Richfield Township, Summit County

• Cuyahoga Valley National ParkCuyahoga Valley National Park covers about 33,000 acres between Cleveland and Akron. It began as a national recreation area in 1974 and became a national park in 2000.

How Richfield Township, Summit County began

Surveyed as Town 4, Range 12 of the Connecticut Western Reserve, Richfield Township passed through Wayne County (1796), Trumbull (1800), Portage (1808), and Medina (1812) before joining Summit County at its creation in 1840. Launcelot Mays became the first white settler in 1809, followed in 1810 by Jared Barnes and the Mallet family; the township's original land was divided among five or six Connecticut Land Company proprietors, including Col. Benjamin Tallmadge, whose 4,000-acre northwest quarter was sold in 1811 to Capt. Heman Oviatt for $5,000. The township's name reflects its agricultural promise: the 1881 county history traces it to a wild forage plant settlers called 'ox-balm' or 'rich-feed,' corrupted into 'Richfield' when Portage County organized the township in 1816. From 1974 to 1994 the township was home to the Richfield Coliseum, an arena that hosted the Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Barons, Cleveland Crusaders, Cleveland Force, and Cleveland Thunderbolts before its 1999 demolition.

Settled 1809 (Launcelot Mays), incorporated county affiliation: Wayne 1796, Trumbull 1800, Portage 1808, Medina 1812, Summit 1840; township organized 1816 (Bath Township set off from it in 1818).

Where the name comes from

Named for the abundant 'oxbalm,' or rich feed, available in the township to pasture cattle, giving it a reputation for fertile, productive land. The 1881 county history specifies the name was given by the Portage County commissioners at the township's organization in 1816, by 'a very slight corruption' of the plant's common name, 'rich-feed,' into 'Richfield.'

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty site specific to Richfield Township is documented in the sources consulted. The 1881 county history, quoting Gen. Lucius V. Bierce, records the county-wide treaty background: the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh set the Cuyahoga River, Portage Path and Tuscarawas River as the western U.S. boundary, confirmed by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville; land west of that line was not ceded until the 1805 Treaty of Fort Industry, after which Wyandot, Miami, Potawatomi, Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Ottawa and Seneca peoples, along with a distinct Mingo (Cayuga) band on the Cuyahoga's west bank, hunted the ground between the Maumee and Cuyahoga rivers. No site-specific record within Richfield Township itself is given.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot, Miami, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Ottawa, Seneca, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

Timeline

1. 1796 — The land is initially part of Wayne County.
2. 1800 — Jurisdiction shifts to Trumbull County.
3. 1808 — Jurisdiction shifts to Portage County.
4. 1809 — Launcelot Mays becomes the first white settler in the township.
5. 1810 — Jared Barnes and Daniel and John Mallet (father and son) settle with their families; a daughter born to John and Mrs. Mallet that year is the first white child born in the township.
6. 1811 — Capt. Heman Oviatt buys the 4,000-acre northwest quarter from Col. Benjamin Tallmadge for $5,000 and has it re-surveyed by Alfred Wolcott.
7. 1812 — Jurisdiction shifts to Medina County; the first marriage (William Carter and Betsey Mays) and the first recorded death (Polly Payne, age 18) occur in the township.
8. 1816 — Richfield Township formally organizes under the Portage County commissioners, with Daniel Keys, Nathaniel Oviatt and William Jourdan as its first trustees.
9. 1818 — Bath Township is set off from Richfield, establishing Richfield's present boundaries.
10. 1840 — Richfield Township joins the newly created Summit County, its current jurisdiction.
11. 1974 — The Richfield Coliseum opens October 26, hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers and other professional teams.
12. 1999 — The Richfield Coliseum is demolished between March and May, five years after its last tenant left.

Stories

A New England quarter bought for $5,000

When the Connecticut Land Company divided the Western Reserve among its proprietors, Richfield Township fell to five or six absentee speculators, among them Col. Benjamin Tallmadge, the Revolutionary War officer whose name would later be given to the neighboring town of Tallmadge. Tallmadge never settled his 4,000-acre northwest quarter himself; in 1811 he sold it outright to Capt. Heman Oviatt of the well-connected Oviatt family for $5,000, and Oviatt promptly had it re-surveyed into quarter-sections by Alfred Wolcott, paying him fifty acres of his choice as a fee. That transaction, arranged entirely among land speculators years before most of the township's actual settlers arrived, set the pattern of ownership that shaped how Richfield's farms were laid out for the rest of the nineteenth century.

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

Every historic place in Summit County on the full map

The Five Mile Crib, a small structure about 5 miles out in Lake Erie north of Cleveland's Edgewater Park The water here

• Cleveland Public Water System100% of residentsLake Erie

Nursing homes (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (8)

Money issues on the ballot since 2024: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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.
• Financial Audit, 2024, released 2025-12-09
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-07-25

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