Crawford Township, Wyandot County

How Crawford Township, Wyandot County began

Crawford Township, in the northwest of Wyandot County, was organized in 1825 while still part of Crawford County and passed to Wyandot County in 1845. It is evidently named for Col. William Crawford, whom Delaware warriors under Captain Pipe burned at the stake near here in June 1782 after his expedition against the Sandusky towns was defeated. Pioneers settled it from about 1819 (Asa Lake and Nehemiah Earls) and 1823 to 1824 (John Carey and William Brown); Carey, its one village, was laid out in 1843. In 1825 a six-year-old boy, Matthew Brayton, was carried off from a farm here. The township is farming country, and the 1877 monument to Crawford is on the National Register.

Settled 1819 (Asa Lake and Nehemiah Earls, per the 1884 county history; settlement dates in the township are disputed), platted 1843 (Carey, by R. M. Shuler and W. M. Buell), incorporated 1825 (organized in Crawford County; became part of Wyandot County in 1845), by Asa Lake and Nehemiah Earls; later John Carey (1823-24) and William Brown (1824).

Where the name comes from

The township takes the name of Col. William Crawford, who was burned at the stake in this vicinity in June 1782; the 1884 county history opens its chapter by saying 'the name of Crawford is here synonymous' with the barbarity of that event, and Crawford County, in which the township was first organized, was named for him as well. The history implies the township's naming rather than stating it outright.

Before the town

The township was a historic Native sporting ground. The 1884 county history says it held an extensive Delaware (Lenape) village under Captain Pipe, a few miles northwest of the scene of Crawford's defeat near present Crawfordsville, and that when Crawford's force was beaten in June 1782 the old men, women and children of the Delaware were hidden at the mouth of Tymochtee Creek, with runners keeping them informed hourly, ready to flee to the Black Swamp east of the Maumee. Crawford was taken and burned at the stake on June 11, 1782 (the date on the monument); a monument dedicated in 1877 stands on a high bank south of Tymochtee Creek near the east line of the southwest quarter of Section 26, though the exact site is not positively known. A footnote says the Nine Oaks, a few miles away on Section 17 of Crane Township, were said to be where the Indian court that tried Crawford sat. Native trails crossed the township: a Wyandot trail ran from Big Springs to the twelve-mile reservation at Upper Sandusky, and an Indian trail from Upper Sandusky to Springville and the Black Swamp to Perrysburg crossed the Brayton farm. Samuel Wells, an African American man said to have been Simon Girty's servant and to have been with the Delaware families on the Tymochtee in 1782, lived to about 110 and was a charge of Eden Township as late as 1857.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Col. William Crawford execution site and monument (other) — high bank south of Tymochtee Creek, near the east line of the southwest quarter of Section 26, northeast of the community of Crawford, June 11, 1782; monument 1877 (archive.org)
• Captain Pipe's Delaware town (village) — a few miles northwest of the battlefield, near present Crawfordsville, 1782 (archive.org)
• Refuge at the mouth of Tymochtee Creek (camp) — mouth of Tymochtee Creek, June 1782 (archive.org)
• Wyandot trail from Big Springs to the twelve-mile reservation (trail) — passed near Christopher Baker's cabin on Section 11, before 1822 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1782 — Col. William Crawford is captured after his expedition's defeat near the Sandusky towns and burned at the stake on June 11 by Delaware warriors under Captain Pipe, traditionally near the site now marked northeast of the community of Crawford.
2. 1819 — Asa Lake and Nehemiah Earls settle on what is now Section 26 as early as this year; a daughter is born to Asa and Martha Lake in 1821, and Daniel Hodges follows (he builds the township's first brick house about 1830).
3. 1822 — Christopher Baker reaches Section 11 over Harrison's army trail by way of Delaware, Marion and Upper Sandusky and cuts a path from Lish's Ferry.
4. 1823 — John Carey, called Judge Carey, a Virginian born in 1792, settles with his family in the township in 1823 or 1824 and later owns a sawmill and carding machine with Elijah Brayton.
5. 1824 — On October 12 William Brown and his family arrive at their cabin after a four-and-a-half-day journey; their daughter Ellen, born October 22, is said to be the first white child born in the township.
6. 1825 — Crawford Township is organized in Crawford County; on September 20 six-year-old Matthew Brayton disappears from a path near his family's farm.
7. 1843 — R. M. Shuler and W. M. Buell lay out the town of Carey, two years before Wyandot County is organized.
8. 1845 — The township becomes part of the new Wyandot County; the United Brethren build the township's first church building at Carey.
9. 1849 — St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church at Crawfordsville is begun when Rev. Xaver Obermuller unites the scattered families and a log church, 26 by 20 feet, is built.
10. 1859 — Thirty-four years after the disappearance, William Brayton brings home from New York a man with the scars his father described, but the family soon learns he is not Matthew; he was William Todd, who had been restored to his real parents in Michigan.
11. 1877 — The Pioneer Association of Wyandot County dedicates a Berea sandstone monument to Crawford before about 8,000 people; the county history gives August 30 as the dedication date, while the monument base reads August 3.
12. 1880 — Carey has three lines of railroad: the Findlay Branch, the Cleveland, Sandusky and Cincinnati line, and the Columbus, Hocking Valley and Toledo Railway.
13. 1982 — The Col. Crawford Burn Site Monument is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 15.

