Jerusalem Township, Lucas County

How Jerusalem Township, Lucas County began

Jerusalem Township, organized March 10, 1893 out of Lake Erie shoreline and marsh at the county's eastern edge, is mostly water -- about 34 square miles of land against some 216 square miles of Lake Erie, including West Sister Island and its 1848 lighthouse. Detroit lumber magnate Eber Brock Ward began draining and logging the swamp here in the 1870s, digging the nearly three-mile Ward's Canal to float timber to his mills and founding the short-lived village of New Jerusalem, whose shipyard built eleven vessels including the steamer Music between 1870 and 1875. Ottawa families lived here after the government's 1830s removal pushed most others out of the region, among them Francis Bunno, who refused to leave and for whom the hamlet of Bono is named; today the township's marshes and refuges -- Cedar Point, West Sister Island and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuges among them -- draw birders from around the country during spring migration.

Settled Eber Brock Ward's lumber and canal operations from the 1870s; earlier scattered Ottawa and settler habitation, incorporated township organized March 10, 1893.

Where the name comes from

The township's own history states it was named for the biblical city of Jerusalem, without further explanation of who chose the name or why; Eber Brock Ward's lumber village on the same ground, active in the 1870s, was named New Jerusalem.

Before the town

The township's own history traces a long native sequence for the area: the Erie people until their destruction in the Beaver Wars by about 1654, Iroquois control after that, and by 1720 the birth of Ottawa (Odawa) leader Pontiac reportedly on the Maumee River, with Ottawa bands expanding into the Maumee valley and toward Lake Erie and Maumee Bay by 1763. By 1812, per the township's account, Ottawa, Wyandot, Potawatomi and Seneca people lived in villages alongside arriving European settlers. After the 1830 Indian Removal Act most were pressured west, but some families stayed; the township specifically names Francis Bunno's family among those who refused relocation, and the hamlet of Bono, platted in the 1880s as Shepherdsville and renamed in 1898, honors him as, in the township's own words, a 'well-respected Ottawa Indian.'

Nations recorded here: Erie, Odawa (Ottawa), Wyandot, Potawatomi, Seneca.

• Bono (Francis Bunno's family homestead) (other) — southwestern Jerusalem Township, at the hamlet later platted as Shepherdsville and renamed Bono in 1898, Bunno family remained after the 1830s removal era; hamlet renamed 1898 (twp.jerusalem.oh.us)

Timeline

1. c. 1720 — Ottawa leader Pontiac is reportedly born on the Maumee River, per the township's own history.
2. 1830s — Most Ottawa, Wyandot, Potawatomi and Seneca families in the area are pressured west under the Indian Removal Act; the Bunno family refuses relocation and remains.
3. 1848 — The West Sister Island Light is built, one of the oldest surviving lighthouses on the Great Lakes.
4. 1870s — Eber Brock Ward digs Ward's Canal, about 2.75 miles long, to float timber from the swamp to his mills, and founds the lumber village of New Jerusalem with a sawmill, shipyard and boarding house.
5. 1870 to 1875 — New Jerusalem's shipyard builds eleven vessels, including the steamship Music.
6. 1880s — Daniel O. Shepherd plats Shepherdsville for mill workers; it is renamed Bono in 1898 for Francis Bunno.
7. 1882 — Joshua E. Curtice founds Curtice around a 500-acre sawmill operation; a post office opens the same year.
8. 1893-03-10 — Jerusalem Township is formally organized, encompassing about 34 square miles of land and 216 of Lake Erie water, including West Sister Island and the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse.
9. 1937 — The West Sister Island National Wildlife Refuge is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the Great Lakes' largest wading-bird nesting colony.
10. 1943 — A major Lake Erie flood damages the Reno Beach recreational subdivision, prompting decades of dike-building that culminate in a 7,520-foot Army Corps of Engineers flood-control dike completed in 1993.

Stories

The man the removal did not move

The federal government's 1830 Indian Removal Act pushed most of the Ottawa families still living around western Lake Erie out of Ohio through the following decade, part of the broader clearing of Native land across Lucas County. Francis Bunno did not go. His family stayed on the ground that became Jerusalem Township's southwestern corner, in a hamlet a later settler, Daniel O. Shepherd, platted in the 1880s for the workers at Eber Brock Ward's nearby sawmill and named Shepherdsville. In 1898 the town renamed itself Bono, in the township's own account a deliberate honor to Bunno, remembered as 'a well-respected Ottawa Indian' who had simply refused to leave. A Baptist church built there in 1902 used foundation stones floated in on Ward's Canal, the same waterway that had carried away the timber cut from land Bunno's family had once called their own -- a small, specific trace of the removal era's other possible ending, the one where a family stayed and the place kept their name.

Photographs

Local history sources: twp.jerusalem.oh.us · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Oregon City95% of residentsLake Erie
• Northwestern W and SD - Oregon Wtln 2005% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Public schools (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-04-14

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