Lagrange Township, Lorain County

How Lagrange Township, Lorain County began

Lagrange Township is Town 4, Range 17, drawn in 1807 by Henry Champion and Lemuel Storrs. Elizur Goodrich, Champion's son-in-law, traded the land for New York farms, which brought a colony of New Yorkers: Nathan Clark made the first settlement on 14 November 1825, a dozen families came in 1826 and by the end of the year about seventy people lived here. The township was attached to Carlisle until January 1827, when it was organized, and was named by Dr. Eber W. Hubbard for Lafayette's French estate. The village at its center was incorporated in 1875; the township had 6,560 people in 2020.

Settled November 14, 1825 (Nathan Clark), incorporated Township organized January 1827, by Nathan Clark.

Where the name comes from

Dr. Eber W. Hubbard, an early settler and the township's first clerk, gave the township its name; the 1879 county history says he was a great admirer of General Lafayette, whose country home in France was called La Grange (the Chateau de la Grange-Bleneau, as Wikipedia gives it).

Before the town

No mound or village is recorded in Lagrange itself, but the county histories connect the township to Native presence in three ways. A hunting camp that James Smith, a white captive adopted by the Wyandot, and his adoptive brother Tontileaugo made in the winter of 1755-56 about ten or twelve miles up the creek from their camp at the falls of the Black River in Elyria is believed by the 1916 county history to lie in Lagrange Township; they killed bears there for three weeks. Most Native people had left by the time settlers arrived in 1825-26, but a few men, whom the 1879 history calls Senecas, rendezvoused at Indian Hollow in neighboring Carlisle Township and sometimes camped in Lagrange; one of them left a blazed portrait threat against the settler Jeremiah Filley.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Seneca (Mingo).

• James Smith and Tontileaugo's bear-hunting camp (believed) (camp) — up the east branch of the Black River from Elyria, believed to be in Lagrange Township, winter 1755-56 (archive.org)
• Indian Hollow rendezvous (neighboring Carlisle Township) (camp) — Carlisle Township, used by Indians who camped in Lagrange, 1830s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1807 — Henry Champion and Lemuel Storrs draw Town 4, Range 17 in the Western Reserve land draft, Champion taking two-thirds and Storrs one-third.
2. 1824 — The Lorain County commissioners attach the township to Carlisle for civil and judicial purposes.
3. November 14, 1825 — Nathan Clark, a native of Harlem, Connecticut, makes the township's first settlement near the east branch of Black River.
4. Autumn 1825 — Roger Phelps, Noah Holcomb and James Pelton, who had traded land with Elizur Goodrich, come out from Jefferson County, New York, to look over the ground and return east.
5. Spring 1826 — As soon as roads allow travel, families including Noah Holcomb, Sylvester Merriam, James Disbrow, Joseph A. Graves, James Pelton, Levi Johnson, Curtis Hastings, Charles Rounds and two sons, Joseph Robbins, David and Asa Rockwood, and Henry Townsend all arrive and establish homes.
6. Late 1826 — About seventy people live within the present limits of LaGrange, scattered across the east, west, center, north and south of the township.
7. 5 June 1826 — David Rockwood and his first wife arrive; she dies within the year and is the first of the little settlement to die. (The 1879 history prints 1820, but the township was first settled in 1825, so 1826 is meant.)
8. 1826 — Fairchild Hubbard moves in from Brighton in November; the Baptist church is organized on 13 May 1828 with eighteen members.
9. January 1827 — The township is detached from Carlisle and organized as Lagrange; the first election in April 1827 is held at Fairchild Hubbard's house with twenty-nine ballots cast and Eber W. Hubbard chosen clerk (the 1879 history prints 1837).
10. 1830s — Jeremiah Filley, said to have cleared or had cleared over 2,600 acres, comes into the township; Indians camped in Lagrange from their rendezvous at Indian Hollow in Carlisle township.
11. 28 November 1877 — David Rockwood, the township's oldest resident, dies aged one hundred years, one month and twenty-five days, after living in Lagrange for over half a century.
12. 1891 — A substantial school building is erected in the village, with an annex added in 1915.
13. 1916 — The county history counts Lagrange as an incorporated village of about 500 people on the Big Four railroad, seven miles northeast of Wellington.
14. 2020 — Census records 6,560 residents across the township's roughly 26 square miles.

Stories

A wilderness colony of New Yorkers

LaGrange township's original proprietors, Henry Champion and Lemuel Storrs, never settled the land themselves. Champion passed his two-thirds share to his son-in-law Elizur Goodrich of Hartford, Connecticut, who almost immediately began trading it away for property back in New York State. That swap is what actually populated the township: Nathan Clark, Roger Phelps, Noah Holcomb and James Pelton, all of Jefferson County, New York, were the first to take land from Goodrich in the trade, and others soon followed their example as what the county history calls the 'westward, ho!' fever spread. Phelps, Holcomb and Pelton came out in the fall of 1825 just to look the land over, and their report home was favorable enough that David and Asa Rockwood, Fairchild Hubbard, Joseph Robbins, Sylvester Merriam and Levi Johnson bought in too. Nathan Clark made the actual first settlement that November, and by the time roads opened again the next spring, a whole wave of these New York families arrived together and built their first homes within weeks of each other.

Filley and the warriors' portrait

By the time Jeremiah Filley arrived in the township in the 1830s, most Indians had left the county, but a few still gathered at Indian Hollow in Carlisle and sometimes camped in Lagrange or rode through the woods after deer. Filley, a hunter and shrewd bargainer who is said to have cleared or caused to be cleared more than 2,600 acres, had tried to drive them off, and one day, hunting, he came on a party who were angry enough to threaten his life. Their rifles were leaning on a tree some distance away. Filley raised his own rifle, cocked it and told them the first to move would be the first to die, then backed away until he was clear and ran. Weeks or months later he passed the spot again and found his own full-length portrait blazed on a big tree, surrounded by figures of Indians with their guns pointed at it. He took it for a threat and avoided the place thereafter. The 1879 county history calls the men Senecas.

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

Lake Erie, drawn through two separate offshore intakes serving the Lake Road filtration plant The water here

• Rural Lorain Co. Water A41% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Lagrange Village37% of residentsLake Erie
• Pheasant Run Association17% of residentsLake Erie
• Grafton Village4% of residentsLake Erie
• Oberlin Water Department1% of residentsWest Branch Black River, via Oberlin Upground Reservoir
• North Ridgeville City0% of residentsLake Erie (mainly via Avon Lake Regional Water)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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 2026-05-19
• Special Audit, 2017 to 2022, released 2025-01-23

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