Mifflin

• Charles Mill LakeBuilt 1936 · 1,350 acres

How Mifflin began

Mifflin was laid out June 16, 1816, by William B. James, Peter Deardorff, and Samuel Lewis under the name Petersburg, on the old state road between Wooster and Mansfield where stagecoaches stopped at a spring noted for the best water in Ohio. The name was changed to Mifflin in 1827 (the post office followed in 1841) to honor settlers who had come from Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. This is the village of Mifflin, sitting within Mifflin Township (organized about 1814) but distinct from it. The village's defining historical event predates its founding by four years: the September 15, 1812 Copus massacre, one of the last War of 1812 frontier attacks in Ohio, happened on Copus Hill in this township, and Johnny Appleseed is recorded riding through in 1812 to warn settlers of it. Never large, the village held about 210 people in 1880 and 158 in 2020.

Platted 1816-06-16, by William B. James, Peter Deardorff, and Samuel Lewis (as Petersburg; renamed Mifflin in 1827).

Where the name comes from

Platted in 1816 as Petersburg, the town was renamed Mifflin in 1827 in honor of settlers who had emigrated from Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; the post office adopted the name Mifflin in 1841 and operated under it until 1907.

Before the town

Mifflin Township's Native American history is unusually well documented for so small a place because of the Copus massacre. On September 15, 1812, during the War of 1812, a party of Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot, and Mohawk warriors attacked the cabin of Reverend James Copus, the township's first settler (arrived March 1809) and a Methodist preacher trusted by many local Native people. The attack followed the forced removal of the nearby Native village of Greentown by Ohio militia under Captain Douglas, and its burning by soldiers who straggled behind, after Copus had been asked to help persuade its residents to relocate to the Piqua reservation; when Greentown was destroyed despite the elders' having agreed to leave peacefully, the warriors involved came to believe Copus had betrayed them. Copus and three soldiers (George Shipley, John Tedrick, and Robert Warnock) were killed; some accounts put Native American losses at two to eleven. John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) rode through the area in 1812 warning settlers of the Copus, Zimmer, and Ruffner attacks, and later folklore (credited to Ashland County poet Rosella Rice) attached a cenotaph to him at the 1882 Copus monument, though he took no part in the fighting itself. The monument, on Copus Hill, was dedicated September 15, 1882, before a crowd estimated at 6,000.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot, Mohawk.

• Copus Hill (Copus massacre site and monument) (battle) — Mifflin Township, Ashland County, near the Copus cabin site, 1812 (monument dedicated 1882) (en.wikipedia.org)
• Greentown (village) — Mifflin Township / Green Township vicinity, Ashland County (removed and burned 1812), pre-1812 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1809 — Reverend James Copus arrives in March as the first settler of what becomes Mifflin Township.
2. 1812 — Ohio militia under Captain Douglas remove the residents of the Native village of Greentown, and stragglers burn it; on September 15, Lenape, Wyandot, and Mohawk warriors attack the Copus cabin, killing Copus and three soldiers.
3. 1812 — Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) travels through the area warning settlers of the Copus, Zimmer, and Ruffner attacks.
4. 1816 — William B. James, Peter Deardorff, and Samuel Lewis lay out the town of Petersburg (later Mifflin) on June 16, on the Wooster-Mansfield state road.
5. 1827 — The town is renamed Mifflin, honoring settlers from Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
6. 1841 — A post office named Mifflin opens; it operates until 1907.
7. 1882 — A monument to the Copus massacre victims, with a cenotaph to Johnny Appleseed, is dedicated on Copus Hill on September 15 before an estimated crowd of 6,000.
8. 1897 — Charles F. Kettering, later inventor of the automobile electric self-starter, serves as Mifflin's schoolmaster.
9. 1918 — Calligrapher Charles Paxton Zaner dies in a car crash near Mifflin.

Stories

The Copus massacre

James Copus settled in what became Mifflin Township in March 1809, the first white settler there, and built a reputation as a Methodist preacher trusted by the Lenape, Wyandot, and other Native families who still lived nearby at the village of Greentown. In 1812, with war against Britain underway and Ohio's frontier on edge, Copus was asked to help persuade Greentown's residents to move peaceably to the Piqua reservation. The elders agreed. Despite that, once its people had been marched off under Captain Douglas, soldiers who straggled behind burned Greentown to the ground. Believing Copus had led them into the trap, a party of warriors attacked his cabin on September 15, 1812. Copus and three soldiers guarding the family, George Shipley, John Tedrick, and Robert Warnock, were killed in the fighting; accounts of Native American casualties range from two to eleven. Seventy years later, on the anniversary in 1882, about six thousand people gathered on Copus Hill to dedicate a monument to the dead. Ashland County poet Rosella Rice later urged that the monument also serve as a cenotaph to Johnny Appleseed, who had ridden through the area that same September warning settler families of the Copus, Zimmer, and Ruffner attacks, even though he had no part in the fighting itself.

A stage stop that outlived its stagecoaches

Long before it had a name, the crossroads that became Mifflin was known to travelers on the Wooster-to-Mansfield state road for a spring at its watering trough, said by travelers to hold the best spring water in Ohio; stagecoaches were reportedly stopping there as early as 1810, before the town was even platted in 1816. George Thomas ran the settlement's first tavern, and the village prospered as a stage town through the antebellum decades. When the railroads bypassed Mifflin later in the 19th century and the old stage routes emptied out, the village's fortunes went with them, and it settled into the small, quiet farm-township seat it has remained since.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · genealogytrails.com · hmdb.org

Wells (14 listed as active in EPA SDWIS: Wells 1-7 and 10-15; Well 9 was deactivated 2025-11-17) in the Jerome Fork Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer, sited generally north of the treatment plant on Cleveland Road The water here

• Ashland City92% of residentsJerome Fork Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A6% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Bailey Lakes Village2% of residentsLake Erie
• Hayesville Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-10-21

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page