Orange Township, Hancock County

How Orange Township, Hancock County began

Orange Township, in the southwest corner of Hancock County, was set off as a separate political subdivision on December 5, 1830, though its first permanent settler, Henry L. Dally, did not arrive until May 1, 1834. Pioneer William Bryan of Richland County suggested the name Orange during the township's organization, overriding Dally's wish to have it named for himself. It grew slowly from wilderness and wet prairie (the 'Cranberry Marsh' in its northwest corner) into a farming township of scattered mills, churches and country schools, reaching 1,451 residents by 1880. Today it remains rural, sharing part of the village of Bluffton in its northwest corner, with the crossroads communities of Hassan and Cordelia surviving only as place names.

Settled 1834, incorporated 1830-12-05, by Organized as a township by the Hancock County commissioners; William Bryan proposed the name.

Where the name comes from

First settler Henry L. Dally wanted the new township named for himself, but the community rejected the idea. William Bryan, an early settler from Richland County, suggested the name 'Orange' instead, and it was adopted at organization in 1830.

Before the town

No source found records a Native village, trail, mound, treaty line, or removal event specifically located within Orange Township's boundaries. The township lies within land ceded to the United States by the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs (Maumee Rapids), and the broader Hancock County area was within the range of the Wyandot, but no site-specific record for this township was located in the sources checked (the 1886 county history's Orange Township chapter, Wikipedia, Ohio History Central).

Timeline

1. 1830-12-05 — Hancock County commissioners set off Congressional Township 2 south, Range 9, as a new political subdivision and named it Orange Township, at William Bryan's suggestion.
2. 1834-05-01 — Henry L. Dally, traveling from Tuscarawas County with his wife Margaret and eight children, became the township's first settler, entering the southeast quarter of Section 19 and building a log cabin with the nearest neighbor three miles away.
3. 1834-06 — David Thompson, a Virginia native, became the township's second settler; his son David J. Thompson, born September 11, 1836, was the first white child born in the township.
4. 1835 (fall) — The Disciples Church organized at Henry Dally's cabin, the township's first religious society, with members from the Dally and Thompson families and settlers from neighboring Putnam County.
5. 1836-10 — The Plainfield Society of the Seceder Church organized at John McKinley's cabin under Rev. Samuel Wilson; members later built a church at Cannonsburg, which was sold to the Methodists before completion.
6. 1837 — The township's first schoolhouse, a small log building, was erected on Section 1 and taught by Elizabeth Matthews, who was paid 50 cents to $1 per week and boarded with the families whose children she taught.
7. 1852 — The Riley Creek Baptist Society, organized around 1845, erected a frame building in 1852-53, the first house of worship built in Orange Township.
8. 1858 — The Hassan post office was established in the township with James Morrison as first postmaster.
9. 1883-03-06 — The Cordelia post office was established with William M. McKinley as first postmaster; it remained in operation until 1895.
10. 1883-09-14 — William M. McKinley and others laid out a town of thirty-three lots on the Cleveland, Delphos & St. Louis Narrow Gauge Railroad at Cordelia, though the county historian noted it 'yet remains in an embryo condition.'
11. 1886 — Orange Township School No. 2, a brick schoolhouse on State Route 103 just east of State Route 235, was built by W.H. McKinley.

Stories

A township almost named for its first settler

Henry L. Dally reached the wilderness of what became Orange Township on May 1, 1834, traveling from Tuscarawas County with his wife Margaret and eight children. He was the first to settle in the township, building a cabin with the nearest neighbor three miles off, and when the time came to organize the new subdivision he wanted it named for himself. The community disagreed. Instead it was William Bryan, an early settler from Richland County, who put forward the name that stuck: Orange, adopted when the township was set off on December 5, 1830. The county historian who recorded the story a half-century later gave no reason for the choice beyond Bryan's suggestion, so the origin of 'Orange' itself is not otherwise explained in the record.

A grist-mill, a marsh, and slow going

Early Orange Township was harder ground than the county's river townships. Its northwest corner held 'Cranberry Marsh,' a wet prairie of willow thickets that the 1886 county history called 'nearly impassable,' and clearing farms out of the rolling, timbered land to its south was slow work; David Thompson recalled that John McKinley's family had to cut a road through the forest just to reach their own farm. The township's only grist-mill, a small operation John Stump built on Riley Creek, served the community for years as 'the first and only grist-mill erected in the township,' supplemented by scattered saw-mills that turned the forest itself into the lumber for cabins, barns, and eventually frame churches and schoolhouses.

Photographs

Local history sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · heritagepursuit.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Blanchard River (via intake reservoir) The water here

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Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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