Holmes Township, Crawford County

How Holmes Township, Crawford County began

Holmes Township occupies the northwestern part of Crawford County and was named for Deputy Surveyor General Samuel Holmes, who resurveyed it in 1836. Its western edge lay partly inside the Wyandot reservation until that land was sold at public auction in 1835, and the township holds nearly obliterated Mound Builder earthworks along Broken Sword Creek that predate any of its later residents. German immigrant families arrived from about 1828-1830 and settled the township's low, swampy ground, draining it gradually from cabins built on higher ridges. The village of Portersville, founded in 1852 and known locally as Wingart's Corners, achieved brief national fame after the Civil War, by the 1881 county history's account, as the real-life inspiration for the fictional 'Confederate X Roads, Kentucky,' home of the satirical newspaper character Petroleum V. Nasby.

Settled date unrecorded (tradition names a settler called Heaman as first), by Township land could not be purchased by settlers until after 1820; German families formed two distinct settlements about six years apart, one in the southeast and one near present Portersville; re-surveyed and its present 36-square-mile shape fixed in 1836 when Wyandot reservation land was annexed.

Where the name comes from

Named for Deputy Surveyor General Samuel Holmes, who was authorized to re-survey the township's territory in 1836; it is the only Holmes Township in Ohio.

Before the town

Holmes Township carries the clearest prehistoric evidence found so far among this county's thin townships: the 1881 county history records 'nearly obliterated earthworks along the course of Broken Sword Creek,' left by Mound Builder people who camped and hunted there in centuries before either Wyandot or white settlement, though by 1881 little of the earthworks remained visible to a passer-by. The western part of the township lay inside the Wyandot reservation until an 1836 annexation and an 1835 public land auction; 'Indian' Daniel Snyder, an early settler known for his hunting skill, served local settlers as an interpreter in disputes with Wyandot neighbors, and Wyandot people continued visiting settler cabins and occasionally taking unmarked livestock into the 1830s.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Broken Sword Creek earthworks (earthwork) — along Broken Sword Creek, Holmes Township (exact section not given), prehistoric (Mound Builder; undated) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1826 — The portion of Crawford County north of the Wyandot reservation, including what became Holmes Township, ceases to be attached to Seneca County for judicial purposes (effective January 31).
2. 1828-1830 — German immigrant families begin arriving in force, including a group of eight to ten families who traveled together from Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in 1828 and settled near Broken Sword Creek.
3. 1833 — Jesse Quaintance builds the township's first sawmill, a combined saw and grist mill on Broken Sword Creek.
4. 1834 — A post office is established at the future site of Portersville on a petition circulated by William Wingart, who becomes postmaster, on the mail route between Bucyrus and Tiffin.
5. 1835 — A strip of former Wyandot reservation land along the township's western edge is sold at public auction in Marion.
6. 1836 — Deputy Surveyor General Samuel Holmes re-surveys the township, which is given its present 36-square-mile size and shape and its name.
7. 1852 — The village of Portersville is platted by County Surveyor George M. Wiley on land owned by David Porter, straddling the Holmes-Lykens township line.
8. 1853 — Isaac Jackson and his son Stephen, of the township's Underground Railroad-connected Jackson family, are seen driving a sled of six to eight escaped women and children north into Seneca County on a bitterly cold, moonlit night, with several men running alongside.

Stories

The real Confederate Cross Roads

Portersville, the small village straddling the Holmes-Lykens township line, gained brief national notoriety after the Civil War for an unlikely reason: it was the real-world model for 'Confederate X Roads, Kentucky,' home of Petroleum V. Nasby, the semi-literate, deeply satirical fictional persona created by newspaperman David Ross Locke to lampoon Confederate sympathizers and racist politics in letters to the Toledo Blade and other papers nationwide. According to the 1881 county history, Nasby and his supporting cast of characters — Bascom, Bigler, Pogram and others — were drawn from real people living in Portersville at the time, whose 'fancied resemblances' to the fictional cast were widely recognized locally even after Locke moved his fictional cross-roads to Kentucky. The village carried a second, competing identity as well: founder David Porter insisted on naming it for himself, but merchant William Wingart, who lost that argument, spent years addressing his own shipments to 'Wingart's Corners, Ohio' until the alternate name stuck locally almost as firmly as Porter's own.

The sled runs north

In the township's southern part, a family named Jackson was known to shelter runaway slaves making their way north along the Columbus and Sandusky Pike, one of the finest and most direct roads in the state, and to carry them on to a contact in Seneca County. Fugitives were always brought to the Jackson cabin after ten o'clock at night, though who delivered them there was never discovered by neighbors. Around 1853, Isaac Jackson and his son Stephen were seen driving a sled carrying six to eight enslaved women and children north under a bright moon on a bitterly cold night, while five or six men who could not fit aboard ran alongside or behind; people along the road woke and looked out their windows to watch them pass. By 1881 the Jacksons were remembered as the only people in Holmes Township known to have taken part in the Underground Railroad, in a county the county historian otherwise described as more inclined to apprehend runaways than shelter them.

Photographs

Local history sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · bucyrushistoricalsociety.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Sandusky River (via Outhwaite & Riley up-ground reservoirs) The water here

• Bucyrus City99% of residentsSandusky River (via Outhwaite & Riley up-ground reservoirs)
• Sycamore Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

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 2026-06-23
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-26

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