Montville Township, Geauga County

How Montville Township, Geauga County began

Montville Township, surveyed in 1797 and named for Montville, Connecticut, was among the last-settled townships in Geauga County; it received its first inhabitants, Roswell Stevens and his family, from Ashtabula County in June 1815. Wolves, panthers, and elk still ranged its swampy woods into the 1850s, and a mammoth's remains turned up in one of those swamps in 1872. It has no National Register-listed site of its own, though a house at the intersection of U.S. Route 6 and State Route 528 is remembered locally as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Montville is a small rural township in northeastern Geauga County, with 1,938 residents in 2020.

Settled June 1815 (Roswell Stevens and family, from Ashtabula County, per the 1879 county history), incorporated March 4, 1822 (detached from Hambden and erected into a township by order of the county commissioners), by Roswell Stevens, first settler, accompanied that year by Jehiel Wilcox, Hazard Andrews, and Joshua Stewart and their families.

Where the name comes from

Montville Township, number nine in the sixth range of the Western Reserve survey, was named from Montville, Connecticut.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail, or site specific to Montville Township is documented in the sources consulted.

Timeline

1. 1797 — Montville Township is surveyed by Augustus Porter, Seth Pease, and others.
2. 1815 — Roswell Stevens and his family, from Ashtabula County, become Montville's first settlers, building a cabin in the southwest part of the township.
3. 1817 — The first marriage (Leonard Pomeroy to Permilla Rice) and the first birth (Statira Stewart, daughter of Joshua Stewart) in Montville both occur.
4. 1819 — "Billy Brown" and Baldwin Morris form Montville's first Methodist Episcopal class in the northeast part of the township.
5. 1822 — The county commissioners detach Montville from Hambden and erect it as its own civil township, holding its first election at Jehiel Wilcox's house.
6. 1823 — Montville's first post office is established, with Roswell Stevens as first postmaster.
7. 1829 — Elihu Moore builds Montville's first saw-mill near the centre; his son Josiah becomes the township's first merchant the same year.
8. 1872 — Royal Dimock discovers the remains of a mammoth or mastodon in Montville's swampy lands.
9. 2020 — U.S. Census records 1,938 residents in Montville Township.

Stories

"Old Billy Brown"

Among Montville's 1819 arrivals was William Brown, a Methodist preacher of great eccentricity and simplicity of life known locally as "Old Billy Brown." He had first tried to settle in Concord, but its overseer of the poor ordered the long-haired young preacher to move on; Montville proved more hospitable, and he bought land on the centre road along the Thompson line. Brown believed he received guidance through dreams: a series of them convinced him his first cabin sat on the wrong lot, so he tore it down and built a new one nearer the township line, a choice a later survey proved correct. He was also said to have located a strayed flock of sheep through a dream. An accidental fall ended his life in later years, but anecdotes of his oddities and his preaching were still told long afterward.

The big bear and the wolves

About 1834, Daniel Rawdon of Windsor, a noted hunter, tracked an enormous bear through the east part of Montville into a windfall thick with brush; when the bear charged him he wounded it with a rifle shot, chased it through the "great huckleberry swamp" in Hartsgrove, and finally killed it after it weighed in at over six hundred pounds. In a separate encounter that same year, Rawdon was setting wolf traps in Montville at dusk when five wolves rushed him; he shot two, and the surviving three kept circling until darkness forced him to climb a small tree, where he spent a freezing night waiting them out before the wolves finally dispersed at dawn.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Chardon City79% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Leaders MHP9% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Jacques Mobile Home Park, Llc4% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Geauga County Services Center2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Rustic Pines Mhc2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Kimberly Estates2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Chardon Estates1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Maple Ridge Mhc, Limited0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-09

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