Stories

The monument in the field

On a high bank south of Tymochtee Creek stands an eight-and-a-half-foot shaft of Berea sandstone inscribed, 'In memory of Colonel Crawford, who was burnt by the Indians in this valley June 11, A. D. 1782.' It was dedicated in 1877 by the Pioneer Association of Wyandot County, at the urging of Curtis Berry, Jr., before a crowd the county history numbers at nearly 8,000. Rev. John Sherrard of Bucyrus, whose grandfather had served under Crawford in 1782, gave the opening address, and Gen. William H. Gibson spoke. Crawford led about 500 volunteers against the Sandusky towns, was defeated, and was burned at the stake by Delaware under Captain Pipe with Simon Girty present. Many accounts link the killing to the Gnadenhutten massacre of Moravian Delaware earlier that year; the 1884 county history denies that explanation. The exact spot is not positively known, so the National Register listing is for the monument rather than a verified execution site. The elder Curtis Berry's mother in Philadelphia had been an acquaintance of the colonel and tied his necktie for him on the morning he left.

The lost boy, Matthew Brayton

On September 20, 1825, six-year-old Matthew Brayton, nearly seven, was sent by his brother William to wait at a neighbor's cabin sixty rods away while the older boys searched for stray cattle. He took a log-drawing track by mistake, his footprints faded, and he was never seen in the township again. The Wyandots helped search and said a party of Canadian Indians had passed up the trail that day, and the father, Elijah, who was away at Chillicothe buying millstones for his new Tymochtee mill, came home to a vanished child. For thirty-four years the family heard rumors; a letter to Gen. Cass in 1829 brought no hope. Matthew's mother died, the county historian says, 'of a broken heart' sixteen years after. In 1859 a captive of Indian upbringing, reported in the Cleveland Herald, was identified by his brother William as having the same scars on the head and toe, and was brought to Carey, where crowds waited at the station. The family soon found the man was not Matthew; he was William Todd, restored to his real parents in Michigan, who died a cavalry soldier at Nashville. Matthew's fate was never learned.

William Brown's diary: a heart that failed on a rainy day

William Brown, born in Maryland in 1796, began a diary in 1822 and entered 160 acres near the Big Spring reservation that November. On July 20, 1823, he left Columbus for his land to build a cabin; the day was dark and rainy, the road mire and water, the forest so thick that he could scarcely see the sun at noon, and nettles and mosquitoes everywhere. 'My heart for the first time failed me,' he wrote, concluding he had been an idiot to buy the land and a lunatic to try to settle it. Squire Daniel Hodges cheered him up with a flattering story, a hired man found water in the well they dug, the clouds cleared, and Brown stayed six weeks, built a cabin and a chimney, and went home. He and his family returned on October 12, 1824; on October 22 his wife had a daughter, Ellen, and on May 22, 1825 he planted fourteen acres of corn. Brown died in 1866 and his wife ten years later.

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

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