Harrisville Township, Medina County

How Harrisville Township, Medina County began

Harrisville Township holds Medina County's earliest settlement claim: Judge Joseph Harris and his family arrived in February 1811, giving both the township and its central village (first platted as Harrisville, later renamed Lodi) their name. The township's first church, a Congregational body organized by Rev. Luther Humphrey and missionary Amasa Loomis with six founding families, followed soon after in 1818. Today the township, in the county's southwest corner, contains the village of Lodi and the Lodi Prime Outlets mall, and hosts Medina County Park District's Hidden Hollow Camp.

Settled 1811-02, by Judge Joseph Harris and family.

Where the name comes from

Named for Judge Joseph Harris, whose family's arrival in February 1811 is recorded as Medina County's first titled, recorded settlement, alongside Liverpool Township's settlement the same year. It is the only Harrisville Township in Ohio.

Before the town

The 1881 county history says the place Joseph Harris chose for his home in 1810-1811 'had also been, and was then, one of the favorite hunting grounds of the Wyandot and Ottawa Indians', and that many of their wigwams, 'still in a good state of preservation', stood near the spot. Relations with Harris were friendly, but the Indians moved out of sight, building new lodges two to six miles away. An Indian trail from Sandusky to Wooster and on to Pittsburgh ran through the township a few miles west of the center of Lodi, used by hunters and trappers of several tribes taking hides to market. A few years later Capt. Wolf, a Delaware who acted as a sort of missionary among the tribes north of the Ohio, had served under Gen. Harrison and watched Perry's battle on Lake Erie in 1813, looked after the trapping at Chippewa Lake and often visited the settlers, taking the Harris boy out on the lake in a bark canoe. The land was opened to settlement by the Treaty of Fort Industry (1805); a Potawatomi encounter is recorded in Liverpool Township in 1810.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Ottawa, Lenape (Delaware).

• Wyandot and Ottawa wigwams at the Harris site (camp) — near the Tuttle lot, a few rods south of the center of Lodi, before and at 1810-1811 (archive.org)
• Sandusky-Wooster-Pittsburgh trail (trail) — through Harrisville Township a few miles west of the center of Lodi, before 1811 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1807 — The Connecticut Land Company divides its lands west of the Cuyahoga; Township No. 1 in Range 16, later Harrisville, is drawn by sixteen proprietors of the Torringford Land Company.
2. 1810 — The township is surveyed into lots of 100 acres and a road is established through it from Norton to the east line of Huron County; in the fall Joseph Harris walks west from Randolph, picks his site and builds a log hut.
3. 1811-02 — Judge Joseph Harris's family settles the township, Medina County's first recorded, titled settlement.
4. 1811-02-14 — The Harris party, four ox sleds from Randolph, arrives after three days; with Harris, his wife, their two-year-old and the boy James Redfield the township's first settlement dates from this day.
5. 1816 — Settlers arrive including Carolus Tuttle and families; by 1818 the township has many more, among them Lomer Griffin, who in March 1818 raises a cabin two miles north of Lodi.
6. 1817-04 — The political organization of Harrisville Township is completed; it then includes the territory of ten present townships, including Westfield, Lafayette, Chatham and Spencer.
7. 1818 — First Congregational Church, the first church in Harrisville Township, is formed by Rev. Luther Humphrey, missionary Amasa Loomis and six local families.
8. 1818 — A state enumeration counts 231 people in the township.
9. 1834 — A post office named Harrisville is established on the new mail line from Wooster to Elyria, carried twice a week by James Redfield; its name is later changed to Lodi.
10. c. 1850 — The township's population reaches 1,477, then falls to 1,226 in 1860 and 1,182 in 1870.
11. 1853 — Railroad levels are run between Wooster and Grafton, with the line surveyed through the Harrisville marsh, where peat covers over 2,000 acres.
12. 1875 — The Snow Flake Flouring Mill is built at Lodi next to the old cheese factory on the site of Medina County's first flouring mill.
13. 1880 — The census counts 1,382 persons and 197 farms in the township; Lodi is an unincorporated village of 439.
14. 1891 — The village within the township, originally platted as Harrisville, incorporates under its later name, Lodi.
15. 1976-05-06 — The Black River Viaduct of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a mile west of Lodi off State Route 421, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
16. 1990s (late) — Medina County Park District opens Hidden Hollow Camp in Harrisville Township on a limited basis.
17. 2011-2012 — An exploratory oil and gas well using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in Harrisville Township sparks public debate and two Medina County lawsuits; the well produces disappointing results for the drilling company and is plugged in late 2012.
18. 2020 — Harrisville Township has 1,717 residents.

Stories

The First Family in the County

Every other Medina County township measures its founding against Harrisville's. When Judge Joseph Harris brought his family to the area in February 1811, they became, by the county's own record, its first titled and formally recorded settlers -- arriving the same eventful year as Liverpool Township's own earliest residents, but generally credited as the county's true starting point. The township took his name, and so, at least at first, did its central village, platted as Harrisville before it was later renamed Lodi. Harris's family had no way of knowing they were founding what would become, in the decades that followed, the oldest continuously settled community in the entire county.

The Burr House on the underground railroad

Timothy Burr, whom the county history calls Uncle Timothy, lived in the large brick house west of Lodi and, with a number of neighbors, sided with the abolitionists in the two decades before the Civil War. The Burr House became, in the 1881 account, a famous station on the 'underground railroad': fugitives from the South arrived at night and found shelter, protection and food there, often ten or fifteen at a time and some staying for days, before going on to Oberlin and other points of safety. Laura Burr, the wife of the house, and Rachel Norton, a young girl living with them who later became Mrs. E. W. Minns, helped give them help. The county historian was writing while some of the people involved were still living in the area.

Wolf hides and a two-dollar horse

James Redfield, who came to the township at eleven with the Harris party, began as a teenager a trade in wolf hides, since Ohio paid a bounty for each wolf killed. He is said to have killed as many as 125 in a few years, and he went about it as a business. Once he traveled twenty miles into Wayne County and bought an old, decrepit horse for two dollars, led it into thick woods, shot it, and set his traps around the carcass; in a short time he had taken fifteen wolves. He turned the money to other ventures, an ashery for 'black salts' that he carried to Elyria and traded for merchandise, and later the contract to carry the mail from Wooster to Elyria through Harrisville. The story is from the 1881 county history.

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

Every historic place in Medina County on the full map

Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here

• Lodi Village60% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A22% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Medina Co/northwest14% of residentsLake Erie
• West Salem Village4% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Public EV charging (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 4 of 4 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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