Perry Township, Wood County

How Perry Township, Wood County began

Perry Township was set off from the county's original oversized townships in 1833, part of Wood County's southeastern corner. Part of the city of Fostoria -- itself split across Wood, Seneca and Hancock counties -- extends into the township's southeastern edge, and the village of West Millgrove lies in its north.

Incorporated township set off 1833 (Congressional Townships 3 and 4, Range 12, and Township 3, Range 11), by Wood County commissioners.

Where the name comes from

The township is one of twenty-six Perry Townships in Ohio, part of the widespread early-19th-century practice of naming townships for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the War of 1812 naval hero also honored in the name of the county seat of Perrysburg; no township-specific naming story was found in the sources consulted.

Before the town

One site-specific record: Wyandot (Wyandotte) travellers used the Nestlerode cabin as a stopping place on their trail to Tiffin and back, where they went to trade. In the 1897 county history's reminiscence, they often took fire-water from Tiffin and whooped as they rode home; some fell from their ponies and were left by the others beside little fires to sober. One night a party arrived at the Nestlerode cabin, some too drunk to dismount, brandished tomahawks and knives and kicked over the furniture until Nestlerode and one of the Wyandot disarmed them; they slept on the floor and left silently before daylight, leaving their purchases, which they came back one at a time to collect. The first land patented in the township, in 1831, went to an Indian agent, Henry C. Brish of Seneca County. No mound is recorded.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1819 — Alexander and Samuel Holmes survey the exterior lines of the township; S. Bourne surveys the section lines in 1821.
2. 1826-01 to 1838-01 — John Crocker of Fostoria keeps a handwritten weather diary covering these twelve years, later summarized as the county's earliest climate record: it notes temperatures of 41 degrees below zero (December 22, 1830) and 31 below (January 20, 1827), a great flood (March 29, 1828), and snow as deep as 13 inches (February 2, 1830).
3. 1831-03-07 — Henry C. Brish of Seneca County, an Indian agent, receives a patent for the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 36, the first land entered in the township; he sells it to John Gorsuch on September 30.
4. 1831-11 — Oliver Day and his brother-in-law John Johnson move their families in and cut a road from the Gorsuch settlement (Fostoria) along the east branch of the Portage; they live in wagons until a cabin is raised in about a week, the first house in the township.
5. 1832-02-27 — Israel Nestlerode arrives with his family at the cabin he finished, except doors and windows, on December 31, 1831; his family hang sheets over the openings until wolves and porcupines force them to make doors.
6. 1833 (spring) — Mrs. Fletcher teaches the township's first school, with about 15 pupils paying tuition by subscription and her pay about two dollars a week.
7. 1833-03-04 — Perry is set off from Portage Township, taking in Townships 3 and 4 of Range 12 and Township 3 of Range 11 (the later Perry, Montgomery and Bloom).
8. 1833-04-01 — The first township election is held at Isaac Kelly's house; William Shawhan, Samuel P. Cory and Isaac Kelly are the first trustees.
9. 1833-10-08 — Twenty votes are cast at the first general election.
10. 1834 — The first lawsuit follows the first election of justices: John Miller and Asa England trade horses, England sues, and Miller loses when his witnesses leave to bring in deer shot that morning.
11. 1834-12-17 — The township is divided into four school districts; the history gives December 1835 in another passage.
12. 1834-35 — James McCormick builds a hewn-log gristmill, finished in 1835 as the first gristmill in the south part of the county; every able-bodied man in the township comes to the raising, with John A. Kelly as boss.
13. 1837 (before) — Counterfeiter and engraver John Brooks and others of his trade find temporary refuge in the township's sparse clearings before moving on as settlement filled in around them.
14. 1840 — The census counts 559 residents; 888 in 1850; 1,292 in 1860; 1,474 in 1880; 1,449 in 1890.
15. 1886 (approx.) — A gas well known locally as the 'Godsend,' in Perry Township, is producing about 2,500,000 cubic feet of gas a day during the peak of Wood County's natural gas boom.
16. 1887 — A northwestern addition to Fostoria is surveyed in the township and built up within a few years.
17. 2020 — The census finds 1,568 people living in the township.

Stories

A pioneer's weather diary

From January 1826 to January 1838, John Crocker of Fostoria kept a small notebook recording the weather he observed, year after year, in what became Perry Township -- one of the earliest sustained climate records in the county. His entries mark bitter cold (21 degrees below zero on January 26, 1826, and 41 below on December 22, 1830), heavy snow (13 inches on February 2, 1830), a great flood on March 29, 1828, and even the small seasonal signs pioneers watched for, like maple buds greening on April 23, 1826. Squirrels destroyed the wheat and corn crop in 1827, the same year Crocker recorded 31-below cold in January. A local writer summarized the diary in 1884, preserving in the county's own history a granular, day-by-day sense of what pioneer winters in the Black Swamp region actually felt like -- long before any official weather service existed to record it.

The night the Wyandot came back from Tiffin

Israel Nestlerode bought land in Section 24 in September 1831 from the speculator John Gorsuch, whom he met at the land office in Tiffin, and moved his family into his log cabin on February 27, 1832. The Wyandotte used his settlement as a stopping place on their trail to Tiffin and back, where they went to trade. Mrs. Nestlerode could hear them coming from two miles away, whooping and yelling after taking fire-water at Tiffin. One night after dark a party rode up with some of the braves too drunk to dismount, and she had to go out and help them down. Inside they brandished tomahawks and knives and kicked over the tables and chairs, until Nestlerode and one of the Wyandot disarmed them. They settled on the floor, slept until nearly daylight and crept away, leaving their parcels behind. Over the next few days they returned one at a time, each picking out his own package. The Nestlerodes lived on the farm about twenty-five years before moving to Fostoria; the story was set down in a paper by Robert Dunn in 1884.

The first lawsuit, and the venison that decided it

The township elected its first justices of the peace in 1834, and, in the words of a writer called Eph in the Sentinel of April 26, 1877, two pioneers at once set about supplying them with work. John Miller and Asa England had traded horses; Miller got the better of the bargain, so England, who argued his own case, sued. Miller hired a pettifogger named Kinney. The trial went against Miller because his witnesses, before giving evidence, got disgusted with the affair and went into the woods to bring in a lot of deer shot that morning. Beef was scarce and hogs unknown, and the prospect of venison steak, the writer says, proved Miller's defeat.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Fostoria City99% of residentsEast Branch Portage River (via 6 storage reservoirs)
• Evergreen Poplar Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Fostoria Mobile Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

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