Oxford Township, Erie County

How Oxford Township, Erie County began

Oxford Township, in southwestern Erie County, was surveyed in 1810 by Jabez Wright and Almon Ruggles, and six families from Conneaut, Pennsylvania settled along Pipe Creek that February. Its only village, Bloomingville, grew up from 1811 on high ground that had been a Native camping place on an old trail; it was laid out in 1817 and for a time was one of the larger settlements in northern Ohio, with a post office, store, hotel and a brick bank building that never received a charter. During the War of 1812 many settlers fled to Mansfield while those who stayed built two stockaded blockhouses at Bloomingville. The township's northeast corner holds part of NASA's Plum Brook Station, built on the tract of a World War II munitions plant.

Settled 1810 (February), platted 1817 (Bloomingville, laid out by Abiathar Shirley and Abner Young), by six families from Conneaut, Erie County, Pennsylvania, including Jonathan Sprague, the Dunhams and Linas Ensign.

Where the name comes from

No opened source explains the name Oxford; it is one of six Oxford Townships in Ohio. Its village, Bloomingville, was laid out and named in 1817.

Before the town

Bloomingville stands on high, dry ground beside Pipe Creek on the line of an old Native trail, a spot the 1889 county history describes as a favorite Native camping ground before settlement; Wikipedia likewise says the first permanent settlement there in 1811 was on the site of a former Indian camping ground. Pipe Creek takes its name from the soft stone along its bed that Native people used for pipes. When Rev. William Gurley preached the first sermon on the Firelands in the Bloomingville schoolhouse in 1811, several Native people attended out of curiosity. The land lies in the Firelands, ceded under the 1805 Treaty of Fort Industry.

• Bloomingville camping ground and trail (camp) — site of Bloomingville, northwestern Oxford Township, near Pipe Creek, before 1811 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1792 — The Connecticut legislature set aside the Firelands, roughly half a million acres in northern Ohio including the future Oxford Township, as "Fire Sufferers' Land" compensating residents of Connecticut towns burned by British troops during the Revolutionary War.
2. 1810-02 — Six families from Conneaut, Pennsylvania, among them the Revolutionary War veteran Jonathan Sprague, settled along Pipe Creek near the future Bloomingville.
3. 1810 — Jabez Wright and Almon Ruggles surveyed the township, with Benjamin Drake as chain bearer; the first schoolhouse was built between Pipe Creek and Bloomingville, and Joseph Alby taught there in the winter of 1811.
4. 1811 — Bloomingville was begun, and Nathan Wood opened its first store.
5. 1811-09 — Rev. William Gurley arrived and preached the first sermon on the Firelands in the log schoolhouse at Bloomingville, forming a class of eight or ten members.
6. 1812 — After Hull's surrender at Detroit many settlers fled to Mansfield; those who stayed built two blockhouses at Bloomingville enclosed by a stockade. Abiathar Shirley opened the first hotel the same year.
7. 1815 — A post office named Bloomingville was established; it operated until 1906. The 1889 and 1916 county histories give 1810, with Aaron Bigsby as postmaster.
8. 1816 — Work began on a brick bank building at Bloomingville, with a vault, for a bank that never obtained a state charter.
9. 1817 — Abiathar Shirley and Abner Young laid out Bloomingville in lots.
10. 1826 — Groton Township was organized separately; until then Oxford, Groton, Perkins and part of Margaretta voted as one precinct at Bloomingville.
11. c. 1869 — A Lutheran church was formed near Prout's Station, the first regular church organization in the township.
12. 1957 — NASA acquired part of the former World War II munitions tract northeast of Bloomingville for Plum Brook Station, and had acquired the rest by 1963.
13. 1985-10-03 — The Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility at Plum Brook Station, listed as in Oxford and Perkins townships, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

The bank that never opened

In 1817 Charles Lindsay moved from Dayton to the head of Cold Creek. He had been an officer of a Dayton 'wildcat' bank, and he persuaded the leading men of the neighborhood that Bloomingville needed a bank of its own. A public meeting subscribed the expenses, named Abner Young president and Lindsay cashier, and sent Lindsay to Cincinnati to have bills engraved and to the legislature for a charter. Meanwhile a brick building with a vault went up opposite the Shirley House. Judge Jabez Wright of Huron learned in Columbus that a new law barred any bank charters for a year; the directors issued notes anyway, the public refused them, and the bank never did business. The 1916 county history calls it probably the first brick or stone bank building in Ohio, and says it later became the home of Eleutheros Cooke, whose son Pitt Cooke was born there.

The trembles

About the time of the bank scheme, a disease the settlers called milk sickness struck Oxford's cattle. An animal with 'the trembles' might walk a short way after nursing, begin to shake and fall dead. Some blamed mineral springs, but a flock of Thomas James's sheep pastured where there was no water fell sick too, and some settlers blamed witchcraft. People died of it as well, and the 1889 county history says they were buried without markers at the fork of the roads a short distance east of Bloomingville. Its cause was still unknown when that history was written.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Sandusky City35% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)
• Monroeville Village35% of residentsWest Branch Huron River, stored in Monroeville's reservoir
• Erie Co. Perkins District19% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)
• Milan Village8% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)
• Erie Co. Margaretta District3% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

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