Loudon Township, Seneca County

How Loudon Township, Seneca County began

Loudon Township was organized in 1832, later than most of Seneca County's townships, and covers 33.6 square miles in the county's northwestern corner. Part of the city of Fostoria, founded in 1854 by the merger of Rome and Risdon, extends into the township's northwestern section, tying Loudon's more recent history to Fostoria's natural-gas-era glass industry of the 1880s and 1890s. Otherwise the township is agricultural, without an incorporated village of its own.

Incorporated 1832 (organized), by organized by Seneca County.

Where the name comes from

Not documented in the sources checked; the specific person or place behind the township's name could not be confirmed.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, trail, or treaty site specific to Loudon Township is documented in the sources checked. The county's historic-era Native history includes the Seneca reservation and its 1831 removal; the reservation lay in the county's eastern townships, well east of Loudon. The 1911 county history says that when the first pioneers came to the township the Indians still inhabited the country and made daily calls at the cabins of their new neighbors, without naming a village or trail.

Timeline

1. 1820 — Loudon Township is surveyed, but settlers are slow to seek homes in the Wolf Creek wilderness although land sales begin in 1821.
2. 1832-03-05 — Seneca County's commissioners organize the township, named Loudon; the first election follows on April 2, 1832 at the house of Benjamin Hartley, electing Abner Wade justice of the peace, John Tennis clerk, and Benjamin Stevens, Peter T. King and John Ricketts trustees.
3. 1832-08-31 — Roswell Cocker has the town of Rome surveyed by David Risdon on section six of Loudon Township; by 1840 it has a population of about 80, growing to roughly 300 by 1850.
4. 1832-09-06 — J. Gorsuch has the neighboring town of Risdon surveyed on section six of Loudon Township (and adjoining land in Hancock County), naming it for pioneer surveyor David Risdon; first settlers named are Henry Welch, Jeremiah Mickey and John P. Gordon.
5. 1833 — The township is districted for school purposes; in March 1834 it is set off into road districts, and school trustees are elected for the first time that year.
6. 1834 — Charles W. Foster is elected township clerk and justice of the peace, the later namesake of Fostoria.
7. 1835 — The township has about 200 inhabitants outside Rome village.
8. 1837 — Charles W. Foster, Alonzo Lockwood and William Peterson are elected school examiners.
9. 1854-01-02 — Seneca County's commissioners grant a petition attaching part of section six to Rome, merging the rival towns of Rome and Risdon into one, renamed Fostoria for early settler and merchant Charles W. Foster.
10. 1880 — The township's population, exclusive of Fostoria, is 1,277, having grown from 763 in 1840 before Fostoria's growth began pulling the count in a different direction.
11. 1885 — Three railroads run through Loudon Township, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Ohio Central and the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo, with the Lake Erie & Western and the Nickel Plate crossing Fostoria.
12. 1886 — The 1886 county history counts the township's 1880 population at 4,315, including the part of Fostoria within it; the 1880 county history's figure of 1,277 excludes Fostoria.
13. 2020 — The 2020 census counts 2,246 residents in Loudon Township.

Stories

A soldier of Napoleon's army settles in Loudon

Among the German-born pioneers Lang's 1880 county history names in Loudon Township was Christian Schlemmer, who had served in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte before emigrating; he arrived in Ohio in 1832 and lived in the township until his death in 1874, at the age of eighty-four. Other German settlers named alongside him include Jacob Fruth, from Beindersheim in the Palatinate, who settled in the township in 1833 and died in 1872 at age eighty-two, and Jacob Mergenthaler, who arrived from Wurttemberg the same year and lived into his seventies.

The Wolf Creek wilderness

Loudon Township was surveyed in 1820 and its lands went on sale in 1821, but for a decade almost no one wanted them. The pioneers who finally came after 1831 found a township of gently undulating plain drained by the heads of the west fork of Wolf Creek, which rise in sections 7, 18 and 29 and wander everywhere in the township except near the Fostoria divide. Indians still lived in the country and visited the cabins daily, bears and wolves came calling, and after them came the ague, which the 1911 county history calls the most unwelcome, troublesome and injurious visitor of pioneer days. The township was organized on March 5, 1832, and held its first election in April at the house of Benjamin Hartley. In 1835 it had about 200 people; five years later, with the town of Rome, 763.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Fostoria City99% of residentsEast Branch Portage River (via 6 storage reservoirs)
• Evergreen Poplar Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Fostoria Mobile Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Spills reported since 2021 (9)

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-07-23

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