Edon

How Edon began

Edon grew up at a crossroads in Florence Township where only three families, the Stullers, Garwoods and Smiths, lived in 1850. Andrew Sheline, a carpenter from Carroll County, Ohio, built a steam sawmill there in 1856, followed by a gristmill and, in 1866, a woolen factory the 1882 county history called one of the most important industries in northwestern Ohio. Its proprietors platted the town as 'Weston' in 1867, and locally it was also called 'Mudsock.' The village was incorporated under the name Edon in 1874. It later became a stop on the Wabash Railroad's line between Montpelier and Chicago, and by 1920 the county history described it as a market center for some of the highest-priced farmland in the county.

Settled 1850 (three families on the town site); Andrew Sheline's sawmill 1856, platted September 1867, as 'Weston', incorporated August 13, 1874, as Edon, by Andrew Sheline, Robert Lees, Conrad Yockey, Thomas Smith, George W. Hunter, John Aller, Thomas Laux, Samuel Cook, Jacob Keltenbach, John Klink and George Huber (proprietors of the 1867 plat).

Where the name comes from

The 1867 plat named the village Weston, and the 1920 county history says it was also called 'Mudsock.' The 1874 incorporation petition, presented by H. S. Hine and signed by fifty citizens, asked that the village be incorporated as Edon, and the 1905 history says it was 'christened Edon' then. None of the sources checked says why the name Edon was chosen.

Before the town

No Native village, trail or treaty site inside Edon is recorded in the sources checked. For Florence Township, the 1920 county history records that Margaret Singer, wife of the early settler David Singer, said that for three years after they settled she saw no other white person and their only visitors were Native people. It also says she often cured wild meat for her Native neighbors. The 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids had transferred Indian title to this part of northwestern Ohio to the United States five decades before Edon was platted.

Timeline

1. 1837 — Florence Township is organized. For some years its government also covers the later Northwest, Bridgewater and Superior townships.
2. 1850 — Three families live on the future town site: those of Henry Stuller, John Garwood and Thomas Smith.
3. 1856 — In May, Andrew Sheline's steam sawmill starts up on about two acres he and his neighbors cleared at the northeast corner of the main crossroads. The same year he adds a two-story gristmill run by the same engine.
4. c. 1856 — A Disciple (Christian Church) class is organized in John Luke's home. Its first members include George Kintner, Andrew Sheline, John Luke and Silas Luke and their wives, and Sirenus Palmer.
5. 1866 — Andrew Sheline and Joseph Allomong build a three-story woolen factory costing about $15,000 with its machinery. In its first years it processes about seventy thousand pounds of wool a year.
6. 1866 — The Rev. Frederick Grimm organizes the congregation that builds St. Paul's German Lutheran Church in 1872.
7. 1867 — In September, eleven proprietors lay out forty-one lots and name the village Weston, a settlement of ten or twelve families.
8. 1867 — On December 26, a post office named Edon is established, with Charles Eichelberger as first postmaster.
9. 1873 — Florence Lodge No. 545, I.O.O.F., is instituted on July 1, and Edon Lodge No. 474, F. & A. M., on July 17.
10. 1874 — On August 13, the county commissioners grant a petition signed by fifty citizens to incorporate the village under the name Edon.
11. 1875 — On April 5, seventy-nine votes elect Erastus Hoadley the first mayor. That autumn a combined jail and council room is built for about $500.
12. 1876 — Edon elects its first board of education on March 10 and contracts with Andrew Sheline for a two-story brick schoolhouse for $2,000.
13. 1880 — The Edon school graduates its first class.
14. 1881 — C. J. DeWitt of Pioneer starts Edon's first newspaper.
15. 1882 — The county history puts Edon's population at about 650, up from about 60 in 1860 and about 200 in 1870.
16. unknown — Edon becomes a station stop on the Wabash Railroad's Fourth District line running between Montpelier, Ohio, and Chicago.
17. 1894 — A town plat of Edon, with insets of Kunkle and Columbia, appears on sheet 25 of the Atlas of Williams County, Ohio.
18. 1956 — Edon High School alumnus Mel Held debuts as a major league pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles.

Stories

Andrew Sheline's woolen mill

Andrew Sheline was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1819, grew up in Carroll County, Ohio, and came to Williams County in 1855. With help from his neighbors he cleared about two acres at the Edon crossroads and in May 1856 started a steam sawmill there, then added a gristmill run by the same engine. In 1866 he and Joseph Allomong built a three-story frame woolen factory, 40 by 60 feet, with looms, a 220-spindle jack and carding machines. Building and equipment cost at least $15,000, at a time when woolen machinery sold at very high prices just after the Civil War. In its first two or three years the mill used about seventy thousand pounds of wool a year, but the trade later fell to about twenty-five thousand pounds. The Shelines added stave, shingle, molding and handle machinery, and by 1882 the plant turned out about $40,000 of work a year with eight to ten workmen. The county history of that year called it one of the most important industries in the county or in northwestern Ohio.

The schoolhouse vote

Until the winter of 1874-75, Edon's children walked a mile east or west to country schools. Classes then met in a room of the Sheline House hotel and in what became the Masonic Hall. In 1876 the new board of education asked voters to approve $1,500 for a schoolhouse, which passed thirty-one to thirteen. The town then split over the site, with the west end backing the Garwood lots and the east end the Gearhart lots, and a vote chose the Garwood lots by a majority of seven. Andrew Sheline built a two-story brick school for $2,000 and bought the 8 percent bonds that paid for it himself. The 1882 county history says those bonds were really owned by Eastern investors.

The preacher who held his ears

Before Edon existed, English and German Methodists in central Florence Township worshiped in a log cabin David Singer had built for his father. Around 1848 to 1850 they built a hewed-log church together half a mile west of Singer's Corners. A hailstorm on the day it went up drove the builders into a nearby schoolhouse. The 1882 county history remembers the preacher George Donutt for gesturing with one hand while holding his ear with the other, switching hands as he went, and holding both ears when he meant to be most emphatic. That log church served until about 1864 or 1865, when a frame church was built a mile north of Edon. A Dunkard society later bought it, and the Methodists built a church in Edon itself.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Edon Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (2)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-07-06: county board of elections.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-29

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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