Morral

How Morral began

Morral is a small railroad village in northeastern Salt Rock Township, Marion County, named for Samuel Morral, whose family came into the township in 1818 and who owned the town site. It grew as a station on the Columbus & Toledo Railroad, which reached Marion County in 1876; a post office opened under the Morral name in 1877, and by 1883 the place had a tile works, a grain trade and a Free-Will Baptist church built on land Samuel Morral gave. The ground around it is part of the old Sandusky Plains, and the 1883 county history recorded a mound with a hickory tree on its top in the vicinity of Morral. Its population has held in a narrow band for over a century, from about 334 in 1910 to a high of 493 in 1960 and 373 in 2020.

Settled 1818 (Morral family in Salt Rock Township), by Samuel Morral, the original owner of the town site; the town was named in honor of the elder Samuel Morral, born in Virginia in 1800, who came to Salt Rock Township with his father William Morral in 1818.

Where the name comes from

The village takes its name from Samuel Morral, who owned the site. The 1883 county history, in its sketch of Samuel Morral Sr. (born 1829), says the town was named in honor of his father, Samuel Morral, born in Virginia in 1800, a captain in the general militia who came to Salt Rock Township in 1818 with his own father, William Morral, a captain under Gen. Hull in the War of 1812.

Before the town

The 1883 county history records earthworks in this part of Salt Rock Township. It describes a circular mound several feet high in the vicinity of Morral, which in the early settlers' day carried a hickory tree on its top; the tree was gone by 1883 but the ground had not been disturbed and the outline was still distinct, and other remains lay about a mile from it. Along Little Sandusky Creek, which crosses the eastern part of the township, the same chapter describes the remains of what it took for a large village site, and on the nearby high ground an oblong enclosure ringed by a ditch 550 paces long with openings on the southwest and northeast; it gives no exact location for these, and no modern source checked assigns a culture or date to either site. The chapter also recounts a fight between two Native men near Carpenter's Cross Roads in the township, seen by a settler. Salt Rock lay north of the 1795 Greenville Treaty line, in country used chiefly by the Wyandot, and was opened to sale after the treaties of 1817 and 1818.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Mound near Morral (mound) — in the vicinity of Morral, northeastern Salt Rock Township; exact spot not given, prehistoric (the 1883 history attributes it to the 'Mound-Builders'); undisturbed as of 1883 (archive.org)
• Enclosure and village remains on Little Sandusky Creek (earthwork) — along Little Sandusky Creek in Salt Rock Township, on the table-land near the creek; exact spot not given and not confirmed to be at Morral, undated; oak trees growing in the ditch in 1883 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1818 — William Morral, a captain under Gen. Hull in the War of 1812, moves his family, including his son Samuel, from Pickaway County to Salt Rock Township.
2. c. 1825 — At an October wedding at Robert Martin's on Little Sandusky Creek, a party led by Capt. S. Morral carries off the supper pot and the whole bake oven as a prank.
3. 1845 — When Wyandot County is created, the two northern tiers of sections of Salt Rock Township go to Pitt Township, Wyandot County, and Salt Rock is reorganized on March 23, 1845.
4. 1876 — The Columbus & Toledo Railroad reaches Marion County (its first train arrived at Marion on October 19, 1876), and Morral becomes one of its stations.
5. 1877 — A post office opened at Morral, taking the name of Samuel Morral, owner of the town site.
6. 1878 — Rev. L. Johnson holds a series of meetings at Morral and organizes a society of several denominations, with Samuel Morral as deacon.
7. 1881 — The Free-Will Baptist church of Morral, 35 by 45 feet, is completed with its bell at a cost of $1,800 on land donated by Samuel Morral.
8. 1882 — Morral station on the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railroad forwards 3,806,589 pounds of freight during the year.
9. 1910 — The village's population stood at about 334, near its historical low for the 20th century.
10. 1960 — The village reached a 20th-century population high of about 493.
11. 2020 — The census counts 373 people in Morral, out of 605 in all of Salt Rock Township.

Stories

The stolen wedding supper

About 1825, in October, a wedding was held at Robert Martin's place on the banks of Little Sandusky Creek, later the farm of Amos Taylor. Pies and cakes had been baked all day in a brick oven built into the hillside, and a large pot of chicken hung on the crane in the fireplace. A group of men who came for fun, among them Samuel and John Harmon, Reuben Johns, a Mr. Neff and a Mr. Green, formed a line in front of the fireplace just before the ceremony, and their captain, S. Morral, lifted the pot from behind them and marched it out of the house. When the guests went for the pies and cakes instead, they found the oven itself gone: the same men had run poles under it and carried it, contents and all, about half a mile down the creek, where they made camp.

A mound with a hickory on top

The 1883 county history recorded that the northeast part of Salt Rock Township held some of the most notable earthworks in the area. In the vicinity of Morral stood a circular mound several feet high, prominent in the first settlers' day, with a hickory tree growing from its top. By 1883 the tree was gone, but the mound had never been dug and its outline was still plain. About a mile away were other remains that had been left alone until about 1877. A mile northwest of the mounds, at the edge of the prairie near a large pond, farmers turning the sod for the first time found lead bullets of nearly an ounce each six to eight inches down, so many that boys gathered them by the pocketful.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · co.marion.oh.us · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org

No water-system data is linked to Morral's ZIP codes yet.

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• Fiscal emergency: declared 2013-05-14, released 2015-03-26. source

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.

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