Defiance Township, Defiance County

How Defiance Township, Defiance County began

Defiance Township wraps around the city of Defiance at the meeting of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers and is the only Defiance Township in Ohio. It was organized in 1840 from parts of Williams and Henry counties and was enlarged in 1845 by land taken from Paulding County when Defiance County was formed. Its ground was a trading and council place for the Native nations long before then: the 1883 county history describes Blue Jacket's town and a Lenape (Delaware) town on the river bottoms, a trading plateau called Scalp Level, and old orchards planted in the French period. Late Woodland people of the Brooke Site camped near the Auglaize in the Late Woodland period, and 13,216 people lived in the township in 2020.

Incorporated 1840 (township organized), by Ohio township organization; first settlement at Defiance.

Where the name comes from

Named, like the city and county, for Fort Defiance; it is the only Defiance Township in Ohio.

Before the town

The Brooke Site (Ohio Archaeological Inventory number 33DE3), about an acre at the bottom of a ravine near the Auglaize River south of Defiance, was occupied by Late Woodland peoples of the Ontario and Younge traditions -- an affiliation that ties the site's inhabitants to cultures more commonly documented in present-day Ontario and Michigan than the rest of Ohio, and points to long-distance contact or movement across the Great Lakes region. Defiance College students, working summer field schools from 1968 to 1973, excavated half the site and recovered flint, bone and pottery fragments, a midden, fire pits and a single piece of copper, evidence read as showing both cross-cultural contact and the site's varying seasonal use. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 1, 1976. The 1883 county history adds the township's contact-period record: Blue Jacket's town stood on the bottom on the north side of the Maumee opposite Defiance (as described by a captive who passed in 1790), a Lenape (Delaware) town stood on the river bottom at 'Orchard Hollow' about eight miles up the Maumee, and the plateau across from the old Defiance plat was a trading ground known as 'Scalp Level', where traders' booths sold whisky, ammunition and blankets in the fur season and when annuities were paid. Large old apple trees along the Auglaize and Maumee were believed to have been planted by French missionaries and traders and kept by the Native residents, who guarded them and shared the fruit.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

• Brooke Site (33DE3) (other) — south of Defiance, near the Auglaize River, Defiance Township, Late Woodland (Ontario and Younge traditions) (en.wikipedia.org)
• Blue Jacket's town (village) — Maumee bottom on the north side of the river opposite Defiance, as described in a 1790 account, c. 1790 (archive.org)
• Delaware (Lenape) town at Orchard Hollow (village) — river bottom opposite the 'Orchard Hollow' orchard, about eight miles up the Maumee from Defiance (township not stated in the source), before 1800s settlement; exact dates not given (archive.org)
• Scalp Level (other) — plateau 50-60 feet above the north bank of the Maumee opposite old Defiance, later Williamstown, fur-trade and annuity era, before Native removal (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1790 — A captive among the Indians who passes through reports hewed-log houses inside a stockade near the junction of the rivers where traders and a British agent lived, a cleared space reaching the Auglaize bank lined with apple trees, and Blue Jacket's town on the Maumee bottom to the north.
2. 1794 — General Anthony Wayne builds Fort Defiance at the junction of the Maumee and Auglaize, in what is now the city beside the township; the French and Native traders' cabins there are interrupted by it and later by Fort Winchester (1812).
3. 1819 — Pioneer William Travis visits the old fort ground and finds seven cabins occupied by French traders, who still bartered with the Native residents before the tide of emigration pushed them west.
4. 1840 — Defiance Township is organized; it is not a full congressional township but joins the northern half of Town 3 North, Range 4 East (from Auglaize Township, Henry County) to the southern part of the old Defiance Township of Williams County.
5. 1845 — On the organization of Defiance County, the township gains the territory taken from Paulding County; Defiance Township's voters (including John H. Kiser, William Bridenbaugh and Benjamin Brubacher) are listed for the October election.
6. 1883 — The county history records that Williamstown, platted on the hill across the Maumee soon after Defiance itself, and its additions, including Scalp Level, have been absorbed into the incorporated village of Defiance.
7. 1968 — Defiance College begins a series of summer archaeological field schools at the Brooke Site.
8. 1973 — The Brooke Site field schools conclude, having excavated about half the site.
9. 1976-01-01 — The Brooke Site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
10. 2020 — Defiance Township has 13,216 residents in the 2020 census, a share of them in the city's north side; U.S. 24 and State Routes 15, 66, 111 and 424 cross it.

Stories

A Great Lakes site south of Defiance

At the bottom of a ravine near the Auglaize River, south of the city of Defiance, a one-acre patch of ground gave up an unusual clue about who passed through northwestern Ohio in the Late Woodland period. Starting in the summer of 1968 and continuing through 1973, students from Defiance College worked field seasons at what came to be called the Brooke Site, eventually excavating about half of it and recovering flint tools, bone, pottery fragments, a midden, several fire pits and a single piece of worked copper. The people who left those remains belonged to the Ontario and Younge traditions of the Late Woodland period -- cultural groupings archaeologists usually associate with sites across the Great Lakes in present-day Ontario and Michigan, not with inland Ohio. Wikipedia says the excavations highlighted the connection between the different peoples who occupied the site and revealed the inhabitants' varying seasonal uses of it. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 1, 1976, under Ohio Archaeological Inventory number 33DE3.

Scalp Level and the trees the French planted

Across the Maumee from the first plat of Defiance lay a level plateau 50 or 60 feet above the water, cleared and lawn-like long before American settlement. Old settlers called it Scalp Level; the county historian could not say why, and offered only guesses about a place of torture or a scalping. What the record does show is that it was a trading ground: traders' booths sold whisky, ammunition and blankets there in the fur season and when the government paid annuities, and one of them, on the site of a later tavern, was the scene of drunken brawls among Native people and rough whites. Traders and missionaries, the historian wrote, always put their stations on high ground overlooking Native towns, and the Defiance bluffs were no exception. Down on the bottoms stood huge apple trees, the biggest a monster opposite the old fort that still bore apples in 1883, which the county history believed were planted by French missionaries and traders and guarded afterward by the Native residents. After the removal of the Indians the booths disappeared, and the hill was platted as Williamstown and swallowed by the growing town.

East Defiance and the canal that went elsewhere

In the years when the Wabash and Erie and Miami canals were being routed through the Defiance area, land speculators platted paper cities on the strength of rumors. John Hollister, who owned the Lewis bottom across the Maumee east of Defiance, laid out 'East Defiance' on a large scale, expecting the Miami Canal to lock into the Auglaize and the Wabash into the Maumee at the head of a slack-water basin, with his town as the commercial centre. The canal was located the next year on the high level instead, and the plan died; the fine bottom went back to wheat and corn, and few residents in 1883 remembered the design. Hollister's agent, in readying the plat, evicted a tenant of years, which produced a lawsuit, Braucher against Hollister, that was settled by the Ohio Supreme Court only a few years before the county history was written. Other paper towns, West Defiance and North Defiance, met similar fates.

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

Maumee River water pulled through two river intakes and stored in a 74-acre upground (off-channel) reservoir before treatment, near the Maumee/Auglaize/Tiffin River confluence at Defiance The water here

• Defiance City94% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Ayersville Water and Sewer District3% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Christi Water System Inc2% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Brunersburg Wd - Brunersburg1% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Brunersburg Wd - Airport0% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)

Power plants (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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 2025-10-02

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