Mifflin Township, Richland County

• Charles Mill LakeBuilt 1936 · 1,350 acres

How Mifflin Township, Richland County began

Mifflin was organized September 5, 1814, as the west half of the old Vermillion Township, and in 1816 took the form of a six-mile square east of Madison Township, named for Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the former home of several settlers. When Ashland County was created in 1846 the new line followed the general course of the Black Fork through the township, leaving a Mifflin Township in each county; Petersburg (Mifflin village) and the Copus settlement went to Ashland. On the Richland side Samuel Hill settled north of Lucas and Archibald Gardner near Windsor in 1809-11, and West Windsor was laid out in 1837. The Richland remainder is a farming and suburban township of about 23 square miles east of Mansfield, with 6,106 residents at the 2020 census.

Settled 1809-1810 (Samuel and David Hill and Archibald Gardner), incorporated September 5, 1814 (organized); reshaped 1816, by settlers from Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

Where the name comes from

Named for Mifflin Township in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the former home of a number of the area's early settlers.

Before the town

Graham's 1880 county history treats the original township, both sides of the 1846 line, as a favorite hunting ground where farmers plowed up flint points, stone axes and other implements. Its most specific sites, an old burying ground with stone-lined graves on Benjamin Staman's farm near Staman's Mill and a large mound of boulders, gravel and loam on the bottom northwest of Petersburg, are near Petersburg and appear to lie on the Ashland County side, as do the cabins of James Copus and Martin Ruffner, where settlers were killed in September 1812. In 1782 Colonel William Crawford's command crossed the township from the Lenape (Delaware) village of Greentown to the Rocky Fork, which crosses its southwest corner, and followed the Rocky Fork up to the site of Mansfield. Baughman's 1908 history says the land was a favorite Native hunting ground before settlement.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

• Crawford's route of 1782 (trail) — Across the original township from Greentown to the Rocky Fork, then up the Rocky Fork toward Mansfield, 1782 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1782 — Colonel William Crawford's command crosses the township from Greentown to the Rocky Fork, the first white men known to have been on its soil.
2. 1807 — The township is surveyed by James Hedges, deputy U.S. surveyor.
3. 1810 — Samuel Hill settles on the northeast quarter of Section 33, north of Lucas, probably the first settler on the Richland County side; Archibald Gardner builds his cabin in 1811 three-quarters of a mile north of the site of Windsor.
4. 1814 — On September 5 Mifflin is organized as the west half of Vermillion Township, six miles by eighteen.
5. 1815 — Robert Bentley camps a week on the southwest quarter of Section 10 while building his cabin; in 1828 he moves into what Baughman calls the first brick dwelling in Richland County, and later serves as associate judge and state senator.
6. 1816 — Mifflin is divided again, and the portion lying directly east of and adjoining Madison Township, six miles square, keeps the Mifflin name and organization.
7. 1817 — James Chew settles in the township; the same year Duncan McBride's family settles a mile north of Lucas in a cabin with a dirt floor.
8. 1837 — West Windsor is laid out March 21 by Joseph, Henry and A. T. Page and Roger Moses, six miles from Mansfield on the road to Ashland and Olivesburg, and named for Windsor County, Vermont, the Pages' former home.
9. 1839 — Alanson T. Page and John Conn open the first store at Windsor; a Baptist church follows in 1840 on a lot given by Mr. Page.
10. 1846 — The creation of Ashland County splits Mifflin Township along a line following the general course of the Black Fork, leaving a Mifflin Township in each county.
11. 1851 — A German Reformed church is built on the southwest quarter of Section 30 by the Balliett families; a Lutheran congregation later organizes there and has about seventy members in 1879.
12. 1864 — The Atlantic and Great Western Railroad passes three-quarters of a mile from Windsor; business moves to the station and the village declines to about seventy people by 1880.
13. 1869 — With the Baptist attendance gone, the Methodists organize a church at Windsor.
14. 1948 — In the summer the bodies of the Niebel family, killed during a crime spree by two young men from the Ohio State Reformatory, are found in a cornfield on Fleming Falls Road, a field where a PT-19 airplane had crashed in December 1946.

Stories

One township, two counties

Mifflin Township took its lasting Richland County shape in 1816, a six-mile square set directly east of Madison Township and named for the Pennsylvania township many of its settlers had left behind. Early arrivals like James Chew, who came in 1817, and Daniel Hoover built up farms along the Blackfork of the Mohican. Thirty years later, in 1846, the Ohio legislature carved Ashland County out of parts of Richland, Wayne, and other counties, and the new boundary happened to run through the middle of Mifflin Township, following roughly the course of the Blackfork. Rather than rename either half, both counties simply kept a Mifflin Township of their own -- a small quirk of Ohio's county-making that still shows up on the map today.

Windsor and the railroad

Joseph Page bought the land of Archibald Gardner, the first settler in that part of the township, and in March 1837 he, his sons Henry and Alanson T. Page, and Roger Moses laid out West Windsor, naming it for Windsor County, Vermont. Alanson Page and John Conn opened a store in 1839 in a frame building on Windsor Run, and a Baptist church went up in 1840 on a lot Page gave. The village never grew as its founders hoped. When the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad passed three-quarters of a mile away in 1864, trade moved to Windsor Station, and by 1880 the old village had a grocery, two shoe shops, a blacksmith, a wagon shop and about seventy people.

The first bridge over the Black Fork

Rebecca McDermott Gates, about seventy in 1880, told the county historian how her father, James McDermott, reached the township in 1815. His party was stopped on the east bank of the Black Fork by high water. Two young men swam across with lines and pulled axes over, then found two large trees standing opposite each other on the two banks and felled them toward each other, making a bridge on which everything the families owned was carried across piece by piece. The next year McDermott built the first public bridge over the stream, of logs and slabs. McDermott, born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, about 1758, lived in the township until his death on June 25, 1859.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · richland.ohgenweb.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · richlandcountyhistory.com · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Mansfield City52% of residentsClear Fork Reservoir (Clear Fork of the Mohican River), plus 9 city wells
• Eastview Community Water Association9% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Madison Water District8% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Ontario City6% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Mansfield System #074% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Heatherwood Community Water Assoc3% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Crestwood Hills C and R Association3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Mansfield System #063% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Mansfield System #022% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Expressview Comm Water Association2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Lakeview Estates MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Shelly Acres Water Association1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Mansfield System #041% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Mansfield System #031% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Lucas Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Hillside MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Waterfall Estates MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Aqua Ohio - Mansfield System #080% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Hillsdale Community Water Association Pw0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Colonial Hills MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Hanley Acres Water Association0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Heatherwood Terrace Townhouses0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Willow Park Water Association0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Edgewood Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Nursing homes (2)

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Public schools (1)

Private schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (11)

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-09-15
• OP&F Examination, 2024, released 2026-05-26
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-24

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