Freedom Township, Henry County

How Freedom Township, Henry County began

Freedom Township, in Henry County's north, was one of the first five townships organized in the county and once covered nearly all the territory north of the Maumee, including all of what became Fulton County in 1850; that separation left it with just twenty-four sections. Settlement was sparse until a wave of German immigrants arrived after 1860 and converted the swampy, waterway-poor township into what the 1888 county history called a model of well-kept farms and brick homesteads. The township's quiet farming record is broken by two violent nineteenth-century crimes that the same history calls its 'dark and bloody ground': the 1864 murder of a fugitive Michigan banker and the 1883 killing of a farm couple, both of which ended in public hangings at the Napoleon jail.

Settled 1838 to 1850 (early scattered settlers); German immigration from 1860, incorporated one of the first five townships organized in Henry County (exact date lost to the 1847 courthouse fire), by Henry County.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted explains why Freedom Township was given its name; the township's own 1847 organization records, like much of the county's early civil history, were destroyed in the 1847 courthouse fire.

Before the town

No Native village, mound, trail or treaty site specific to Freedom Township is documented in the sources we reviewed. The 1888 county history's chapter on the township opens by noting that its own civil-organization records were lost to fire and says nothing of any earlier Native presence; the township's location north of the Maumee places it within the general area later reserved in small part for the Ottawa and Wyandot under the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids and its 1818 supplement, but no specific site within Freedom Township's own boundaries was found.

Timeline

1. by 1840 — Freedom Township, together with Napoleon Township, includes nearly all of the county's territory north of the Maumee River, plus all of what will become Fulton County; the combined population is only 105.
2. 1850 — Fulton County is organized, taking two tiers of sections from Freedom Township's north and leaving it with twenty-four sections; the township's population is 460.
3. 1852 — The township's first church, a United Brethren congregation built in section twenty-eight, begins holding Sabbath services led by settler George Struble.
4. 1864-07-14 — Math. Bowen discovers the decomposed body of fugitive Michigan banker W. W. Treadwell, shot and beaten, near the Little Red School-house in the township.
5. 1865-07-11 — John Crowell is hanged at the Napoleon jail for the murder of W. W. Treadwell.
6. 1883-10-23 — Farmer George Williams and his wife are murdered on their Freedom Township farm by Wesley Johnson, a young man in the employ of a relative.
7. 1884-05-29 — Wesley Johnson is hanged at the Napoleon jail for the murders of George Williams and his wife.

Stories

Freedom's 'dark and bloody ground'

For a quiet farming township with, in the county historian's own words, few 'pleasing incidents of frontier life' to record, Freedom Township earned an unsettling nickname from two unrelated crimes. In July 1864, Math. Bowen stumbled on the badly decomposed body of a man near the Little Red School-house, shot twice and beaten with a club; investigation traced the victim to W. W. Treadwell, a Hudson, Michigan banker who had fled an Adrian jail with a fellow inmate, horse thief John Crowell. Crowell was arrested, convicted largely on the club and a marked hundred-dollar bill found in his possession, and hanged at the Napoleon jail on July 11, 1865, telling the sheriff plainly, 'my punishment is just.' Almost twenty years later, in October 1883, farmer George Williams and his wife were found murdered in their own barn and bedroom, their infant nearly starved beside them; suspicion fell on Wesley Johnson, a young farmhand, whose trial that winter the historian called 'the most exciting ever witnessed in the county.' Johnson was hanged on May 29, 1884, showing, like Crowell before him, no emotion on the scaffold. Two hangings from two crimes gave the township its grim epithet -- 'the dark and bloody ground of Henry county' -- in a record otherwise given over almost entirely to drainage ditches and brick farmhouses.

Photographs

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

Maumee River (with Wauseon reservoirs as backup/blend storage) The water here

• Napoleon City87% of residentsMaumee River (with Wauseon reservoirs as backup/blend storage)
• Northwestern W and SD - Sr 1084% of residentsMaumee River (with Wauseon reservoirs as backup/blend storage)
• Archbold Village4% of residentsTiffin River (plus Brush Creek), stored in two reservoirs
• Florida Village3% of residentsMaumee River (with Wauseon reservoirs as backup/blend storage)
• Northwestern W and SD - Co. Rd P2% of residentsMaumee River (with Wauseon reservoirs as backup/blend storage)

Private schools (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-17: county board of elections.

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 2025-07-10

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