Jackson Township, Wyandot County

How Jackson Township, Wyandot County began

Jackson Township, in the southwest corner of Wyandot County against the Hardin County line, was a Hardin County township before 1845 and kept its name, given for President Andrew Jackson, when it came into the new county that year. The first settler was an 'old Mr. Hooey'; Thomas C. Beaven and son Henry came in 1826 and Henry S. Bowers made a 350-mile wagon journey from Pennsylvania in 1832. Heavy timber and level ground made settlement slow. The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad crosses the north, where Kirby was laid out in 1854.

Settled 1826, incorporated 1845-04-28, by Wyandot County's Commissioners, attaching three sections from Goshen Township, Hardin County, to the pre-existing Jackson Township.

Where the name comes from

Received its name, like most of Ohio's thirty-seven Jackson townships, in honor of Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States.

Before the town

No Wyandot village, trail, burial or treaty site specific to Jackson Township is recorded in either county history. The township adjoins Mifflin Township on the east, which the 1884 history says lay mostly within the Wyandot Reservation, so Jackson presumably lay beyond the reserve's western side; the county's wider record includes the treaties, the reserve at Upper Sandusky and the removal of 1843.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1826 — Thomas C. Beaven (the same page also prints Beaver) and his son Henry come to the township, which already has a first settler remembered only as 'old Mr. Hooey.'
2. 1832 — Henry S. Bowers, born in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1805, arrives by covered wagon after a 350-mile journey and enters 350 acres, becoming the second settler.
3. 1833 — John Abbott, from New York, settles on Section 3 with a family of six children.
4. 1834 — John Vanorsdall settles; Samuel M. Burnett, born in New York in 1820, comes with his parents Elisha and Polly (Howe) Burnett.
5. 1835 — John Flower and Jacob Derringer settle in the township.
6. 1837 — William Fitch settles.
7. 1840 — The first schoolhouse is built in Section 15 on the land of James McDaniels, with Henrietta Henderson as first teacher; the township, already organized in Hardin County, bears its present name by this date.
8. 1845 — On April 28 the Wyandot County commissioners attach Sections 3, 4 and 9 of Goshen Township, Hardin County, giving Jackson its present twenty-seven sections.
9. 1854 — Kirby Village, in the northeast corner, is laid out and surveyed by Dr. J. H. Williams for M. H. Kirby on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad; Philip and Frederick Hineman keep its first store.
10. 1855 — The Church of God, called Kirby Bethel, is organized at the home of James Warren with seven members by Moses Coates; its frame church (40 by 50 feet, $1,400) is built in 1868 on the Mifflin Township side.
11. 1872 — Elisha Burnett, a pioneer, dies at the age of ninety-eight.
12. 1880 — Kirby Village has 294 residents.
13. 1884 — Eight school buildings stand in the township; the county historian says that once the drainage is completed Jackson will be second to none as a farming township.

Stories

Three hundred and fifty miles in a covered wagon

Henry S. Bowers was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1805 and in 1832 moved his family to Jackson Township, a trip of 350 miles by covered wagon. He entered 350 acres, which made him the second settler on record after 'old Mr. Hooey,' whom the county history can name only by that phrase. His son J. D. Bowers, who came with him, was a leading farmer in Section 36 when the history was written. The township then was heavily timbered and level, and the historian wrote that settlement was slow because of the 'stubborn obstacles' the first settlers met. John Abbott came next in 1833 with six children. The first election of any kind was held at Isaac Yarian's house with twelve voters present; the history does not date it.

Twenty miles to grind a bushel

Samuel M. Burnett, who came as a boy with his parents in 1834, told the county historian that milling meant a trip of twenty miles through mud and slush to buy a bushel or so of corn, then carrying it to a horse mill and waiting twenty-four hours for the grinding. Sometimes, he said, the settlers instead made a grater from a piece of tin punched with holes and rubbed the corn on it, or dug 'nigger-head' stones, as he called boulders, to make millstones. Groceries and dry goods came from Marseilles village or from Patterson in Hardin County, where John Hare kept a store. The first sawmill in the township, the history says, was owned by William Stamp as late as 1864. The 1913 history repeats the milling passage in shorter form.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Forest Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Cite this page