Milton Township, Wayne County

How Milton Township, Wayne County began

Milton Township, in the north tier of Wayne County, is six miles square. Isaac De Courcey, a man of Native descent, was living on the later Knupp farm by 1813, and Martin Fritz came in June 1814 when De Courcey was the only other settler. The county commissioners organized the township on October 5, 1818 after turning down the name 'Center Swamp Township.' Rural hamlets (Lancetown, Shinersburg, Amwell, Russell) gave way after 1869 to Milton Station, now Rittman, and to Sterling. It had 1,524 people in 1870 and 2,964 in 2020.

Settled 1813 (Isaac De Courcey); Martin Fritz arrived June 1814, platted Milton Station, 1869-70 (on a corner of the Elliott quarter section), incorporated October 5, 1818 (organized by the county commissioners), by Isaac De Courcey, Martin Fritz and John Coleman were the earliest settlers.

Where the name comes from

The pioneer Jacob Kiefer went to Wooster to have the township named and suggested 'Center Swamp Township,' for a large swamp at its center. Commissioner George Bair objected that the name would bring odium on the township, and at his suggestion it was called Milton. Neither history says why Bair chose Milton.

Before the town

The township's pioneer accounts have more Native detail than most in Wayne County. The first settler, Isaac De Courcey, was 'perceptibly possessed of Indian blood' (the 1910 history calls him a quarter-breed); he lived with his wife and two children on the Knupp farm from about 1813, hunting, fishing and trapping, and moved to Allen County after seven or eight years. Phillip Fritz, who came as a boy of ten in 1814 and was interviewed in 1878, remembered that Native hunters traded venison for corn at his father's door, that he hunted with them and with De Courcey at Chippewa Lake, and that when his family came 'there were a good many Indians about': 'they called themselves the Delawares, Shawnees and Wyandots,' with a town of about thirty families on the south side of Chippewa Lake in Medina County. Near where River Styx enters the Big Chippewa an Indian was found dead in the drift, shot through the waist, and Fritz recalled that 'about that time the Indians got scared and very suddenly disappeared.' None of these places is dated closely.

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

• Native town on the south side of Chippewa Lake (village) — south shore of Chippewa Lake, Medina County, a hunting trip north of Milton Township, about 1814-1820, as remembered in 1878 (archive.org)
• Body of a shot Native man in the drift near River Styx (burial) — about ten rods from where River Styx (the north branch of the Chippewa) enters the Big Chippewa, Milton Township, about 1814-1820, undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1813 — Isaac De Courcey, perceptibly of Indian blood, is living with his wife and two children on the Knupp farm, the first settler in the township.
2. 1814 — In June Martin Fritz, a Revolutionary War veteran from Venango County, Pennsylvania, moves in; De Courcey is the only other settler.
3. 1817 — Sarah Fritz and her son Adam die and are buried in what becomes the Knupp graveyard; William Doyle teaches the first school in a round-log shanty, 20 by 24 feet, where the Knupp church later stands.
4. 1818 — On October 5 the county commissioners organize Milton Township, rejecting 'Center Swamp Township' as a name on Commissioner George Bair's objection.
5. 1819 — On April 27 William Doyle, founder of Doylestown, and John Dawson are commissioned the township's first justices of the peace.
6. 1836 — A post office named New Prospect opens at Christian Knupp's place, the township's first; it moves to Milton Station in 1870.
7. 1861 — A post office named Amwell is open from 1861 to 1883 at Johnson's Corners, named for Abner Johnson, who made the first improvements there; Adna Bessey gave it the name Amwell.
8. 1869 — David Shook erects the first house at Milton Station, the future Rittman, beside the railroad.
9. 1870 — On March 11 a sawmill boiler near Shinersburg explodes and kills seven men; in July the post office moves from Shinersburg to Milton Station.
10. 1870 — The census counts 1,524 residents in the township.
11. 1881 — The Milton Station post office, renamed Ellio in 1879 and Arkona in 1880, takes the name Rittman.
12. 1883 — A post office is established at Sterling, the other town in the township's north.
13. 1900 — The census counts 1,978 residents.
14. 1909 — Rittman has a savings bank with a capital of $50,000 (S. M. Brenneman, president) and Sterling has the Farmers Banking Company; Lancetown has long since vanished.
15. 2020 — Township population recorded at 2,964 across 36.1 square miles.

Stories

Center Swamp Township, rejected

When the county commissioners were forming Milton Township in 1818, the early pioneer Jacob Kiefer walked to Wooster to ask that it be named. He proposed 'Center Swamp Township,' because a large swamp lay at its center. Commissioner George Bair objected that the name would bring odium on the township, and suggested Milton instead, which the board adopted on October 5, 1818. Neither the 1878 nor the 1910 county history says why Bair picked that name.

Ink freezing in the schoolhouse

Milton Township's first school opened in 1817 in a round-log shanty, 20 by 24 feet, scutched smooth inside, on the spot where the Knupp church later stood. William Doyle was the teacher; his pupils included the children of John Coleman, David Trump, John Lance, Jerry Johnson, James Carnahan, William Chambers, James Law, a Mr. Riggleman and the widow Johnson. It was a subscription school, paid for directly by the families. One former pupil, Mr. Fritz, remembered that in winter the ink froze in the bottles while the pupils were writing. The township's first church, the Lancetown Baptist church, followed, served first by the Revolutionary War veteran and missionary Elder Freeman and then by the first regular minister, Rev. James Newton.

Martin Fritz, sold for his passage

Martin Fritz was born in Alsace in 1757 and reached New York in 1771 without the money for his passage, so, by the custom of the time, he was sold to a Mr. Ray, for whom he worked three years to pay it off. When the Revolution began he enlisted under Washington for five years and fought in several battles, including Brandywine. After the war he married Catherine Wilt in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, moved to Venango County, and in June 1814 brought his family to Milton Township, where only De Courcey had settled. He had to cut out the road to his land. He died in 1851 at ninety-four, a Methodist; his son Phillip, born in 1804, had lived in the township longer than any other man in 1878.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · postalhistory.com · rittman.com

Mostly private wells The water here

• Rittman City73% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Creston Village17% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Marshallville Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Seville Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Medina Co/northwest1% of residentsLake Erie
• Medina Co/southern Water Dist0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Private schools (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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