Liberty Township, Van Wert County

How Liberty Township, Van Wert County began

Liberty Township was formed by the county commissioners at their March 1840 meeting, its first settler James Hemphill having arrived from Richland County in 1837. It was a quiet farm township for six decades until February 1902, when an oil well drilled by C. S. King & Company on the Exline family's land struck the first producing well of the Ohio City oil field -- a brief boom that put more than 200 wells into the township's ground and turned the crossroads village of Enterprise into Ohio City. Ohio City sits at the township's center; the unincorporated community of Dull, mentioned in the 1906 county history's account of the oil boom, lies in Liberty Township's southwest quadrant.

Settled 1837 (James Hemphill, first settler), incorporated formed by the county commissioners, March 1840, by Van Wert County commissioners, on petition of John Shaffer, John Schlater, William Reed and others.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted documents a specific reason for the choice of 'Liberty'; it is a common, generic patriotic township name used widely across Ohio -- Wikipedia counts it as one of twenty-five Liberty Townships statewide.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or treaty site specific to Liberty Township was located in the sources consulted. The township's documented record begins with James Hemphill's 1837 settlement.

Timeline

1. 1837 — James Hemphill, from Richland County, becomes Liberty Township's first settler, building its first round-log house that same year.
2. 1838 — Jeremiah Agler, Peter Putman, George Clouse, Madison White, John Shaffer, John Schlater and George Shaffer settle in the township in the spring; on November 19 Jacob Clouse, son of George, is born, the first birth.
3. 1840-03 — The county commissioners formally organize Liberty Township; the first election is held at Peter Putman's house that April, electing Putman, Asahel Culver and George Clouse trustees.
4. 1840-07 — The first sermon in the township is preached by Rev. Daniel Riley at the funeral of the wife of Peter Brubaker.
5. 1840-10-13 — Sixteen qualified electors vote in Liberty Township.
6. 1841 — The first schoolhouse is built on John Schlater's land, with Thomas Redman as the first teacher.
7. 1856 — Samuel Shafer finds a litter of young wolves in a hollow elm log in section 17; the last wolf in the township is shot by Alexander Putman in the late 1850s.
8. 1876 — Butler, Patterson & Company plat Van Wert Junction, later Enterprise and then Ohio City, in sections 22 and 15.
9. 1879 — J. M. Dull, Martin Lintermoot and Nicholas Fry lay out the village of McKee, known as Dull Station, where the McSherry road crosses the Clover Leaf Railroad.
10. 1890 — Enterprise is renamed Ohio City to avoid recurring mail and express confusion with another Enterprise, Ohio, a change proposed by council member Lewis J. Kiggins and adopted by vote.
11. 1902-02 — C. S. King & Company of Lima drills the first successful well of the Ohio City oil field, on land owned by the Valentine Exline heirs in section 18; a second well and, soon after, three gushers on the Williams, Medaugh and Ayers farms touch off a brief but intense local oil boom.
12. 1906 — The county history counts nine churches in the township, among them North Liberty, Walnut Grove and Ohio City Methodist, two Churches of God, two United Brethren and the Evangelical and St. John's Lutheran churches, the last two the oldest.
13. 2020 — The U.S. Census records 1,437 residents in Liberty Township, a population density of about 39 per square mile across its 37.1 square miles.

Stories

Three gushers and a boom

The Ohio City oil field opened quietly in February 1902 with a single well on the Exline family's land -- the first oil piped into a Van Wert County line. It did not stay quiet. A second well followed nearby, and then, in quick succession, three gushers came in: one on W. N. Williams's farm in section 21, the county's first true gusher; a second on Andrew Medaugh's land in neighboring Willshire Township, about a mile west of Dull Station; and a third on the farm of W. H. Ayers. 'Oil men from everywhere came to see the new oil field and secure leases,' the county's 1906 historian wrote, describing a fever-heat excitement that eventually put more than 200 wells into Liberty Township's ground and three eight-inch pipelines running from Lima to Chicago straight through it. By the time the county history went to press the initial rush had already moved on to newer fields elsewhere, but the historian judged correctly that Ohio City's field was 'only...partially developed' and would keep paying out for years -- a small township's brief turn at the center of northwest Ohio's oil economy.

Wolves, a tree and a heifer

Wild game was plentiful when Liberty Township was settled, and the 1906 county history preserves the wolf stories. William Stewart, coming home from a cabin raising, was treed by wolves and kept in the branches all night in cold weather until he nearly perished. In spring 1852 W. T. Exline and his father were planting corn near the Twenty-seventh Prairie when two large wolves killed a yearling heifer of John Rowland standing in the road at dinner time. Four years later Samuel Shafer found a litter of pups in a hollow elm log. The last wolf killed in the township fell to Alexander Putman, who was calling turkeys; the wolf came up to the call, put its forefeet on a log to listen, and was shot there in the late 1850s.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Ohio City Village57% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Van Wert City34% of residentsTown Creek via two impounding reservoirs
• Rockford Village9% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 1 of 1 passed.

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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-30

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