Highland Township, Defiance County

How Highland Township, Defiance County began

Highland Township, in the southeast of Defiance County, was organized in 1842 while still part of Henry County, with John M. Sanford as first settler and first justice of the peace. Pennsylvania families such as the Brechbills (1835) cleared the sandy ridges and heavy timber along Powell Creek, a stream named for a trader who bought deer and coon skins from the Wyandot, Seneca and Ottawa hunters who ranged there until about 1839. Ayersville, named for Joseph Ayers, had a post office by 1849 and a Methodist church from 1860 but was never platted as a village; the township had 2,284 residents in 2020.

Settled before 1835 (John M. Sanford, first settler), incorporated 1842 (township organized), by John M. Sanford (first settler); Henry Brechbill's family was the second, in 1835.

Where the name comes from

One of two Highland Townships in Ohio (the other in Muskingum County); the 1883 county history gives no explanation of the name. Its post-office hamlet, Ayersville, was named for Joseph Ayers, and Powell Creek for a trader named Powell.

Before the town

The 1883 county history preserves several specific records of Native presence in what is now Highland Township. John M. Sanford, the first settler, traded with and shot at mark with the Wyandot, Seneca and Ottawa hunters who hunted the township for about seven years after he came; Powell Creek was named for a man named Powell who lived on it and traded with them, buying deer and coon skins. Henry Brechbill's family, arriving in 1835, found only paths and Indian trails in the woods; his son John, then ten, befriended the Native neighbors, who stayed nights at the Brechbill house and took him coon hunting. Settler David Hill said most of the Native residents left for the West in 1839, though an old herb doctor named Konkeyfoot stayed on, curing snakebite and catarrh, until his death in 1862. The history also reports that in the 1830s the Ottawa wintered in an encampment or small village on the Davis farm in neighboring Richland Township, and that skeletons found on the hill where Sarah (Brechbill) Rohn lived on the old Brechbill farm, one buried in a sitting position with a small earthen cup on each side of its head, were thought to mark an Indian burying ground of people who lived there long before white settlement. Settlers also followed an Indian trail through Defiance, fording the Auglaize at Shirley's Ford, to reach the mill at Brunersburg.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Seneca, Ottawa.

• Rohn hill burial ground (burial) — hill on the old Brechbill farm, Highland Township, where skeletons including a sitting burial with two small earthen cups were found, undated; thought by 1883 settlers to predate white settlement by many years (archive.org)
• Indian trail to Brunersburg via Defiance (trail) — from Highland Township northwest through Defiance, crossing the Auglaize at Shirley's Ford and the Maumee at the foot of Clinton Street, 1830s (archive.org)
• Powell Creek trading place (other) — Powell Creek, flowing across the township into the Auglaize, 1830s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1835 — Henry Brechbill's family, from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, settles on 400 acres in Section 3 as the second family in the township, after three weeks on the road and a wagon upset near Napoleon; John M. Sanford was already there.
2. 1839 — The Wyandot, Seneca and Ottawa hunters who ranged the township are said by settler David Hill to have left for their western home, though a Native herb doctor named Konkeyfoot remained until his death in 1862.
3. 1842 — Highland Township is organized.
4. 1842 — Highland Township holds its first election (the county history thinks 1842) at the house of Chauncey Ames, Section 9, with twenty voters present; Jacob Kraft is clerk and John M. Sanford the first justice of the peace.
5. 1844 — The township's first school is taught on Section 18 by 'Grandpap' Dunlap (about 1844 or 1845); an earlier log schoolhouse-church was built on the Brechbill farm in Section 4, first teacher Diana Daggart.
6. 1849 — A post office is open at Ayersville, named for Joseph Ayers, on a new mail route from Defiance through Ayersville, New Bavaria, Ridgeland, Madrid, Leipsic and McComb to Findlay.
7. 1853 — St. Stephen's German Evangelical Lutheran Church is founded on the South Ridge road about seven miles southeast of Defiance, with Rev. A. Detzer as its first pastor until 1873.
8. 1860 — The Ayersville Methodist Episcopal church is built at a cost of about $700; Dr. B. D. Ashton had settled as the first physician there about 1856.
9. 1873 — Ayersville Grange No. 369 is organized with J. W. Tate as Master and A. C. Henry as Secretary.
10. 1883 — Ayersville has a store and post office kept by Nathan A. Boutell, one physician, a Methodist church, a school, a blacksmith shop and a sawmill, and ship-timber is cut from the sparsely settled southeast of the township.
11. 2020 — Highland Township has 2,284 residents in the 2020 census, with State Routes 15 and 18 crossing it and no incorporated village.

Stories

A woman who may have lived to 111

The 1883 county history tells of Mrs. Skiver, wife of David Skiver, who came to Highland Township with her husband and family in the winter of 1837. They had meant to go on to Iowa but found the country alive with game and, being great hunters, settled on Section 19. She died February 23, 1880, at what the historian called nearly 111 years old; evidence gathered from her and others, since the family record was lost, put her birth at Easter Sunday 1769 in Rockingham County, Virginia. She remembered Revolutionary times, was seven when the Declaration was signed, lost her sight to cataract about twenty years before she died, and claimed never to have been sick. Her son Augustus became the township's best-known hunter, said to run a wolf track through dry leaves as readily as a trained hound; wolf scalps then brought about $6.50, $4 from the state and $2.50 from the county.

Konkeyfoot, the herb doctor who would not leave

When the Wyandot, Seneca and Ottawa hunters of the Powell Creek country went west about 1839, one man stayed. Settler David Hill remembered an old Native herb doctor named Konkeyfoot who remained in the township until his death in 1862, saying he had never seen a better section of country for gathering his favorite herbs. He was successful, Hill said, at curing snakebite and what the settlers called catarrh, could read and write, and handed out many of his recipes to neighbors, some of which were still in use in 1883. Nearby, on the hill where Henry Brechbill's daughter Sarah Rohn later lived, farm work turned up large skeletons, one in a sitting position with a small earthen cup at each side of the head, which settlers took for the burial ground of a much earlier people.

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

Maumee River water pulled through two river intakes and stored in a 74-acre upground (off-channel) reservoir before treatment, near the Maumee/Auglaize/Tiffin River confluence at Defiance The water here

• Defiance City92% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Ayersville Water and Sewer District3% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Christi Water System Inc2% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Holgate Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Brunersburg Wd - Brunersburg1% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)
• Continental Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Brunersburg Wd - Airport0% of residentsMaumee River (via 74-acre upground reservoir)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (2)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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 2024-11-26

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