Farmer Township, Defiance County

How Farmer Township, Defiance County began

Farmer Township, in the northwest of Defiance County, was organized in the fall of 1836 as Lost Creek Township and later renamed for Nathan Farmer, who arrived as early as 1833. It was heavily timbered and wet, and was settled largely by people from St. Lawrence County, New York, and New England, who built nine frame and one brick schoolhouse by 1882. The creek that drains it, now Lost Creek, bore a Native name meaning Marsh Creek. The Presbyterian church was organized in 1848 and built in 1855, the village of Farmer Center was platted by act of the legislature, and a cheese factory company formed in 1870. Johnny Appleseed is remembered at a camp meeting here in 1843.

Settled 1833, incorporated fall 1836 (as Lost Creek Township), by Nathan Farmer and John Hickman, first settlers.

Where the name comes from

Warner's 1883 county history says Farmer Township was first called Lost Creek Township, after the creek, and afterward received the name Farmer in honor of Nathan Farmer, who came into the township as early as 1833.

Before the town

Warner's 1883 county history gives the Native name of the creek running through the township as Buck-que-o-ko-uh, interpreted as Marsh Creek, which it says suited the beaver-dam marshes at the creek's head. William M. Haller's reminiscence in the same history says the Ottawa, who had long gathered in Farmer Township and along the St. Joseph River and who were unruly when they could get whisky from the traders but never committed murder, were removed by Dr. Colby about 1843.

Nations recorded here: Ottawa.

• Buck-que-o-ko-uh (Marsh Creek), now Lost Creek (other) — Lost Creek, which drains Farmer Township, before 1836 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1833 — Nathan Farmer, for whom the township is later renamed, settles in the area.
2. 1833 — Enoch Farmer, born 1828, comes to the township in May with his parents, who buy the farm in Section 1 in October; his father helps organize the township in the mid-1830s and serves as trustee.
3. 1836 — Lost Creek Township (later renamed Farmer) is organized.
4. 1837 — Jesse Haller, a tanner who came to Brunersburg in 1831, moves his family to Section 32 of Farmer Township.
5. 1841 — A little boy of the Hoffman family, newly settled near the northwest corner of the township, wanders off; the settlers turn out with horns and search the woods all night, and he is found dead the next day.
6. 1843 — A camp meeting is held at a farm later owned by Arrowsmith & Reidenour, attended by Johnny Appleseed as a quiet, attentive listener.
7. 1843 — A band of Ottawa long resident in Farmer Township and along the St. Joseph River is removed, per an early settler's account, "by Dr. Colby."
8. 1845-03-18 — Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) dies at Fort Wayne, Indiana; local memory in Farmer Township long held he died closer to 1847.
9. 1845 — About ninety voters cast ballots at the first fall election after Defiance County is organized, among them Nathan Farmer, the Rice, Lloyd, Tharp, Gardner and Mortimer families and Miller Arrowsmith.
10. 1848 — The Presbyterian church of Farmer Township is organized September 2 by Rev. John M. Crabb with fourteen members; its building, costing about $1,000, goes up in 1855 and the membership reaches about seventy.
11. 1852 — The sixth public examination of teachers for the county's common schools is held at Farmer Center on March 5; twenty-five teachers are present, in a county then of seventy-eight school districts.
12. 1870 — A cheese factory company is organized with $50 shares; the township has two cheese factories, the second a private one at Williams Center, by 1883.
13. 1882 — Farmer Township has nine frame and one brick schoolhouse; Farmer Center has about 120 people, a hotel, two blacksmith shops, two groceries, two dry goods stores and a school of eighty pupils.

Stories

Johnny Appleseed at the camp meeting

An early Farmer Township settler named Haller remembered the "eccentric and strange old adventurer" Johnny Appleseed as a familiar, harmless figure who frequently passed through the neighborhood, always intent on planting apple trees. In 1843 Appleseed attended a camp meeting on a farm later owned by Arrowsmith and Reidenour, and instead of preaching, as he sometimes did elsewhere, he simply listened -- though he was known to rebuke young men in the crowd if they grew inattentive or too playful during the service. Haller described his appearance as striking even by frontier standards: he wore a coffee sack pulled on over his head for a coat, and dressed the rest of himself just as unconventionally. Locals in the township remembered Appleseed dying around 1847, but he died near Fort Wayne in March 1845.

The lost boy of 1841

A Mr. Hoffman settled near the northwest corner of Farmer Township about 1841, and his small boy, hardly out of infancy, wandered out of the cabin and into the woods. The settlers of the scattered cabins were told, and while the women and children were sent into the safety of the houses the whole male population turned out with horns to search the timber, the woods were searched. Warner's county history says the boy had not gone far but was not found until he had died; the writer thought he had been trying to undress for bed.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Bryan City31% of residentsMichindoh (Maumee) Glacial Aquifer, groundwater wells
• Edgerton Village30% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Hicksville Village26% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Sherwood Village9% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Ney Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Norlick1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Williams Co/hillside Country Living0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Oakwood MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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