Penfield Township, Lorain County

How Penfield Township, Lorain County began

Penfield Township is Town 3, Range 17, drawn in 1807 by Caleb Atwater, who paid about $4,000 for it and gave it to his six daughters. Peter Penfield of Harpersfield, New York, explored it in fall 1818, agreed with the proprietors in 1819 to settle there, and cut the first road in February 1820; his nephew Lathrop and son Alanson worked with him, and his brother's son Truman's family moved in on 5 November 1820, the first household. The settlers voted for the name Richland because the soil was so rich, but the Medina County commissioners refused it and named the township for Penfield; the first election was held in April 1825. It is farmland, with 1,835 people in 2020.

Settled 5 November 1820 (Truman Penfield's family, the first household; Peter Penfield's family followed March 1821; the 1879 history prints 1830), incorporated Township organized April 1825 (not 1820, as an earlier version of this record stated), by Peter Penfield (agent for the six proprietors) and family.

Where the name comes from

The settlers agreed on Richland, for the rich soil, and petitioned Medina County's commissioners for it, but the commissioners found other places called Richland, rejected the petition and named the township Penfield in honor of the first settler, Peter Penfield (1879 county history; the 1916 history repeats it).

Before the town

The only Native site recorded in Penfield Township comes from the 1879 history of neighboring Wellington Township: the Wyandot were still living in that country when Medina County organized in January 1818 and stayed several years after the first settlers came, and the remains of their old wigwams near an orchard of wild plums in Penfield Township were still seen as late as 1840. The Penfield chapter itself names no Native people; the first settlers found beaver, whose dam about a quarter mile north of the township center still stood in 1879.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Wyandot wigwam remains near a wild plum orchard (camp) — Penfield Township (location within the township not given), before 1840; remains still seen then (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1807 — Caleb Atwater draws Town 3, Range 17 in the Western Reserve land draft, paying 25 cents an acre for roughly 16,000 acres, and deeds it in six equal sections to his daughters.
2. Fall 1818 — Peter Penfield and Calvin Spencer of eastern New York look over the township with James and Marshall Ingersoll of Grafton, spending a day just finding the corners of Litchfield, Grafton, LaGrange and Penfield; the round trip from New York takes about six weeks.
3. 1819 — The proprietors offer Peter Penfield fifty (later reduced to twenty-four) acres out of each of six sections to move his family in; in the fall he selects land and hires Seth C. Ingersoll to build a log house.
4. February 1820 — Peter Penfield and his nephew Lathrop reach Grafton on 22 February, cut a trail to the cabin and open the north-south road to Butternut Ridge in about thirty days without pay; Lathrop plants the first corn on two and a half acres. (The 1879 history prints 1830 here and for the later arrivals; the 1916 history and the story's own sequence give 1820.)
5. 5 November 1820 — Truman Penfield brings his wife and son Samuel S. to the log house, the first family to live in the township; Peter Penfield's family follows in March 1821.
6. December 1821 — Harriet, daughter of Peter and Catharine Penfield, is the first child born in the township.
7. 1822 — Peter Penfield builds the first frame house on his homestead; Samuel Knapp brings his family from Harpersfield, New York.
8. 1824 — Calvin Spencer's and Benjamin E. Merwin's families arrive; Lathrop Penfield marries Caroline West of Grafton on 17 March, the first marriage of a resident.
9. April 1825 — The first township election is held at Truman Penfield's house under an order of the Medina County commissioners, which refused the settlers' choice of the name Richland and named the township Penfield.
10. 27 May 1826 — Benjamin Merwin is elected the township's first justice of the peace.
11. 1828 — Raymond Starr opens the first store.
12. 14 January 1829 — A Presbyterian church (later Congregational) is organized with thirteen members, the Penfields among them.
13. 1916 — The county history records the township as named Penfield, in honor of its first settler, after the commissioners rejected Richland.
14. 2020 — Census records 1,835 residents across nearly 22 square miles.

Stories

Richland by vote, Penfield by order

The pioneers of Penfield called their land Richland, and with reason: corn and wheat grew better there than in the neighboring townships. The 1879 county history tells of a farmer from an older township who drove into the settlement at the head of a line of big wagons and said, 'We come after that for which the children of Israel went to Egypt, corn!' and went home with the wagons full. When the settlers petitioned the Medina County commissioners to organize the township, they asked for the name Richland. The commissioners found other places with that name, refused, and named it Penfield after Peter Penfield, whose family made up most of the early settlement. The historian added that the township is still Richland in fact, though Penfield by name.

Ten years between exploring and living there

Peter Penfield and Calvin Spencer first walked the township in fall 1818, and it took most of a day just to find the corners of the four townships that meet there. The proprietors, who wanted the township settled, offered Penfield land from each of their six sections if he would move his family in. In February 1820 he and his nephew Lathrop walked from Grafton, cut their own trail to a cabin Seth Ingersoll had left unfinished, and spent a month, unpaid, opening the road toward Butternut Ridge, going fifteen miles to Harrisville for provisions and spending ten days looking for strayed horses. Lathrop cleared two and a half acres and planted the first corn. That November, Truman Penfield brought his wife and son to live in the cabin; she was the first woman in the settlement and died soon after, from the toil and exposure, it was said. The 1879 history prints these dates ten years late.

The beaver dam

When the Penfields began to clear, there were beaver in the township, and they left their dam as soon as they heard axes. The historian of 1879 was shown the dam by William J. Knapp, a quarter of a mile north of the center: an arch with its convex side upstream, six feet high above the stream bed, which had once flooded twelve to fifteen acres. He thought that if men had built it they could not have placed it better. A Knapp of the first families, a great hunter, also trapped wild turkeys by baiting his barn, shot a wildcat under his house and killed a panther in the edge of Litchfield.

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

Lake Erie, drawn through two separate offshore intakes serving the Lake Road filtration plant The water here

• Rural Lorain Co. Water A60% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Wellington Village35% of residentsCharlemont Creek, via Wellington Upground Reservoir
• Lagrange Village2% of residentsLake Erie
• Pheasant Run Association2% of residentsLake Erie
• Medina Co/northwest1% of residentsLake Erie
• Grafton Village1% of residentsLake Erie
• Oberlin Water Department0% of residentsWest Branch Black River, via Oberlin Upground Reservoir
• North Ridgeville City0% of residentsLake Erie (mainly via Avon Lake Regional Water)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Elections for office

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

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