Grand Prairie Township, Marion County

How Grand Prairie Township, Marion County began

Grand Prairie Township sits in the northern tier of Marion County, on ground that stayed closed to white settlement until the United States purchased it from the Wyandot, Seneca, Shawnee and Delaware nations by the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids; the treaty also reserved a three-mile-square Delaware tract, granted to Captain Pipe and sixteen other named Delaware people, at the corner where Grand Prairie met Salt Rock, Pitt and Antrim townships. Settlement by white families began in 1819, led by Mr. Ridenour and James Swinnerton, once the United States opened the purchased land for sale; the Delaware band ceded the reservation itself in 1829. The township's only community, Brush Ridge, was for a time the largest settlement in the township and is remembered today mainly for a six-week rat hunt in 1907 that killed 6,600 rats. It is the only Grand Prairie Township in Ohio and remains farmland.

Settled 1819, by James Swinnerton and the Ridenour family, among the first settlers.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted gives a documented origin for the township's name beyond the descriptive 'grand prairie' geography of open grassland in this part of the county, the same kind of prairie/oak-opening terrain named directly in neighboring Big Island Township. It is the only Grand Prairie Township in Ohio.

Before the town

Grand Prairie Township holds the most specific Native American history of any Marion County township: part of the three-mile-square Delaware reservation created by Article 5 of the Treaty of the Maumee Rapids, signed at the foot of the Maumee Rapids on September 29, 1817, sat within its borders, at the corner where Grand Prairie and Salt Rock townships (Marion County) met Pitt and Antrim townships, later organized into Wyandot County in 1845. The treaty divided the tract among sixteen named Delaware individuals and families: Captain Pipe, Zeshauau (James Armstrong), Mahautoo (John Armstrong), Sanoudoyeasquaw (Silas Armstrong), Teorow (Black Raccoon), Hawdorouwatistie (Billy Montour), Buck Wheat, William Dondee, Thomas Lyones, Johnny Cake, Captain Wolf, Isaac and John Hill, Tishatahoones (Widow Armstrong), Ayenucere, Hoomaurou (John Ming) and Yourdorast. Captain Pipe (Hopocan/Tahquantahwiquesheh) was a Munsee-Delaware chief of an earlier and more famous name (his father, also called Captain Pipe, had led Delaware resistance in the Ohio Country during the Revolutionary War); this later Captain Pipe was among the Delaware granted personal reservations in Ohio in the 1810s as a small number of Delaware families chose individual land grants over removal with the main body of the nation, which had by 1820 mostly relocated west to Missouri, Kansas and eventually Oklahoma under the Piqua and White River treaties of 1818. The United States government opened the surrounding land, including the ground that became Grand Prairie Township, for public sale to white settlers beginning in 1819; the Delaware band kept its tract until August 3, 1829, when it ceded it by a treaty signed at Little Sandusky for $3,000 and agreed to move west of the Mississippi by January 1, 1830. The 1883 county history's Grand Prairie Township chapter records that 'the United States purchased these lands from Native Americans in 1819' and that 'a constant tide of immigration flowed hither' immediately afterward -- Mr. Ridenour's cabin on the north side of the Little Scioto River was the township's first white settlement, and James Swinnerton, arriving from Delaware County in early 1819, bought Ridenour out within the same year. No source consulted names where in the township's later-surveyed sections the Delaware families actually lived while the reservation existed (1817-1829), nor traces any of the named individuals beyond the treaty text itself.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Delaware reservation of 1817 (treaty) — corner of Grand Prairie and Salt Rock townships, Marion County, and Pitt and Antrim townships, later Wyandot County, granted by the Treaty of the Maumee Rapids, September 29, 1817; ceded to the United States by the Delaware band at Little Sandusky, August 3, 1829 (treaties.okstate.edu)

Timeline

1. 1817-09-29 — The Treaty of the Maumee Rapids opens most of north-central Ohio to United States purchase while reserving a three-mile-square Delaware tract, part of it in what became Grand Prairie Township, to Captain Pipe and sixteen other named Delaware people.
2. 1819 — Mr. Ridenour builds the township's first white cabin on the north side of the Little Scioto River; James Swinnerton arrives from Delaware County the same year and buys Ridenour's claim.
3. 1819-1828 — Additional families settle the township, including the Drakes, Captain John VanMeter (a War of 1812 veteran), Benjamin Salmon, Asa Pike, Henry May and Jacob Bentsfield.
4. 1829-08-03 — The Delaware band cedes its three-mile-square reservation to the United States by a treaty signed at Little Sandusky, for $3,000, and agrees to move west of the Mississippi by January 1, 1830.
5. c. 1832 — The township's first schoolhouse, a primitive log building, is built near Mrs. Hord's residence; Isaac James is recorded as an early teacher.
6. 1867 — The Free-Will Baptist Church (later Grand Prairie Baptist Church) is built in Brush Ridge.
7. 1907 — Brush Ridge is overrun by rats; residents hold a six-week hunt that kills 6,600 of them.

Stories

A Wolf at the Cabin Door

Catharine Bretz, born in 1804, was among the pioneer women who settled Grand Prairie Township in its first years after the 1819 land sales. The 1883 county history preserves her account of a night spent alone in an unfinished cabin -- one still missing chinking between its logs -- while wolves circled outside and pressed at the gaps trying to get in. She survived the night, and her story stood alongside a couple dozen other biographical sketches the county historians collected from Grand Prairie's early settlers, a level of personal detail unusual for a township of scattered farms. Henry May's inn, marked by a black-horse sign, later became the kind of place where such stories were told and retold; it operated as a popular stopping point until about 1854.

Six Weeks, 6,600 Rats

By 1907 Brush Ridge, the township's one community and once its largest settlement, had a rat problem bad enough that residents organized an organized hunt against it. Over six weeks the hunt killed 6,600 rats, a number specific enough that it has outlived almost every other fact recorded about the hamlet. Brush Ridge, which also held the Free-Will Baptist Church built in 1867 (later renamed Grand Prairie Baptist Church), never grew beyond an unincorporated crossroads, and today it is remembered locally as much for the 1907 rat hunt as for anything else in its history.

Local history sources: ohiogenealogyexpress.com · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · co.marion.oh.us · treaties.okstate.edu · treaties.okstate.edu

Mostly private wells The water here

• Aqua Ohio - Marion94% of residentsScioto River and Little Scioto River intakes, blended with local groundwater wells
• Del-co Water Company, Inc.4% of residentsOlentangy River, O'Shaughnessy and Alum Creek reservoirs, plus Knox County wells
• Nevada Village2% of residentsSandusky River (via Outhwaite & Riley up-ground reservoirs)
• Pleasant Acres Mobile Home Community Llc0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Public schools (2)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Public EV charging (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

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 2026-01-20

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