Norwich Township, Huron County

How Norwich Township, Huron County began

Norwich Township's first settlers, Chauncey Woodruff and Wilder Lawrence, arrived with their families on February 10, 1817 after wintering in Trumbull County, moving into an unfinished 'village house' of bare walls and a roof, with snow a foot deep around them. The township had been surveyed in 1816 with a paper village, Barbadoes, and was attached to Greenfield (1818) and then to Sherman (1820) before organizing on its own in 1827. Settlement nearly collapsed in the early 1820s when the original proprietor Daniel L. Coit sued to reclaim the north half and had eviction writs served on settlers who had bought on credit from Judge Canfield; Coit resurveyed and resold the land in 1827 at two dollars an acre, after which improvement began in earnest. The township is named for Norwich, Connecticut.

Settled February 10, 1817 (Chauncey Woodruff and Wilder Lawrence), platted 1816 (Barbadoes, a paper village, by Williams, Hopkins and Hinman), incorporated 1827 (organized as its own township; attached to Greenfield in 1818 and to Sherman in 1820), by Chauncey Woodruff and Wilder Lawrence, of Saratoga County, New York.

Where the name comes from

Norwich Township is named for Norwich, Connecticut. Ohio has only one other Norwich Township, in Franklin County.

Before the town

The 1909 county history says a small band of Seneca with 'Seneca John' at their head sometimes camped in Norwich Township, burying their dead in bark coffins near the camp, and that a few conical mounds, believed to be burial places, stood in the southeast part of the township when it was first settled and have since disappeared. General Beall's army cut the first road through the township in 1812 on its march from Wooster to Fremont. No village or dated site is recorded.

• Conical mounds in the southeast of the township (mound) — southeast part of Norwich Township, prehistoric; culture not stated, gone by 1909 (archive.org)
• Seneca John's camp (camp) — Norwich Township, exact place not stated, early 1800s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1808 — On November 8 the township receives its name and, like each of the thirty Firelands townships, is divided into four sections; it was drawn by nineteen persons, and by the survey of Almon Ruggles contained 16,529 acres.
2. 1812 — General Beall's army opens a road from Wooster to Fremont through New Haven and Norwich, entering at the southeast corner and leaving about a mile and a half east of the northwest corner.
3. 1816 — James Williams, Philip R. Hopkins and David W. Hinman survey the township's north two sections into 100-acre lots and lay out a village called Barbadoes; the surveying party builds the first log house in the township, and John Williamson raises the walls and roof of the unfinished 'village house.'
4. 1817 — Chauncey Woodruff and Wilder Lawrence, with their families, arrive from Saratoga County, New York on February 10, moving into an unfinished shell of a building known as the 'village house' with about a foot of snow on the ground; Naum Gilson arrives that June and raises the township's first hewed-log house and sows its first wheat crop.
5. 1817 — The first death in the township is an infant son of Wilder Lawrence on February 19, nine days after the Woodruff and Lawrence families arrive, buried on the bank of Mud Run; Woodruff and Lawrence plant the first corn that spring.
6. 1818 — John Fletcher, Bartholomew Rossman and Benjamin Moore move their families into the surveyor's house in the township's northwest on February 13 while building their own cabins.
7. 1818 — Owen Fletcher, son of John Fletcher, born February 22, is the first child to survive birth in the township; Norwich is attached to Greenfield Township this year, and in 1819 Naum Gilson is elected supervisor, the first sworn official.
8. 1819 — The first schoolhouse, a 12-by-16-foot log cabin roofed with elm bark and without floor or windows, is built on the east bank of Slate Run, with Aurilla Lindsey as first teacher; on March 3 Augustus Cook marries Martha Fletcher at the surveyor's house, the township's first wedding.
9. 1820 — A title dispute erupts after original proprietor Daniel L. Coit sues to recover land he had sold on credit to Judge Canfield in 1815, and eviction writs are served on settlers who had bought from Canfield's agents in good faith; most settlers abandon their farms over the following years as fields grow up in briars and cabins fall to ruin.
10. 1820 — Sherman Township is organized with Norwich attached; the Norwich voters, unhappy at having to travel to Captain Hanford's house in Sherman for the April election, outnumber the Sherman voters and elect two trustees and the clerk; elections are later held at Burwell Fitch's house in Sherman.
11. 1825 — Dr. Hurlburt, the first physician in the township, settles on lot 40 in the second section and practices until his death in 1828.
12. 1827 — The land litigation having finally resolved in Coit's favor by 1836 in its full course, Coit resurveys the disputed sections in the spring of 1827 and resells the land to old and new settlers alike at two dollars an acre, allowing the community to rebuild; Norwich organizes as its own township the same year.
13. 1827 — North Norwich post office is established, named to avoid confusion with a Norwich post office in Muskingum County, with Naum Gilson as postmaster for about twenty years; Asa, Naum and Jonas Gilson, George H. Woodruff and Joseph Read set out the first orchards.
14. 1830 — Benjamin Moore builds a sawmill on Slate Run; Thomas Bennett (1832) and Ira Wood (1840) build two more on the same stream, all later carried away by high water; Peter Brown puts in operation the first gristmill, run by horse power, in 1834.
15. 1848 — Post offices are established at Havana and Centerton on the Mansfield and Sandusky railroad; John Idler's steam sawmill at Centerton (1846) burns in 1856 and again in 1859 and is rebuilt each time.
16. 2020 — The census counts 1,022 people in Norwich Township.

