East Canton

How East Canton began

East Canton began as Osnaburg, laid out in the latter part of 1806 on Section 8, about six miles east of Canton, by James Leeper, a Washington County, Pennsylvania, native who opened a log tavern there and drew settlers and mechanics in the hope that the new county's seat would be placed at Osnaburg. Canton, platted by Bezaleel Wells, won the county seat, and Perrin's 1881 history describes Osnaburg as an insignificant village of a few hundred people, with two general stores, a mill, two hotels, three churches and, since the Connotton Valley Railroad came through, a depot. The village kept the name Osnaburg on the 1875 plat map and took the name East Canton in the 1910s. It had 558 residents in 1900, 962 in 1930, a peak of 1,742 in 1990, and 1,521 in 2020.

Settled 1806, platted latter part of 1806 (Perrin); c. 1807 (Wikipedia), by James Leeper.

Where the name comes from

The village took the name of Osnaburg Township, which the county commissioners named Osnaburg at a meeting in March 1809; Perrin's 1881 county history says it is not told why it was so called. The German city of Osnabrueck is the usual guess, but no source we found confirms it. The village was renamed East Canton in the 1910s, for its position east of Canton; Wikipedia gives no exact year.

Before the town

No Native village or mound is recorded inside East Canton. Perrin's 1881 county history tells a sad story, current in Osnaburg, of an old warrior who stayed behind after the rest of his people had gone west, and who was shot dead by a white man while smoking his pipe on a log in the forest; it says he was buried in the midst of the present village and that old residents pointed out the spot. Perrin adds that later Native hunting parties were friendly and that their villages and camping grounds were west of the Tuscarawas River. The land was ceded by the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

• Grave of an old Native man killed by a settler (burial) — In the middle of the village of Osnaburg (East Canton), as pointed out by old residents in 1881, early 1800s, per tradition (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1806 — James Leeper lays out the village of Osnaburg on Section 8, about six miles east of Canton, and opens a one-room log tavern with a puncheon floor; settlers and mechanics are drawn by the expectation that the new county's seat will be placed there.
2. 1807 — Wikipedia dates James Leeper's laying out of Osnaburg to around 1807, with settlers arriving expecting it to become the county seat; Perrin's county history puts the platting in the latter part of 1806.
3. 1807 — John McConnell opens the first store in Osnaburg in a small stock of goods; in March John Larwell, riding from East Liverpool, stops at Leeper's tavern, ties his horse to a felled beech, eats a pone rescued from a pig that came down the chimney and pays 75 cents.
4. 1809 — Stark County is organized and Canton, not Osnaburg, becomes the seat of justice; Perrin says many believed Osnaburg would have won had its founder Leeper not fallen into drink, and that Bezaleel Wells's influence for Canton outweighed Osnaburg's head start.
5. 1825 — Christian Kountz, a Saxon-born lace weaver who had arrived in New York with three kreutzers and peddled his way up to a wagon, opens a store in Osnaburg about this year and becomes its leading merchant until his death in 1866.
6. 1875 — The Osnaburg Township plat map still shows the village under its original name, Osnaburg.
7. 1881 — Perrin counts in the village two general stores, two groceries, two blacksmith and wagon shops, a harness shop, a four-run mill, two hotels, three churches (German Lutheran and Reformed, Evangelical, Methodist) and a three-room school of about 150 pupils; the Connotton Valley Railroad passes through with a depot.
8. 1900 — The village's population is recorded at 558 residents.
9. 1910s — The village renames itself East Canton.
10. 1910 — The census counts 448 residents, down from 558 in 1900; the count reaches 574 in 1920 and 962 in 1930.
11. 1930 — Population reaches 962, a 67.6 percent increase over 1900.
12. 1960 — The census counts 1,521 residents, up from 1,001 in 1950; the village peaks at 1,742 in 1990 and counts 1,521 again in 2020.

Stories

The town that expected to be the county seat

James Leeper platted Osnaburg around 1807 with real expectations behind it: settlers moved there believing their new town, rather than the still-young settlement Bezaleel Wells had platted at Canton in 1805, would become the seat of the county then being organized. Those hopes did not pan out, and Osnaburg spent the following century as an ordinary township village, still identified by its founding name on an 1875 plat map. Sometime in the 1910s -- the exact year is not recorded in the sources consulted -- the village finally gave up the Osnaburg name and became East Canton, adopting the name of the very rival town whose selection as county seat had disappointed its founders more than a century earlier. A memorial to Mallory Paige, who assisted the village in its founding, stands today at the Ward house.

A night at Leeper's tavern

John Larwell, who kept a house at Fawcettstown, now East Liverpool, was sent in March 1807 with provisions to his brother Joseph, who was surveying land west of the Tuscarawas. Returning by way of Osnaburg, which he had heard of, he rode into the evening to what looked the most pretentious house in the village and called out for the landlord, James Leeper. Asked where his horse might be kept, Leeper pointed to a beech tree just cut down and told him to tie the horse to a top limb and let it eat the twigs, since there was no stable in town. The tavern was a single log room serving as kitchen, dining room, bedroom and sitting room, with a puncheon floor and a stick-and-mud chimney that had a hole burned through near the ground. As the pone for supper baked on the hearth, a pig came in through the hole, snatched it and ran out; Mrs. Leeper chased it down, put the pone back on the griddle and watched it till it was done. Larwell slept on the floor with his feet to the fire, a foot of snow fell on his horse overnight, and the bill was 75 cents.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Stark County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• East Canton Village83% of residentsGlacial sand-and-gravel aquifer (3 well fields)
• Canton Public Water System11% of residentsGlacial sand-and-gravel aquifer (3 well fields)
• Thunderbird Terrace MHP4% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Louisville City2% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (Stark County)
• Pride Valley MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-08-12: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 1 of 2 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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-03-17

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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