Litchfield Township, Medina County

How Litchfield Township, Medina County began

Litchfield Township took its name from eastern land speculator Judge Holmes of Litchfield, Connecticut, whose failed attempt to found a settlement here in the years after the War of 1812 left the area known locally as "Holmestown" for over a decade before real settlement began. Permanent settlement did not start until February 1830, when Cyrus Cook arrived from Connecticut, followed that May by a wave of Connecticut farm families; the township organized under the name Litchfield on June 30, 1831. It is the only Litchfield Township in Ohio, and remains today an unincorporated farm township in the county's western edge, its center still called simply Litchfield.

Settled 1830-02 (Cyrus Cook, first permanent settler), incorporated 1831-06-30, by Judge Holmes, eastern land speculator and original proprietor; permanent settlement began under land agent Mr. Beers.

Where the name comes from

The name Litchfield was used for many years before the township's 1831 organization, after Judge Holmes's hometown of Litchfield, Connecticut; Holmes was the original proprietor and had already attempted, unsuccessfully, to open the land to settlement in the years just after the War of 1812, when the tract was known informally as "Holmestown." When Holmes's land later passed back to the State of Connecticut and was put on the market again under land agent Mr. Beers, the Litchfield name was carried forward and formally applied when the township organized. It is the only Litchfield Township in Ohio.

Before the town

A part of the Wyandot tribe frequently located in Litchfield territory and made it part of their favorite hunting grounds; some of their wigwams were seen along Center Creek as late as 1822, several years after the neighboring Harrisville settlement to the south and Liverpool to the north had already grown substantially. No traces of Indians were found by Litchfield's own first permanent settlers, who did not arrive until 1830, eight years after the last recorded sighting. The county-level history file carries the fuller treaty context and the one specific, dated Native encounter located in the county -- Potawatomi hunters meeting a squatter in Liverpool Township in 1810.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Wyandot wigwams along Center Creek (camp) — Center Creek, Litchfield Township, seen as late as 1822 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1812-1815 — Judge Holmes of Litchfield, Connecticut, sole owner of the township, has it surveyed and divided into lots and opens a small clearing and log cabin in the southwest part along the military "Smith Road," but war anxieties keep settlers away and the attempt fails; the tract becomes known locally as "Holmestown."
2. 1812 — General Smith's forces cut the military 'Smith Road' from Akron to Maumee City through the southern part of the township in spring; the road later gives Holmes's land its access.
3. 1820 — On February 8 Frederick Hamlen petitions the Medina County commissioners for a road from the Huron County seat to Medina, the east-west road that crosses at Litchfield Center; the north-south Elyria to Wooster road is older still.
4. 1822 — Wyandot wigwams are seen for the last time along Center Creek, according to local tradition.
5. 1830-02 — Cyrus Cook, his wife and one child arrive from Connecticut and squat on land in the north part of the township, the first real advance in Litchfield's settlement.
6. 1830-05 — A company of Connecticut farm families -- Jonathan Richards, Thomas and George Wilcox, Eliphalet and Asahel Howd, Judah Howd, George Olcott, and soon after Henry Howd from Sheffield, Massachusetts -- arrive and settle near the township center.
7. 1830 — In the fall three more families, D. Nickerson, Jacob Road and Z. Stafford, join the first Connecticut settlers; Cyrus Cook's first shelter that February was a brush hut between four small trees.
8. 1831-06-30 — Litchfield Township is politically organized and admitted to Medina County under the name already given the land by agent Mr. Beers; nine votes are cast at the first election, choosing E. Howd, J. Vandeventer and George Olcott as Trustees.
9. 1831 — On June 13 little Jane, daughter of Asa Strait, dies, the township's first death; her father, a Baptist elder in Connecticut, preaches the first religious discourse in one of the log cabins to about twenty-five people.
10. 1831 — In May Asa Strait, Lewis Finley, J. L. Hinman, D. Pickett, O. Nickerson and W. Cole arrive; Hinman builds a frame house, and the township is organized June 30 under the name Mr. Beers had already given it.
11. 1832-05 — A wave of new settlers arrives, forty-one people moving in on a single day in May.
12. 1832-07-04 — Settlers gather from ox-sleds and on foot at the township center, build a log "union meeting-house" from scratch in about six hours, hold a Fourth of July celebration with the Declaration of Independence read aloud, and close the day by forming a temperance and moral reform society.
13. 1879 — A fire destroys the township's early political records, erasing most detailed data on Litchfield's first decades of civic life.

Stories

A Speculator's Hometown, Transplanted

Litchfield Township never had to hold a naming vote the way some of its neighbors did. Judge Holmes, an eastern land speculator who held the original proprietorship of the tract, had already been calling it Litchfield for years before the township formally organized in 1831, after his own hometown of Litchfield, Connecticut. It was one of dozens of such transplanted New England place names scattered across the Connecticut Western Reserve, evidence of how thoroughly Ohio's northeastern counties were settled, financed and named from a distance by Connecticut money and Connecticut memory, long before most of the proprietors who chose the names ever saw the land themselves.

Holmestown: The Settlement That Failed Before It Started

Litchfield's real settlement history did not begin until 1830, but the land had already failed to attract settlers once before. In the years right after the War of 1812, Judge Holmes tried to open his tract to buyers, surveying it into lots and even clearing a small patch of ground along the military Smith Road, complete with a log cabin and a few fruit trees. It came to nothing: lingering anxiety from the war with Britain and the Indian conflicts in the West kept prospective settlers away, and the cleared acres sat tenantless for years, known around the county simply as Holmestown. Only after the land passed back to the State of Connecticut and was reopened under a new agent, more than fifteen years after Holmes's first attempt, did families finally arrive to stay -- Cyrus Cook alone through the winter of 1830, then a whole company of Connecticut neighbors that May, walking in behind him to found the township that still carries Holmes's old name for it.

A Meeting-House Raised Between Breakfast and Noon

On July 4, 1832, Litchfield's settlers proved they could out-build their own celebration. Word had gone around the growing colony, and on the appointed morning farm families came trooping in from every direction by ox-sled, gathering at what is now the township center with thirty or forty teams of oxen chained to the trees. Rather than simply picnic, the men set to work clearing ground and notching logs, and by the stroke of noon -- inside six hours -- they had raised a complete log "union meeting-house," dragged in more logs for seats, and were ready for the afternoon's program: national songs, a reading of the Declaration of Independence by Jonathan Richards, and an oration from Elder Asa Strait dedicating the new building to the township's public use. The day closed with the founding of a temperance and moral reform society. The celebration's gun squad added its own footnote: firing a hollowed-log cannon repeatedly through the afternoon, until a young man named Daniel Olcott, mid-reload, triggered an accidental explosion.

Jane Strait and the first sermon

The first death in Litchfield Township took place on June 13, 1831, when little Jane, the daughter of Asa Strait, died only weeks after her family arrived with the second wave of Connecticut settlers. The county historian records that the funeral was the first open religious service ever held in the colony. On the Sunday after her death her father, who had been an elder in a Baptist society in Connecticut, gave a discourse to about twenty-five people, young and old, gathered in one of the little log cabins. The township was politically organized just seventeen days after her death. Meetings were held in private houses after that, until church societies were organized and the union meeting-house was built at the Center on the Fourth of July 1832.

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

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

• Rural Lorain Co. Water A85% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Medina Co/northwest11% of residentsLake Erie
• Medina City4% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 3 of 4 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-27

Cite this page