Greenwich

How Greenwich began

The modern village of Greenwich grew up as "Greenwich Station" on the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railroad, a small cluster of houses until 1874, when a land and building association platted the adjoining Townsend farm into town lots; the village's population jumped from about seventy to roughly five hundred fifty in five years, and it incorporated in February 1879. It takes its name from Greenwich Township, itself named for Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the towns British forces burned in the Revolutionary War. Township pioneer Henry Carpenter, who settled nearby in 1817, predates the village itself by more than half a century. Labor organizer and journalist Albert Rhys Williams, later known for his sympathetic reporting on the Russian Revolution, was born here in 1883.

Settled 1817 (Henry Carpenter, first settler of Greenwich Township) / 1874 (Greenwich Station's real growth begins), platted 1874 (Townsend farm platted into town lots by the Greenwich land company and building association), incorporated February 1879, by The Greenwich land company and building association (incorporators L. P. Sisson, U. B. Thomas, Lorenzo Barrett, A. Ewing, J. B. Smith, W. A. Hossler, W. T. Smith and S. W. Thomas).

Where the name comes from

Greenwich takes its name from Greenwich Township, itself named for Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the Connecticut towns burned by British and Loyalist forces in the Revolutionary War whose residents received Firelands land claims.

Before the town

No Native American village or site specific to Greenwich village itself is documented in the sources consulted, but the surrounding township was a recorded Native landscape: local tradition held that Native people came to the area not to hunt but to make maple sugar, camping seasonally to collect and boil sap, and that a well-worn trail -- visible as a footpath depression as late as the 1870s -- crossed the township's northern part, used by a nation whose people were said to have their headquarters around Upper Sandusky (consistent with the Wyandot).

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1817 — Henry Carpenter, from Ulster County, New York, arrives and becomes the first settler in what will become Greenwich Township; he dies the next year from over-exertion at a house raising.
2. 1818 — The Quaker families who make Greenwich Township a Friends stronghold begin to arrive, along with Ephraim F. Barker, Varney Pearce and, in the fall, David W. Briggs, the hunter who kept the settlers in venison.
3. 1823 — Greenwich is organized as a separate township, having earlier been joined with Fitchville and Hartland for civil purposes; it is named for Greenwich, Connecticut.
4. 1823 — The Friends' meeting is organized at Joseph Washburne's house and the first Fourth of July celebration is held at the township center, with Briggs supplying the venison and Ephraim Barker cooking it.
5. 1828 — A post office named Greenwich is established at the township's center, according to Wikipedia (the county histories date the first mail to 1829), several miles from the site of the later railroad village.
6. 1829 — The first mail is carried through the township once a week on horseback by Robert Inscho of New Haven, who goes between New Haven and Medina County; the post office at the center, with Benjamin Kniffin as postmaster, follows.
7. 1845 — The Greenwich Friends replace the log meeting house they built in 1834 on land given by James Kniffin with a frame meeting house; the society numbers about two hundred by 1879.
8. 1871 — The Methodist Episcopal church at Greenwich Station is completed and dedicated, at a cost of about $4,500, after the North Greenwich and Edwards Corners classes join it.
9. 1873 — The Greenwich land company and building association is incorporated by special act of the legislature, with $13,000 in capital stock, to encourage development around the new railroad station.
10. 1874 — The land company buys the 120-acre Townsend farm next to the railroad and plats forty acres into town lots; the first building on the new plat goes up the same year, and the village's population grows from about seventy to about five hundred fifty by 1879.
11. 1875 — The Greenwich Fair Association is organized in April, and holds its first union fair that June on grounds leased from the land and building association.
12. 1876 — Greenwich Lodge No. 640 of the Odd Fellows is instituted on July 6 with eleven charter members.
13. 1877 — Greenwich Station is made a special school district and establishes graded schools, with W. C. Kincel as first superintendent.
14. 1879 — Greenwich Station incorporates as a village in February.
15. 1880 — Census records 647 residents in the village.
16. 1883 — Labor organizer and journalist Albert Rhys Williams, later known for his sympathetic reporting on the Russian Revolution, is born in Greenwich.
17. 1978 — The Mead-Zimmerman House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30.
18. 2000 — Village population reaches 1,525, the highest census count.
19. 2020 — The census counts 1,409 residents in the village, down from 1,525 in 2000.

Stories

The landowner who didn't want a town

For decades the spot on the railroad that became Greenwich Station stayed a handful of houses, and the 1879 county history laid the blame squarely on one man: Hiram Townsend, the farmer who owned the land around the depot, who had what the historian called 'a peculiar repugnance' toward any improvement that might have made the place grow. Only after a group of local investors organized the Greenwich land company and building association in 1873, bought Townsend's farm outright, and platted it into building lots did the village take off -- from about seventy people in 1874 to roughly five hundred fifty just five years later, with new homes going up along the northwest side of the railroad. The village incorporated in February 1879, a town built, in the end, over one landowner's reluctance rather than because of it.

The barn raised without whisky

Frontier barn raisings in Greenwich Township ran on whisky until Willis Smith put up a log barn with none. Those who came to help were told at the start that, contrary to custom, no liquor would be given out; they took hold willingly all the same, worked hard, and were fed a substantial dinner and supper by Mrs. Smith. The test came again when Smith's grain stood ready for the sickle and he was bedridden with rheumatism. For several days it seemed the harvest could not be saved unless he gave up his principles and furnished the men whisky, but he would not, and one bright morning the neighbors were seen in his field gathering the ripened grain, and it was safely stored. The 1879 history of the Firelands tells the story in the township's chapter, and the 1909 county history repeats much of that chapter.

Lovana Mitchell and the torch

When James and Lovana Mitchell came to Greenwich Township in 1821 there was no physician within reach, and Lovana Mitchell became the township's midwife. She often travelled alone and on foot at night by the light of a torch, regardless of weather, and the county historian of 1879 says her fearlessness and endurance were matched only by her skill. It is said she lost but one patient. The township's first resident doctor, Richard Morton, did not arrive until about 1825, and Dr. Henry Reynolds began practice only in 1836. Lovana Mitchell died in 1863, in her eighty-fourth year.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Greenwich Village80% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A16% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Northern Ohio Rural Water - SE District4% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 1 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.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-01-02

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page