Harpersfield Township, Ashtabula County

How Harpersfield Township, Ashtabula County began

Harpersfield Township was founded on June 28, 1798, when Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Alexander Harper led a party of settlers from Harpersfield, New York to the mouth of Cunningham Creek, making it one of the earliest permanent settlements in the Connecticut Western Reserve. Harper died of malarial fever that same September and, by tradition, became the first identifiable person buried in the Western Reserve, in a cemetery he himself had marked out on landing. His son, Colonel Robert Harper, built Shandy Hall beginning in 1815, an 18-room frame house -- said to be the oldest in this part of Ohio -- that his granddaughter named for the novel Tristram Shandy; it passed to the Western Reserve Historical Society in the 1930s and still stands as a museum. The township's Grand River crossing carries the Harpersfield Covered Bridge, built in 1868 and, at 228 feet, the third-longest covered bridge in Ohio.

Settled June 28, 1798, by Colonel Alexander Harper, leading settlers from Harpersfield, New York.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for the Harper family, led by Colonel Alexander Harper, who founded the settlement in 1798; it is the only Harpersfield Township in Ohio, echoing the family's earlier Harpersfield, New York.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, or site specific to Harpersfield Township is documented in the sources consulted.

Timeline

1. February 22, 1744 — Alexander Harper, later founder of Harpersfield Township, is born in Middletown, Connecticut, the eighth child of John Harper Sr. and Abigail Montgomery.
2. June 28, 1798 — Colonel Alexander Harper leads a party of settlers from Harpersfield, New York to the mouth of Cunningham Creek and founds the township, the earliest permanent settlement in Ashtabula County.
3. September 10, 1798 — Alexander Harper dies of malarial fever at age 54; he is buried in a cemetery he had marked out on landing, becoming, by local tradition, the first identifiable person buried in the Western Reserve.
4. 1815 — Colonel Robert Harper, Alexander's son, builds the original rooms of Shandy Hall; he expands it over the next two decades to eighteen rooms, making it the oldest frame residence in the area.
5. 1833 — The township's industry by this date includes one store, two flouring mills, two saw mills, one fulling mill, and two forges.
6. 1838 — Harness racer Orrin Hickok is born in the township.
7. 1868 — The Harpersfield Covered Bridge, a double-span Howe truss over the Grand River, is completed; at 228 feet it becomes the third-longest covered bridge in Ohio.
8. 1913 — A flood washes away the land at the bridge's north end, requiring a steel span to be added for support.
9. 1930s — Shandy Hall, with many of its original furnishings, is donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society.
10. June 28, 1974 — Shandy Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, its listing date coinciding with the anniversary of the township's 1798 founding.
11. November 3, 1975 — The Harpersfield Covered Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
12. 1962 — The covered bridge is bypassed when State Route 534 is rerouted around it, preserving it for local and pedestrian use.

Stories

A colonel plants his staff, and a granddaughter names the house

Alexander Harper had already lived a hard frontier life before he ever saw Ohio: born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1744, he helped found a settlement called Harpersfield in New York with his brothers, married Elizabeth Bartholomew in 1771, and raised eight children. In June 1798, at age 54, he led a party of settlers from that New York town to the mouth of Cunningham Creek in the Connecticut Western Reserve and founded a second Harpersfield. Soon after landing, tradition holds, he planted his walking staff in the ground to mark out a plot of land as a cemetery -- and within months he was its first occupant, dead of malarial fever that September, remembered as the first identifiable person buried anywhere in the Western Reserve. His son, Robert, prospered where his father had not lived to see it, building a substantial frame house beginning in 1815 that grew, over twenty years, into an eighteen-room home -- a near-mansion by frontier standards. It was Robert's daughter Ann who gave the house its lasting name: taken with her favorite novel, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, she called the family home Shandy Hall, and her own copy of the book still sits inside it today, more than two centuries after her grandfather first marked the ground nearby.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · findagrave.com · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Ashtabula County on the full map

Lake Erie, drawn at a shoreline intake near Ashtabula Harbor into a plant that sits only about 4 feet above lake water elevation The water here

• Geneva City97% of residentsLake Erie
• Lake County East Water Subdistrict1% of residentsLake Erie
• Roaming Shores Village1% of residentsLake Erie
• Rock Creek Village1% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Public schools (1)

Private schools (1)

Public EV charging (2)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 2 of 2 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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-30
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-05

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