Richfield Township, Lucas County

How Richfield Township, Lucas County began

Richfield Township, in the extreme northwest corner of Lucas County, organized in December 1839 out of pieces of Springfield, Wing (Swanton) and Sylvania townships, and took its name, per the township's own account, simply from the richness of its farm soil, among the best in the county. Its first three settler families, Pliny Lathrop, Jacob Wolfinger and David Hendrickson, arrived in 1834; Wolfinger's log house, near what is now Secor Metropark, and Pliny and Lucien Lathrop's 1837 frame house and barn in the township's north marked the township's earliest permanent buildings. The community first called Riga, where Lucien Lathrop served as postmaster, renamed itself Berkey in 1865 and incorporated as a village in 1915, growing from 100 residents in the 1900 census to 201 by 1920.

Settled 1834, by Pliny Lathrop, Jacob Wolfinger and David Hendrickson, incorporated township organized December 1839, from Springfield, Wing (Swanton) and Sylvania townships.

Where the name comes from

The township's own history states the name Richfield describes 'the rich nature of its soil, some of the richest in Lucas County' -- a description rather than a person's or place's name.

Before the town

No Native village, camp or treaty event specific to Richfield Township's own boundaries is documented in the sources we reviewed; the township's own published history contains no Native American content at all.

Timeline

1. 1834 — Pliny Lathrop, Jacob Wolfinger and David Hendrickson, whose families had fled religious persecution in Germany in the 1740s, become the township's first settlers; Wolfinger builds the first log house, near what is now Secor Metropark, and plants the first apple and peach orchard.
2. 1837 — Pliny and Lucien Lathrop build the township's first frame house and barn in its northern section; Lucien Lathrop becomes the first postmaster at Riga.
3. 1839-12 — Richfield Township is formally organized from parts of Springfield, Wing (Swanton) and Sylvania townships.
4. 1865 — The community of Riga renames itself Berkey.
5. 1900 — The township's census population reaches 1,136, with 100 residents in Berkey and 111 in Richfield Center.
6. 1915 — Berkey incorporates as a village.
7. 1920 — Berkey's population reaches 201, roughly double its 1900 figure.

Stories

Descendants of refugees, clearing new ground

The three families who broke Richfield Township's ground in 1834 -- Pliny Lathrop, Jacob Wolfinger and David Hendrickson -- carried a particular inherited memory with them: their own ancestors, the township's history records, had fled religious persecution in Germany in the 1740s, a full century before these descendants took up land in the Ohio wilderness themselves. Wolfinger built his log house near what would later become Secor Metropark and put in the township's first orchard, apple and peach trees on ground that had likely never grown anything but forest. Three years later the Lathrop brothers put up the first frame house and barn to the north, a visible step up from log construction that marked the township's shift from bare survival toward permanent settlement. The town those early families' descendants and neighbors built at Riga took eighty years to become official: the settlement adopted the name Berkey in 1865, and did not formally incorporate as a village until 1915, eighty-one years after Wolfinger's first log walls went up nearby.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Toledo City Of42% of residentsLake Erie
• Sylvania City32% of residentsLake Erie
• Swanton Village24% of residentsSwan Creek, stored in Swanton Reservoir
• Arrowhead Lake MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Swanton Meadows1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-17

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