Guilford Township, Medina County

How Guilford Township, Medina County began

Guilford Township was named for Guilford, Connecticut, home to many of its original white settlers, and is the only Guilford Township in Ohio. Its first white settler, Henry Hosmer, arrived on foot from Massachusetts in July 1816 and returned that December with a small band of young settlers who built the township's first cabin on a creek bank purchased from a Wyandot and Delaware village for two canisters of gunpowder. The township was formally organized in 1819, and the village of Seville grew up around Hosmer's mill site, laid out in 1828 and platted in 1836. Guilford produced one of Medina County's most nationally prominent 19th-century politicians, Democrat James Crabtree Johnson, and in the 20th century ceded land to help form the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery, which straddles the Guilford-Seville line.

Settled 1816-07-13 (Henry Hosmer, first white settler), platted 1828 (Seville village laid out; platted with numbered lots in 1836), incorporated 1819 (Guilford Township organized), by settlers primarily from Guilford, Connecticut; original proprietors Roger Newberry, Justin Eley, Enoch Perkins and Elijah White.

Where the name comes from

Named for Guilford, Connecticut, the hometown of many of the township's original white settlers. It is the only Guilford Township in Ohio. The village within it, Seville, was named separately, after a city in Spain; before that it was known informally as "the Burgh."

Before the town

When the township's first settlers arrived in February 1817, an Indian village of about a dozen lodges of Wyandots and Delawares occupied the south bank of Hubbard Creek on the exact ground where Seville now stands; the newcomers purchased one lodge for two canisters of gunpowder and used it as temporary shelter while building their first cabin. Other Wyandot and Delaware villages of similar size stood nearby at the same period: one at Chippewa Lake, one on land later owned by J. A. McCoy, one on the Little Chippewa, and one on the Killbuck. The 1881 county history describes these Indians as uniformly friendly, supplying settlers with meat and never approaching a cabin without first announcing themselves by striking a tomahawk into a tree. An ancient, now-obliterated earthwork -- attributed to the Mound Builders rather than the historic tribes -- once stood a mile north and a half-mile east of Seville; it was a circular trench with embankment about ten rods across, fed by a perpetual spring. The county-level history file carries the fuller treaty context and the other specific, dated Native encounters located in the county.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware).

• Indian village at Hubbard Creek (site of Seville) (village) — south bank of Hubbard Creek, on the ground later occupied by Seville village, occupied until at least February 1817 (archive.org)
• Guilford earthwork (earthwork) — one mile north and one-half mile east of Seville, attributed to the Mound Builders, pre-contact (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1816-07-13 — Henry Hosmer, having walked from Massachusetts, arrives at the future site of Seville and selects it for a future home, the first white man to do so in the township.
2. 1816-12-31 — Henry Hosmer, his siblings Chester and Mary Hosmer, Shubael Porter and his sister Abigail, Moses Noble and Lyman Munson leave Massachusetts by team for the new settlement.
3. 1817-02 — The party builds the township's first log cabin on the creek bank at Seville, on a site purchased from the resident Wyandot and Delaware village for two canisters of gunpowder.
4. 1819 — Guilford Township is formally organized and named; John Wilson, William H. Bell and Lyman Munson are elected the first Trustees.
5. 1825 — A mail route between New Haven and New Portage is established through Seville, with William Hosmer as the first Postmaster, keeping the office in Chester Hosmer's log house.
6. 1828 — Seville Village is laid out on land belonging to Henry Hosmer, surveyed and platted by County Surveyor Nathaniel Bell, and named Seville after a city in Spain; it had previously been known simply as "the Burgh."
7. 1836 — The village of Seville is platted, its lots numbered from 1 to 214.
8. 1852 — Democrat James Crabtree Johnson of Guilford Township becomes Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives for one term; he later serves 42 years as president of the Ohio Farmers Insurance Company, predecessor of the Westfield Group.
9. 1888-12-01 — The Halsey Hulburt Homestead, west of Seville, is later added to the National Register of Historic Places.
10. 2000 — The Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery opens on land straddling Guilford Township and the village of Seville.

Stories

Two Canisters of Gunpowder for a Village Site

When Henry Hosmer and his young companions reached Hubbard Creek in February 1817 to build their permanent home, the ground they wanted was not empty. About a dozen lodges of Wyandot and Delaware families stood on the south bank, on the exact spot that would become the business heart of Seville. Rather than displace the village outright, the newcomers struck a bargain: they purchased one lodge outright, paying for it with two canisters of gunpowder, and fitted it up as temporary shelter while they felled trees for a proper log cabin a few rods east. The arrangement held through that first hard winter. Several other Wyandot and Delaware villages stood within a few miles -- at Chippewa Lake, on the Little Chippewa, on the Killbuck -- and by the settlers' own account relations stayed friendly throughout: hunters supplied the newcomers with meat at low prices, and visitors always announced themselves at a cabin door by striking a tomahawk into a nearby tree before approaching unarmed. The peace did not last past the clearing of the land. As Henry and Chester Hosmer's axes opened the forest that first spring, the Indians who had lived and hunted there, in the county historian's words, stood by "sad at heart," watching a world they knew disappear one felled oak at a time.

The Township That Gave Up Ground for a National Cemetery

Guilford Township's rural land, like much of southern Medina County, changed hands slowly and quietly for most of two centuries -- New England-descended farm families working the same fields their Guilford, Connecticut-born ancestors had cleared. That pattern broke in the year 2000, when the federal government opened the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery on township land bordering the village of Seville, giving Guilford Township a permanent, nationally significant institution unlike anything else in its history: a resting place for Ohio's military veterans, administered by the National Cemetery Administration and drawing visitors from well beyond Medina County's borders.

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

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• Wadsworth City41% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (sandstone bedrock + Chippewa Creek buried-valley aquifer)
• Seville Village37% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Medina Co/northwest13% of residentsLake Erie
• Rittman City6% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Medina Co/southern Water Dist3% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Medina Co/sharon-wadsworth0% of residentsLocal groundwater wells (sandstone bedrock + Chippewa Creek buried-valley aquifer)

High-hazard dams (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 4 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-03-03

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