c. 1823-1824 — A Mr. Bergin builds the earliest known cabin in the township, on what became the Cory farm, raised with help from neighbors in Auburn Township.
3. 1824-25 — About seventy-five Wyandot hunters, joined by several white settlers, organize a large circular hunt centered on the cranberry marsh after a deep, crusted snow.
4. 1825 — Charles Doney, a hunter and trapper, builds a cabin near the marsh and gives his name to Doney's Point, a ridge extending into it.
5. 1826 — Aaron Cory, an ordained Methodist Episcopal minister and Scotch immigrant by way of New Jersey and Tuscarawas County, settles in the township and becomes a leading figure in its early church and school life until his death in 1834.
6. 1833 — George Washington Meyers plats the village of New Washington on land he had purchased in the township's northwest.
7. 1835 — Wyandot camping in the township's north ceases altogether; the township's boundaries are also fixed close to their present shape this year.
8. 1874 — New Washington, which had grown after the 1872 arrival of the Mansfield, Coldwater and Lake Erie Railroad, is formally incorporated.

Stories

The marsh and its harvest

Before it was drained, the roughly 2,000-acre cranberry marsh in the township's southwest corner was known far beyond Crawford County. Both Wyandot and white hunters trapped its frozen winter margins for wolves, foxes and mink, and before about 1820 a determined hunter could still find a panther or bear inside its tangled interior. When German families began settling the township's edges around 1830, the marsh became a source of a different harvest: pickers, dressed in tall boots against water and snakebite, worked long-handled wooden scoops through the vines, gathering fifteen to twenty bushels a day at prices that rose from 20-25 cents a bushel in 1824 to about $2 by 1850. One picker, bitten by a rattlesnake while working the marsh, was revived with mud-water splashed on her face and treated on the spot with repeated poultices of chewed tobacco before walking home; the snake responsible was killed nearby soon after. By 1855 the marsh had dried enough that cranberries no longer grew there in any quantity, ending a harvest that had shaped the township's economy and its name for three decades.

The thief who was not molested again

Charles Doney, a skilled trapper who settled near the cranberry marsh in 1825, became well known to the Wyandots still camped nearby, who resented so capable a hunter working ground they depended on themselves. They began destroying his traps and stealing the animals caught in them; after enduring the losses for some time, Doney caught one thief in the act, tearing down a trap and taking the catch. He pursued the man, surprised him before he reached the reservation, and at gunpoint ordered him to drop his own rifle and tomahawk. Doney then took the ramrod from his gun and delivered what the county history calls a thrashing across the man's back, which the Wyandot man endured without a sound despite bleeding freely, before Doney ordered him to go. No further traps were disturbed afterward — an outcome the 1881 county historian described approvingly as a 'radical cure,' though it reads today as one settler's use of violence to enforce a claim on hunting ground the Wyandots had used long before him.

Local history sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · freepages.rootsweb.com · en.wikipedia.org

No water-system data is linked to Cranberry Township, Crawford County's ZIP codes yet.

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-09-01

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