Granger Township, Medina County

How Granger Township, Medina County began

Granger Township, organized in 1820, was named by popular vote for Gideon Granger, a Connecticut legislator and the fourth United States Postmaster General (serving 13 years under Jefferson and Madison, still the longest tenure in the post's history), who acquired the entire township as part of an 1811 estate debt settlement and was one of the eight original proprietors of the Western Reserve. Its first known white visitors were hunters who built a cabin at Porter's Pinnacle in the winter of 1810, but permanent settlement waited until October 1817, when four New York farmers rode out to inspect the land and bought three-fourths of the township directly from Granger himself. The township remains without an incorporated municipality even today, the only Granger Township in Ohio. Its farm families played a documented role in the Underground Railroad, supplying freedom seekers to abolitionist Hiram Miller in neighboring Hinckley Township, and in 1905 cattleman Franklin Sylvester -- whose farm also holds one of the county's best-preserved Mound Builder earthworks -- funded the township's library.

Settled 1817-10 (James Ganyard, Elizur Hills, Anthony Lowe and Burt/John Codding purchase three-fourths of the township), incorporated 1820 (organized and named for Gideon Granger), by Gideon Granger, original Western Reserve proprietor, acquired the township in an August 1811 estate debt settlement.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for Gideon Granger, a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives and the fourth U.S. Postmaster General, who served 13 years under Presidents Jefferson and Madison -- the longest tenure of any Postmaster General in U.S. history -- and was later a key figure in building New York's Erie Canal. Granger acquired the entire township in August 1811 as part of an estate debt settlement; he was one of the eight original purchasers of the Connecticut Western Reserve. Settlers chose the name by popular vote. It is the only Granger Township in Ohio.

Before the town

Granger Township holds one of the best-preserved Mound Builder earthworks documented anywhere in Medina County: a half-mile east of Grangersburg, a now-mostly-obliterated circular trench and embankment, roughly ten rods across and fed by a perpetual spring, once stood as a fortification whose builders and purpose the 1881 county history calls entirely a mystery. A second, separate and more intact site sits on the farm of Franklin Sylvester (the same cattleman who later funded the township library in 1905), one mile north of Grangersburg: a complete oval mound over three hundred feet in circumference and more than fifteen feet high, which Sylvester enclosed with an iron fence and repurposed as his family's burial ground, topped with a granite shaft, though the mound itself was almost certainly built by Native people for burial purposes at a much earlier date. The township was also part of the broader hunting grounds worked by Wyandot, Seneca and other hunters through the early 1800s, alongside neighboring Hinckley. The county-level history file carries the fuller treaty context and the one specific, dated Native encounter located in the county -- Potawatomi hunters meeting a squatter in neighboring Liverpool Township in 1810.

• Granger earthwork (earthwork) — half-mile east of Grangersburg, Mound Builder era; builders and purpose undetermined (archive.org)
• Sylvester farm mound (mound) — one mile north of Grangersburg, on the Franklin Sylvester farm, Mound Builder era; later reused as the Sylvester family burial ground (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1810-winter — William Coggswell and his uncle Gibson Gates, hunters living in Bath, build a small cabin at Porter's Pinnacle in eastern Granger Township, using it as a base for hunting trips through the region -- likely the first white visitors to the township's soil.
2. 1811-08 — Gideon Granger, an original Western Reserve proprietor and former U.S. Postmaster General, acquires the entire township as part of an estate debt settlement.
3. 1817-10 — James Ganyard, Elizur Hills, Anthony Lowe and Burt Codding, four farmers from near Bristol, Ontario County, New York, ride out by carriage to inspect Township 3, Range 13, and purchase three-fourths of it directly from Gideon Granger at $4 an acre, giving a mortgage bond of more than $14,000; Ganyard soon transfers his proprietorship rights to John Codding.
4. 1820 — Granger Township formally organizes, settlers choosing the name Granger by popular vote.
5. 1833 — The Granger Temperance Society organizes in January with 41 charter members.
6. 1833 — Festus Ganyard and Ira Ingraham of Granger Township reportedly supply neighboring Hinckley Township abolitionist Hiram Miller with a steady stream of freedom seekers on their way to Canada.
7. 1905 — Franklin Sylvester, a wealthy Granger Township cattleman and dealer, furnishes $10,000 to build a library; the Sylvester Library Association forms.

Stories

The Postmaster's Township

Gideon Granger never lived in the Ohio township that carries his name. As the fourth United States Postmaster General, he spent thirteen years under Presidents Jefferson and Madison building the young country's mail network -- still the longest tenure anyone has held that office -- before later turning his energy to New York's Erie Canal. His connection to Medina County came through land, not residence: as one of the eight original proprietors of the Connecticut Western Reserve, Granger ended up owning the entire future township in August 1811, acquired as part of an estate debt settlement rather than sought out for its own sake. Six years later, in October 1817, four farmers from Ontario County, New York rode out on a scouting trip, liked what they found, and bought three-fourths of the township directly from Granger at $4 an acre -- a deal so large it required a mortgage bond of more than $14,000 and the sale of their New York farms to help cover it. When the township organized in 1820, its settlers chose to honor the absent postmaster with a popular vote rather than pick a New England hometown, as so many neighboring townships had, leaving Ohio with its only Granger Township.

A Cattleman's Fence Around a Mound Builder's Grave

One mile north of Grangersburg, on land that later belonged to cattleman Franklin Sylvester, sits one of the most intact ancient earthworks anywhere in Medina County: a complete oval mound, more than three hundred feet around and over fifteen feet high, standing in the middle of an open meadow. Rather than plow it under, Sylvester built a solid stone wall into its sides, surrounded it with an iron fence, and set a twenty-foot shaft of blue Quincy granite at its center -- turning a monument built by people whose identity the 1881 county history could only guess at into his own family's burial ground. The same Franklin Sylvester later gave $10,000 in 1905 to found Granger Township's library, linking one of the township's oldest documented sites of human memory to one of its more enduring modern institutions, on the same family's land a generation apart.

A Steady Stream Toward Canada

Medina County's best-documented Underground Railroad network ran directly through Granger Township's farms. Hiram Miller, who moved into neighboring Hinckley Township and became, in the county's own record, its "premier abolitionist and anti-slavery activist," is credited with helping roughly 1,000 enslaved people reach freedom. He did not work alone: Festus Ganyard and Ira Ingraham of Granger Township reportedly supplied Miller with a steady stream of freedom seekers making their way north toward Canada, turning two adjoining, otherwise unremarkable farm townships into a functioning link in the Underground Railroad. A historical marker commemorating this network originally stood on West 130th Street in Hinckley Township before it was moved in 2017 to the Brunswick Historical Society.

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

Lake Erie, drawn through two separate offshore intakes serving the Lake Road filtration plant The water here

• Medina Co/northwest56% of residentsLake Erie
• Medina City40% of residentsLake Erie
• Akron City2% of residentsLake Rockwell (Cuyahoga River impoundment)
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A1% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Oak Knoll Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Firestone Trace0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Granger Lake Condo 10% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Pine Mill Ridge 25000% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (10)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 7 of 7 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 2025-10-14

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