Mesopotamia Township, Trumbull County

How Mesopotamia Township, Trumbull County began

Mesopotamia Township, owned principally by Pierpont Edwards of New Haven, Connecticut, was first settled in fall 1800 by Hezekiah Sperry, who built the township's first cabin on lot twenty-nine before returning to Connecticut the next year for his wife and the rest of his large family. Edwards's son and land agent, John Stark Edwards, had visited the township in 1799 and offered generous incentives to draw settlers -- 100 acres to each of the first five family men who purchased land and stayed several years, 50 acres to each of the first five single men -- and growth remained slow regardless, with only about a dozen families in the township by the War of 1812. The township was set apart as its own election precinct in 1819, taking the name Mesopotamia specifically because settlers requested it by that name in their petition to the state legislature, though no source explains why that particular name was chosen. Its unincorporated center, Mesopotamia Center, preserves a New England-style village green ringed by historic commercial buildings and a GAR Civil War memorial, together forming the Mesopotamia Village Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Settled 1800-fall (Hezekiah Sperry, first settler), incorporated 1819 (set apart as an independent election precinct, having been governed jointly with a neighboring township from 1806), by Hezekiah Sperry, first settler, fall 1800.

Where the name comes from

The 1882 county history states that the township took the name Mesopotamia because that was 'the name requested in the petition to the Legislature' when the township was set apart as an independent election precinct in 1819 -- confirming the name was a deliberate choice by the township's own settlers rather than an accident, though the book does not explain why they specifically chose this classical name for the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rather than a transplanted Connecticut town name, as most neighboring townships did.

Before the town

No Native village, camp or treaty event specific to Mesopotamia Township is recorded in the sources we reviewed. The township lies in northeastern Trumbull County within the wider region the county's 1882 history describes as Delaware-occupied hunting ground used seasonally by Seneca and Mingo bands through the 1700s, but no source found names a site inside the township's present boundaries.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Seneca, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

Timeline

1. 1799 — John Stark Edwards, son and land agent of township owner Pierpont Edwards of New Haven, Connecticut, visits the township and, on his return to Connecticut, offers 100 acres to each of the first five family men and 50 acres to each of the first five single men who would purchase land and settle here.
2. 1800-fall — Hezekiah Sperry, his son Alpheus and daughters Martha and Cynthia become the township's first family, Sperry building the first cabin on lot twenty-nine (on the later Woodruff farm); he returns to Woodbridge, Connecticut the following year for his wife and remaining children.
3. 1800 — Otis and Lois Guild, from Sharon, Connecticut, arrive as the settlement's second family, settling near the township center on lot forty-one after about a year elsewhere on the Reserve.
4. 1801-05-08 — Seth Tracy, from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, arrives with his family after an overland-and-water journey that included hauling their boat around Niagara Falls on trucks and coasting Lake Erie's south shore to the mouth of Grand River.
5. 1806 — The township (as number seven, fifth range) is taken from the Middlefield election district and joined to the district of Troy; first township officers are chosen April 7, with Otis Guild as chairman.
6. 1813 — John Stark Edwards, who had resided part of each year in Mesopotamia and served as Trumbull County recorder since 1800, dies; Seth Tracy succeeds him as land agent.
7. 1819 — The township is organized as an independent election precinct under the name requested in its own petition to the state legislature -- Mesopotamia; an election at the center schoolhouse April 5 chooses Otis Guild as chairman.
8. 2012-03-30 — The village green at Mesopotamia Center is photographed, documenting the historic district's commercial buildings and GAR Civil War memorial; the accompanying file description confirms the green and surrounding buildings compose the Mesopotamia Village Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 74001635.
9. 2020 — The census records 3,404 residents in Mesopotamia Township across 27.1 square miles, with no incorporated municipality within its borders.

Stories

Land for the taking, but few takers

Pierpont Edwards, the Connecticut proprietor who owned Mesopotamia Township outright, sent his son John Stark Edwards to look the land over in 1799; the younger Edwards -- a Princeton graduate who would go on to serve as Trumbull County's recorder for thirteen years -- returned to Connecticut with an offer meant to seed the township fast: a hundred free acres to each of the first five family men who bought land here and stayed a set number of years, fifty acres to each of the first five single men who did the same. It worked, eventually, on at least three men -- Hezekiah Sperry, Otis Guild and Seth Tracy all took up the offer and stayed the rest of their lives -- but the wider settlement crept forward at nothing like the pace Edwards must have hoped for. By the time of the War of 1812, a dozen years after his offer went out, the township held only about a dozen families, and the 1882 county history notes flatly that growth remained slow until after 1820, the village at the center 'built up very gradually' even by the patient standards of the Western Reserve.

A Connecticut green with a classical name

Mesopotamia Township carries one of the more puzzling names on the Western Reserve map -- most neighboring townships took the names of Connecticut hometowns (Weathersfield), land company agents (Hubbard) or investors (Champion, Bazetta), but Mesopotamia borrowed instead from the ancient land between the Tigris and Euphrates. The 1882 county history at least confirms the choice was deliberate: when the township petitioned the state legislature in 1819 to become its own independent election precinct, its own residents requested that specific name, though the book does not say why. What the township's settlers did keep unmistakably New England was its physical layout: Mesopotamia Center is built around a classic Connecticut-style village green, ringed by historic commercial buildings and marked by a Grand Army of the Republic memorial to the township's Civil War veterans, together forming a historic district distinctive enough to earn National Register listing -- a transplanted New England town square carrying a name its own founders chose from the opposite end of the ancient world.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

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• Plalan Lake Water Assoc.1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Nelson Ledges Estates MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

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Public schools (1)

Private schools (7)

Bridges rated poor (2)

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Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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