Stories

The decade the settlement nearly emptied out

Norwich's settlers bought their land on credit with nothing more than a written agreement for a title, since deeds had not yet been issued -- a common and workable arrangement until 1820 or 1821, when original proprietor Daniel L. Coit grew dissatisfied with how Judge Canfield, to whom he had sold the township's north half in 1815, was managing the property. Coit sued to recover the title and had writs of ejectment served on every settler who had taken up land under Canfield's sales agents. The agents tried and failed to negotiate a compromise, and as the litigation dragged on for years, nearly all the settlers gave up and left rather than risk losing both their land and everything they had built on it. Deserted fields grew up in briars, and cabins and fences fell into ruin. Only seven settlers stayed through the whole ordeal: Wilder Lawrence, Jonas Gilson, George H. and Jesse Woodruff, Naum and Asa Gilson, and Augustus Cook. When the case finally resolved in Coit's favor and he resurveyed and resold the disputed land in the spring of 1827 -- at the same two-dollar-an-acre rate as before -- new settlers came in and the survivors began improving their farms in earnest for the first time in a decade, finally confident the work would not be taken from them again.

The ballot box in Slate Run

When Norwich was set off as a township in 1827, its first election was held in April at the log schoolhouse near George H. Woodruff's home, with only eight qualified electors. The only contest was for supervisor, where Joseph Read and Wilder Lawrence tied and the judges decided it by casting lots, which Read won. That fall Augustus Cook, the new township clerk, went with Read to Norwalk to fetch the ballot box and law books, with two yoke of oxen to haul back boards for Read's cabin. The box and books were in a bag on the load. Fording Slate Run on the way home the wagon overturned; after getting the lumber out of the water they found the bag floating away, and Cook plunged in and brought it ashore far down the run.

Seneca John's camp

The 1909 county history records that a small band of Seneca, with 'Seneca John' at their head, sometimes made camp in Norwich Township. John could speak a little English and was honest and trusty, though others of the tribe were described as drunken and thievish, and the Seneca buried their dead in bark coffins near their camps. A few conical mounds in the southeast part of the township, believed to be burial places, were still there when the township was first settled and have since disappeared. Neither the mounds' builders nor their dates are given.

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

Raw water pumped from the West Branch Huron River roughly 3 miles to a 215-acre, 2.3-billion-gallon upground reservoir at the Class III surface water plant on Central Ave. The water here

• Willard City96% of residentsWest Branch Huron River, stored in Willard's upground reservoir
• Attica Village4% of residentsHoney Creek (via 2 storage reservoirs)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2018: 2 of 2 passed.

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 2025-10-07

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