Portage Township, Hancock County

How Portage Township, Hancock County began

Portage Township, in the north of Hancock County, was set off from Liberty Township on March 4, 1833 as Township 2 North, Range 10, named for the Portage River whose Ten Mile Creek branches rise in it. John Thompson entered land in 1832 and settled in 1833, John Cooper and many others came in 1834, and the first school (winter 1836-37) met in Benoni Culp's wagon shop. Jacob Andre platted Lafayette in 1837 but it never grew, and a Portage Centre post office opened in April 1857. In 1850 its two eastern tiers of sections became Allen Township; it has never had a village and had 734 residents in 2020.

Settled 1833 (John Thompson, Robert Walters), platted 1837 (Lafayette, March 18, Jacob Andre; never built), incorporated March 4, 1833 (township erected), by John Thompson, Robert Walters, John Cooper, John Howard and other settlers from Perry, Richland and Stark counties.

Where the name comes from

Named for the Portage River, whose Ten Mile Creek forks head in the township; the act of erection provided for the first election on the first Monday in April 1833. A portage is a carrying place between waterways.

Before the town

The Hancock County history of 1903 says the county lay between the Indian towns of what is now Wyandot and Seneca counties and those on the Blanchard, Auglaize and Maumee rivers, a hunting ground of the Wyandots and Ottawas. The treaty at the foot of the Maumee Rapids on September 29, 1817 ceded the remaining Indian lands in Ohio except reservations, enlarged by the treaty at St. Marys on September 17, 1818; the Wyandot reservation of 16,000 acres around the big spring at the end of the marsh (southwest Seneca County, reaching into Biglick Township, Hancock County) was for the Wyandots at Solomon's Town and on Blanchard's Fork. The reservations in Hancock and neighboring counties were sold in 1831 and the Wyandots ceded their remaining lands in March 1842. Wyandots had a small village on the site of Findlay, with ten or fifteen families around Fort Findlay under the chief Kuqua when settlers arrived in 1815-1821, and another village six or seven miles down the river at Indian Green. Brown's 1886 history notes that Sand Ridge and Sugar Ridge cross the township, ridges the geological reports call the ancient beaches of Lake Erie, and Spayth's 1903 history places the 'Wild Cat Thicket' beginning in Portage Township's west. Neither history records a Native village, mound or trail inside Portage Township, and the lower Blanchard and Auglaize were the Ottawa country.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Ottawa.

Timeline

1. 1817 — The Treaty of the Maumee Rapids, signed September 29, ceded the remaining Indian lands in Ohio outside reservations, including northern Hancock County, to the United States.
2. 1830 — Liberty Township was erected on December 6 and included all of present Portage Township, which had been part of Findlay Township since May 1823.
3. 1832 — On July 24, John Thompson entered the west half of the northwest quarter of section 22; he settled the following summer.
4. 1833 — On March 4 the commissioners set off Township 2 North, Range 10 as Portage Township, and an election of officers was held the first Monday in April; Robert Walters settled on Ten Mile Creek that fall.
5. 1834 — John and Amos Cooper, the Howards, Moorheads, John Reed, who built the first brick house, Sanfred Dulin and Mahlon Morris settled this year; Samuel Howard had borrowed $50 in June 1833 to enter his first forty acres.
6. 1836 — Regular Baptists organized the first church society at Merryman Price's cabin on Ten Mile Creek; Jacob Deter and Benoni Culp also settled.
7. 1837 — The first school, taught by Frederick S. Ankeny in Benoni Culp's wagon shop in the winter of 1836-37, ended when he died; Jacob Andre platted Lafayette (72 lots) on March 18 and Presbyterians organized the Pleasant Hill society under Rev. George Van Eman.
8. 1838 — A schoolhouse on the Moorhead farm in section 31 opened with Miss Rebecca Hedges teaching for $1.25 a week and boarding around.
9. 1843 — The Pleasant Hill society and Ebenezer Society of Portage merged in September as West Union Church of Van Buren.
10. 1850 — Allen Township was erected, taking the two eastern tiers of sections and leaving Portage with 24 square miles (15,360 acres); Central Methodist Episcopal chapel organized about this year, with its present building raised in 1858.
11. 1857 — The Portage Centre post office was established in April with Jarvis Humphrey as postmaster; Joseph Johnson took it over in 1863 and held it sixteen years.
12. 1880 — Portage Township had 914 people, up from 675 in 1840, 614 in 1850, 835 in 1860 and 899 in 1870; six school buildings met seven months a year.
13. 2020 — Portage Township had 734 residents on 24.1 square miles, with no municipality inside it.

Stories

Samuel Howard's fifty dollars

In May 1834 John and Abigail Howard moved to Section 4 on Ten Mile Creek with nine children from Richland County, Ohio. Their eldest son Samuel, born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1814, had a year earlier, in June 1833, borrowed $50 from his father to enter forty acres and promised to keep the whole family in provisions for a year to repay it. He did, and so became the owner of his first real estate. In 1837 he married Elizabeth Carroll and settled on the land, raised eleven children, and served four terms as county treasurer, becoming known from one end of Hancock County to the other.

A town of seventy-two lots that never was

On March 18, 1837 Jacob Andre laid out a village of seventy-two lots in section 15 and named it Lafayette. That is as far as the town ever got, and Brown's 1886 history says flatly that Portage has never possessed a village or hamlet. Neighbors went instead to a school in Benoni Culp's wagon shop, the Pleasant Hill Presbyterian log church of 1837, and the Portage Centre post office of 1857. The first teacher, Frederick Ankeny, died during his term in the winter of 1836-37.

Sand Ridge, Sugar Ridge and the Wild Cat Thicket

Two long sandy ridges cross Portage Township from east to west, Sand Ridge in the north and Sugar Ridge, named for its sugar maples, through the center; the state geologists called them the ancient beaches of Lake Erie. Settlers found the rest of the township under heavy forest, and a mile-or-two-wide strip of blown-down trees called the Wild Cat Thicket began in its west and ran across Allen and Cass townships. Ten Mile Creek's two forks, fed by springs, join in section 4 and leave the county near the northeast corner, giving the township and its river the name Portage.

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

Rocky Ford Creek, pumped into two off-stream reservoirs that supply the plant. The water here

• Northwestern W and SD - Mccomb73% of residentsRocky Ford Creek (via North Baltimore upground reservoirs)
• North Baltimore Village27% of residentsRocky Ford Creek (via North Baltimore upground reservoirs)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026 edition (Directory of Officials): county board of elections.

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-06-26

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