Florence Township, Williams County

How Florence Township, Williams County began

Florence Township, in the northwest of Williams County, was established on the commissioners' order for an election on the first Monday of April 1837, when it covered Town 7 of Range 1 and Range 2 north to the Michigan line, including what became Bridgewater, Northwest and Superior; Bridgewater and Superior were cut off in March 1839, leaving its present bounds. David Singer, a farmer who came in 1836 and entered half a section, built a cabin on Section 9 in the winter of 1836-37 and moved his family in February 1837; his son David Singer Jr., born in 1839, was the township's first white child. The land was heavily timbered and boggy; Indians camped on the creek east of the Singer home in the early settlement years. West Buffalo had mills from the 1830s and later vanished.

Settled 1836-37, incorporated April 1837, by David Singer and family; Samuel Cain 1838.

Where the name comes from

Not documented in the source checked, beyond noting Erie County holds Ohio's only other Florence Township.

Before the town

Shinn's 1905 county history, quoting Goodspeed, says that in the early settlement years Indians were encamped on the creek about thirty rods east of the second David Singer's residence: one wounded bear crawled into a hollow log, and a Canadian-born member of the band whom the others disliked was taunted into crawling in head first and pulling it out dead by the leg. When another Indian got drunk and threatened to kill his wife, several Indians came to Mr. Singer to ask him to interfere, and he and they bound the man hand and foot, and Mrs. Singer every year smoked many venison hams on shares for the Indians. The land is within the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids cession.

• Indian camp on the creek east of the Singer farm (camp) — Creek about thirty rods east of the second David Singer's residence, Florence Township, early settlement years (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1817 — The Treaty of the Maumee Rapids carries Indian title to this part of northwestern Ohio, including the future Florence Township, to the United States.
2. 1835-1838 — Mills are built at West Buffalo, on the site John D. Martin plats the same year as a village -- 1836 -- complete with a school, blacksmith shop, general store, sawmill and gristmill.
3. 1836 — David Singer, a farmer from the east, locates his farm on Section 9 and in winter builds a log cabin about forty rods north of the later family residence; the family lives first at Denmark and then with Robert McDaniel in Superior Township and moves in February 1837, with no neighbor nearer than five miles.
4. 1837 — The commissioners order an election in the first Monday of April for Florence Township, then Town 7 of Ranges 1 and 2 north to the state line; the names of the first officers are forgotten.
5. 1838 — Samuel Cain, born 1810 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, comes from Napoleon, Ohio, and enters 93 acres on Section 1, becoming about the second permanent settler within the present bounds.
6. 1839 — David Singer Jr., the first white child born in the township, is born; in March the commissioners create Bridgewater (including the present Northwest) and Superior from Florence's territory.
7. 1840 — Nathan Disbrow, born in New York in 1813 and a resident of Superior Township since 1839, moves to Florence and builds a 16-by-16-foot cabin; it takes two days to reach the mill and the nearest post office is Pulaski.
8. 1845 — About this year Mrs. Singer, standing outside her cabin, sees a bear cub walking on a rail fence and catches it by the scruff of the neck; the next day the men fell a hollow tree and shoot the mother bear, and the cub is later sold for fifty cents.
9. 1854-1874 — West Buffalo operates its own post office.
10. before 1882 — West Buffalo fades out of existence, gone before the county's 1882 history book was published; only its cemetery survives to mark the site.

Stories

A Mill Town That Outran Its Own Railroad

West Buffalo had everything a young Ohio village needed to succeed: John D. Martin platted it in 1836, and within two years it had a school, a blacksmith shop, a general store, and both a sawmill and a gristmill turning on the local water power. A post office followed in 1854 and ran for two decades. But the railroad that reshaped so many Williams County towns passed the village by, and business drifted instead to its better-connected neighbors. By the time the county's first published history came out in 1882, West Buffalo had already faded from existence -- not burned, not abandoned in a single dramatic event, just slowly emptied out until nothing but its cemetery remained to mark where a working mill town once stood.

Four weeks without bread

David Singer came to the Florence Township area in 1836, entered half a section of government land, and in the winter of 1836-37 raised a log cabin on Section 9; in February 1837 his family moved in, as poor as everybody else, with no neighbor nearer than five miles in an almost impassable wilderness. For four weeks, Shinn writes, drawing on Goodspeed's history, the family lived without any bread at all, their only food being rice soup and wild meat. The extreme privation did not last, or, Shinn says, they would have gone back to their old home farther east. Singer was once belated returning from Denmark when a storm came on and, bewildered in the dark, he sat down on a log and waited all night in cold rain until morning. His wife once saved a sow and her pigs, which slept against the outside wall of the cabin to be safe from wolves and bears, by driving off a pack of hungry wolves with a firebrand and keeping a fire burning all night near the swine. Their son David Jr., born in 1839, was the first white child in the township.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohioghosttowns.wordpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Edon Village84% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Montpelier Village11% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Edgerton Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Seneca1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Williams Co/hillside Country Living0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Who holds office

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

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-09-01
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-17

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