Richfield Township, Henry County

How Richfield Township, Henry County began

Richfield Township, in Henry County's southeast, was one of the five original townships organized in the county, as early as 1837, and once included what became Bartlow Township until that area was detached and given its own government in 1854. Settlement lagged for decades -- the 1888 county history calls it among the last of the county's hunting grounds 'reluctantly surrendered' by hunters and sportsmen -- and even by the late 1880s the township had no railroad and no incorporated village of its own, only a share of the hamlet of Grelleton and a small crossroads called West Hope.

Settled 1837 (Dewald Macklin, the earliest taxpayer on record), incorporated organized as early as 1837, among the county's first five townships, by Henry County.

Where the name comes from

The origin of the name Richfield Township is not recorded.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or treaty site specific to Richfield Township is recorded. The land had already passed out of Native ownership under the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids well before the township's 1837 organization.

Timeline

1. 1837 — The township's earliest surviving tax fragment lists a single parcel of land, held by Dewald Macklin, along with nine early personal-property taxpayers.
2. 1837 — Richfield Township is organized by this date; its limits are unknown because the county records burned in 1847.
3. 1839 — Silas and Robert Rowland arrive; the township's taxed acreage grows to 1,281 acres.
4. 1854 — Bartlow Township, until now part of Richfield, is detached and given its own independent civil organization.
5. 1869 — A post office named West Hope opens in the southeast corner of section sixteen; it operates, under the spellings West Hope and Westhope, until 1919.
6. 1870 — Richfield Township's population reaches 396.
7. 1880 — The township's population reaches 857, up from just 277 in 1860, as drainage and settlement finally accelerate.
8. 1881-05-19 — Peter Brillhart lays out an addition to the hamlet of Grelleton in the township's northwest corner, along the 'Clover Leaf' railroad.
9. 1887 — The tax duplicate shows 23,003 acres valued at $179,870; the township has eight school districts and one United Brethren church, and no railroad or village.
10. 1967 — The Grelton post office, open since 1880 at the corner of Richfield, Harrison, Monroe and Damascus townships, is replaced by a rural station.
11. 2020 — The census counts 635 people in Richfield Township.

Stories

The last hunting ground

Richfield Township was one of Henry County's first five civil townships, organized as early as 1837, yet its actual settlement lagged behind almost every other part of the county for two generations. The 1888 county historian describes it as remaining, longer than most, a haunt of the 'professional hunter and the delighted sportsman,' who gave up the ground only step by step as farmers pushed in -- a process he compares, in the language of the era, to how 'the poor Indian' had earlier been made to yield the same landscape. As late as 1854 the township still included what became Bartlow Township to its east; once that area was detached, Richfield's own growth remained slow enough that by 1888 it had no railroad running through it at all, aside from the 'Clover Leaf' line clipping its far northwest corner, and no incorporated village -- only a corner of the shared hamlet of Grelleton and a crossroads store known as West Hope.

West Hope, a post office without a plat

In the southeast corner of section sixteen, in a township with no village at all, the government put a post office called West Hope. The 1888 county history notes a small country store there and adds that no plat has ever been made and no lots laid out. Postal records show the office opened in 1869 and closed in 1872, reopened in 1873, and from 1893 was spelled Westhope, closing for good in 1919. That is a half-century of mail for a crossroads that never became a town, in a township that in 1860 had 277 people and by 1880 had 857. The only other place of any size was the corner of the hamlet of Grelleton, platted across the line in 1880 and 1881.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Deshler Village89% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Malinta Village11% of residentsMaumee River (with Wauseon reservoirs as backup/blend storage)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-17: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

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, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-08-20
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-10

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