Freedom Township, Wood County

How Freedom Township, Wood County began

Freedom Township, in eastern Wood County along the Portage River, took its name -- by the pioneers' own account, recorded in 1897 -- from the comparative liberty they felt settling it, not from any ease of the task itself. Asahel H. Powers and his extended family arrived from Lorain County in November 1833 to found one of its two earliest settlement clusters, near the future village of Pemberville; the other grew up around Michael N. Myers and Michael Miller at New Rochester, platted in 1835. The county's own 1897 commissioners' record dates the township's organization to December 1, 1834, the same day as neighboring Troy and Montgomery townships, though a modern secondary source gives 1831.

Settled November 1833, by Asahel H. Powers and his extended family, who took five days to travel about 80 miles from Lorain County, incorporated township established December 1, 1834 (per the county's own 1897 commissioners' record); a secondary source gives 1831, by Wood County commissioners.

Where the name comes from

The 1897 county history gives the naming directly, in its own words: the name was suggested to the pioneers 'by the comparative liberty they enjoyed here, rather than by any exemption from the necessity of finding a home in the wilderness' -- summarized in the phrase 'Made captive, yet deserving freedom more.' Ohio has two other Freedom Townships, in Henry and Portage counties.

Before the town

The 1897 county history records no mound, village or Native name for Freedom Township. It does record that in 1813 General Harrison's army cut the first wagon road through here and camped on the Portage until the river froze, and that pioneer Asahel Powers tapped a ready-made maple sugar camp on his farm in 1833-34. The land was Ottawa hunting ground until the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids.

Nations recorded here: Ottawa.

Timeline

1. 1813 — General Harrison's troops build the first wagon road in the township and camp on the later Henry Hoodlebrink farm until the river freezes enough to move artillery; relics of the camp were still found in 1897.
2. 1819 — The exterior lines of the township are surveyed; the section lines follow in 1821.
3. 1831-02-15 — The legislature establishes the McCutchenville turnpike from Perrysburg through New Rochester to Bucyrus; the survey is reported April 13, 1835.
4. 1833-08-27 — Asahel Hannan Powers records the township's first land entry, the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 10.
5. 1833-11 — Asahel H. Powers and his extended family -- his wife, two sons, two sons-in-law and daughters -- arrive after a five-day, four-night, roughly 80-mile journey from Lorain County; within a day they fell logs and raise an 18-by-30-foot cabin near the site that becomes Pemberville.
6. 1833-12-25 — The State of Ohio deeds Jacob Cable canal lands in Sections 21 and 28 for about $80 each; Cable and Asahel Powers are the pioneers of the two settlements.
7. 1833-1834 (winter) — Henry Hahn's wife gives birth to a child in an addition to the Powers cabin, the first native-born child of Freedom Township.
8. 1834 — Michael N. Myers arrives from Columbiana County and settles at the site that becomes New Rochester, the township's other early settlement center besides Pemberville.
9. 1834-11 — The inhabitants assemble at the forks of the Portage to raise a log schoolhouse, and Hiram Pember suggests the name Freedom for the new township.
10. 1834-12-01 — Freedom Township (Congressional Township 5, Range 12) is established by the Wood County commissioners, its first election ordered held at Michael N. Myers' house, the same day Troy and Montgomery townships are organized.
11. 1835 — Michael Miller has the town of New Rochester surveyed, the first town platted in the township.
12. 1835 — Joseph Fuller's hand-powered gristmill, grinding about a barrel a day, begins serving settlers from many miles around.
13. 1835-04 — The first township election is held at the cabin of Michael N. Myers; justices are chosen June 6.
14. 1836-03-15 — Road 46 is established along the north bank of the Portage.
15. 1839 — Sixty men aged 21 or over live in the township.
16. 1840 — The census counts 238 residents in the township.
17. 1844 — Michael N. Myers begins his two-story frame Myers' Hotel at New Rochester, finished in 1848 or 1849.
18. 1851 — The last wild bear seen in Freedom is chased from a pig by two neighbor women near New Rochester.
19. 1854-05-24 — S. H. Bell surveys the original 26-lot town of Pemberville for James Pember, on the northeast quarter of Section 10.
20. 1890 — The census counts 1,945 in the township, 843 of them in Pemberville.
21. 2020 — The census finds 2,644 people living in the township.

Stories

The founder who never saw his village

Benjamin Waite, son-in-law of pioneer Asahel Powers, bought 37 acres in the fall of 1833 on which a large part of Pemberville would later be built. He cleared a small opening and, the next summer, built a house near where Henry Bowlus's residence later stood, moving in with his wife. That fall he returned to Lorain County -- and died by his own hand. James Pember, another son-in-law of Powers, bought Waite's 37 acres that same fall for $600 and went on to build two or three sawmills on the Portage River; when the village that grew up around his land was formally surveyed in 1854, it was platted and named for him, not for Waite, whose death had opened the way for Pemberville's true founder.

Five days of mud: the Powers party reaches the Forks

Asahel Powers entered land at the forks of the Portage in August 1833, went back to eastern Lorain County, and set out again in November with two two-horse wagons, his wife, sons Herman and Hiram, sons-in-law James Pember and Benjamin Waite with Waite's wife, and daughters Lucina and Almira. The eighty-mile trip took five days and four nights, with stops at Amherst, near Milan, Fremont and Seager's tavern east of Woodville. November rains made the road almost horrible; the men often had to join both teams to pull one wagon through a mud hole and then go back for the other, and one traveler who passed a day ahead paid a man $12 to pull him through a hole twenty rods long. On the sixth morning they went up the Portage, picked a site on the southeast corner of Section 3, and by sundown had cut logs and raised an 18-by-30-foot house covered with shakes and bark. Powers soon found he had built on land he did not own and moved his clearing to Section 10, where the first crop of corn astonished the settlers and gave the Forks a name for corn.

The Cables' canoe

Jacob Cable and his family, Virginians who bought canal land from Ohio in December 1833 and led the New Rochester neighborhood, stayed only a short time. When they decided to leave the wilderness they loaded their goods in canoes and paddled down the Portage with the women and children. One mile below the Powers settlement a canoe capsized; the passengers lost their clothing and provisions but reached shore. Michael Miller and Michael N. Myers, who followed them in 1834, are the founders the county history credits with New Rochester.

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

Village well field (8 municipal wells) feeding the single village treatment plant The water here

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Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 3 of 3 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-11-06

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