Green Township, Wayne County

How Green Township, Wayne County began

Green (Greene) Township lies in central Wayne County, second from the north and the east line. Michael Thomas made the first settlement in 1811; the township was organized on February 5, 1817 and named for Revolutionary Gen. Nathaniel Greene. The first comers found a twelve-acre clearing they called 'the Indian field' and the remains of an Indian village on section 21 that were still visible in 1819. Smithville (platted 1836) lies in the west and Orrville, laid out in 1852 and incorporated in 1864, in the east. The township had 2,715 residents in 1870 and 12,246 in 2020.

Settled 1811 (Michael Thomas, southwest quarter of section 33), platted Smithville, May 25, 1836 (an earlier plat by Thomas Smith in 1831 was abandoned); Orrville, 1852 (partly in Baughman Township), incorporated February 5, 1817 (township organized), by Michael Thomas and Thomas Boydston, the only settlers for three years.

Where the name comes from

Both Douglass (1878) and Bowen (1910) say the township took its name from Major-General Nathaniel Greene, a Revolutionary soldier and a native of Warwick, Rhode Island. The county histories spell it Greene; the modern township spells it Green. Smithville is named for Thomas Smith, who built the first house there in 1818.

Before the town

Two Native traces are recorded. Bowen (1910) says the first comers found about twelve acres on the southwest quarter of section 3 'clear of trees, stumps, and even roots,' which they called 'the Indian field,' in a township otherwise overgrown with timber. Both county histories add that 'as late as 1819' there were visible indications of an old Indian village on section 21. Bowen also repeats a tradition that in 1802 a party of four young men travelling from Cleveland toward Coshocton was attacked by Indians, one man killed by a bullet that struck a small oak which the attackers notched, and that two of the survivors later returned and found the notched tree but no remains. The nation is not named in any of these accounts, and the author himself calls the 1802 tradition unreliable. Across Wayne County, the wider record is of the Delaware (Lenape), Wyandot and Shawnee.

• 'The Indian field' (other) — twelve acres on the southwest quarter of section 3, Greene Township, clear of trees when the first settlers arrived, before 1811 settlement (archive.org)
• Remains of an Indian village (village) — section 21, Greene Township, visible as late as 1819 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1802 — According to a tradition recorded in 1910, a party of four young men crossing from Cleveland toward Coshocton is attacked by Indians in what becomes Greene Township and one is killed, perhaps the first white death in the township.
2. 1811 — Michael Thomas, with his wife and seven children, makes the first settlement on the southwest quarter of section 33; Thomas Boydston follows, and for three years these are the only settlers.
3. 1812 — On September 25 Martha, daughter of Michael Thomas, is born, the first birth in the township; the first sermon is preached the same year by Rev. Gray at the Thomas house.
4. 1814 — Lorenzo Winkler arrives from Virginia, and the Methodists organize the township's first church; the Amish follow in 1816.
5. 1815 — Liverton Thomas marries Anna Wade, the first marriage; in the fall John Wade builds a hand-mill to crush corn.
6. 1817 — On February 5 Greene Township is organized, named for Gen. Nathaniel Greene; in April the first election is held at William Barnett's on section 21, and by year's end the township holds 147 people.
7. 1817 — On December 27 Christian Partshie is killed by a falling timber at a house-raising on the old Ruble farm, the first death after settlement.
8. 1818 — Thomas Smith builds the first house in the future Smithville; Reasin Beall opens the first store in one end of Smith's cabin; Peter Kane, a student from Oxford, England, teaches the first school; the first state's warrant is issued April 5.
9. 1819 — The remains of an Indian village are still visible on section 21; Thomas Smith puts up the first sawmill.
10. 1822 — The township's first frame building is raised on the Cyrus Hoover farm.
11. 1836 — On May 25 David Birney Sr., Joseph Musser, John Shroll and Luther Carey lay out the present Smithville, 41 lots surveyed by Campbell Bell, after Smith's 1831 plat on low ground was vacated.
12. 1852 — Orrville is laid out partly in Greene and partly in Baughman Township by Jesse Straughan and named for Smith Orr; it is incorporated by the county commissioners on May 9, 1864.
13. 1870 — The census counts 2,715 residents in the township.
14. 1882 — A post office opens at Weilersville, in the southwest of the township; it stays open until 1955.
15. 1900 — The census counts 3,318 residents.
16. 2020 — Township population reaches 12,246.

Stories

The Indian field and the notched oak

When the first settlers came to what is now Greene Township it was timbered wilderness except for twelve acres on the southwest quarter of section 3, clear of trees, stumps and even roots, which they called the Indian field. The 1910 county history, while warning that tradition is not always reliable, preserves a story that fits the spot: in 1802 four young men travelling from Cleveland toward Coshocton were attacked by Indians, one was killed, and the other three fell back along the trail they had blazed. The bullet that killed him lodged in a small oak, which the attackers notched high on the trunk. A few years later two of the survivors came back with others, found the notched tree and no sign of their friend. The county historian called him the first white person to die in the township, and noted that the remains of an old Indian village on section 21 could still be seen as late as 1819.

Reasin Beall's store in Thomas Smith's cabin

Thomas Smith, born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1788, came to Greene Township in the spring of 1818 with his wife Jane and two children and built the first cabin of what became Smithville on the Portage road. The first store in the settlement was opened that year by Reasin Beall in one end of Smith's cabin. Smith was the first postmaster, under Andrew Jackson's first administration, and put up the first sawmill in 1819. In 1831 he laid out a village near the cabin, but low ground led to its being vacated, and on May 25, 1836 four men laid out the present Smithville a short way off.

A railroad hamlet and a true ghost town, side by side

Green Township's southwest once held Weilersville, a self-sufficient rural hamlet built around the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad: a general store, a blacksmith shop, a woodworking shop, two stockyards, a grain elevator and a post office, which was open from 1882 to 1955. It is now a residential neighborhood just south of Smithville. A little to the north and east, Paradise, centered on Rohrer Road, has vanished entirely; Wikipedia calls it a ghost town and says nothing of the original community remains.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Orrville City51% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (Wayne County)
• Smithville Village26% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Wooster City19% of residentsKillbuck Creek Buried Valley Aquifer (own wells)
• Marshallville Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Millborne Mobile Home Community0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Little Chippewa Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Spruce Tree Village MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Glenridge Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Green Meadows Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Wooster Rolling Wheels Estates MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Cite this page