Roundhead Township, Hardin County

How Roundhead Township, Hardin County began

Roundhead Township, in the southwestern corner of Hardin County, was the first township organized in the county, in 1832, a year before Hardin County itself was formed. It is named for Roundhead (also called Stayeghtha, Stiahta, or Bark Carrier), a Wyandot chief whose village stood on the site before Euro-American settlement. Jonathan Carter built the first cabin at Round Head in 1829 and platted the town in 1832. The township remains rural farmland today, with the unincorporated village of Roundhead near its southeastern edge.

Settled 1822, platted 1832, by Jonathan Carter platted the village of Round Head in 1832; the township organized the same year.

Where the name comes from

The township and its village are named for Roundhead, a Wyandot chief who had a village on the site in the late 1700s and early 1800s, before the area was platted for Euro-American settlement in 1832.

Before the town

Roundhead Township takes its name directly from a documented historic Wyandot village. Chief Roundhead (c. 1760-1813), known to the Wyandot as Stayeghtha or Stiahta and also called Bark Carrier, led a Wyandot settlement on this site in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; a Remarkable Ohio historical marker (3-33) stands on the site of 'Chief Roundhead's Village,' describing it as a flourishing agricultural community before white settlement began there in 1832 -- Hardin County's first town. Roundhead was a close ally of Tecumseh and fought under British Colonel Henry Procter in the War of 1812; he commanded roughly 800 Native warriors at the Second Battle of the River Raisin on January 22, 1813 and personally captured American General James Winchester. He died of natural causes in the summer of 1813, one to two months before Tecumseh's death at the Battle of the Thames. A 1907-vintage archaeological survey found at least five sites in Roundhead and adjoining McDonald Township tied to the much older Glacial Kame culture (about 8000-1000 BC), including the Zimmerman Kame just across the township line, which the National Register listed in 1974 as the first glacial kame added to the Register and the source of the first pottery ever attributed to Glacial Kame people. The 1883 county history of Round Head Township itself does not mention Chief Roundhead by name, describing only the 1822-1835 Euro-American settlers who followed him.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Chief Roundhead's Village (village) — site of the village of Roundhead, Roundhead Township, late 1700s-1813 (remarkableohio.org)
• Zimmerman Kame (burial) — McDonald Township, near Roundhead, adjoining Roundhead Township, Glacial Kame culture (about 8000-1000 BC) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. c. 1760 — Roundhead (Stayeghtha/Stiahta, also called Bark Carrier) is born near the Sandusky River and later becomes a Wyandot chief.
2. 1813-01-22 — Chief Roundhead commands about 800 Native warriors alongside British forces at the Second Battle of the River Raisin and captures American General James Winchester.
3. 1813 — Roundhead dies of natural causes, one to two months before Tecumseh's death at the Battle of the Thames.
4. 1822 — Samuel Tidd, from Pennsylvania, becomes the first Euro-American settler recorded in Round Head Township, taking land on Section 21.
5. 1829 — Jonathan Carter settles at Round Head and builds the first cabin on the former village site.
6. 1832 — Jonathan Carter plats the town of Round Head, and Round Head Township -- the first of Hardin County's fifteen townships -- is organized, a year before the county itself was formed.
7. 1837 — A post office is established at Roundhead, operating continuously since.
8. 1974-07-30 — Zimmerman Kame, near Roundhead just across the township line, is added to the National Register of Historic Places as the first glacial kame so listed.

Stories

A chief, a captured general, and a name that stuck

Before there was a Round Head Township, there was Chief Roundhead's village: a working Wyandot farming settlement on the headwaters of the Scioto River, home to a chief the Wyandot called Stayeghtha or Stiahta and whom English speakers knew as Roundhead or Bark Carrier. Roundhead threw in with Tecumseh's pan-tribal confederacy against the United States, and in January 1813 he led roughly 800 Native fighters alongside British Colonel Henry Procter at the Second Battle of the River Raisin in Michigan, where he personally captured American General James Winchester in a fight that cost more American lives than any other battle of the War of 1812. He did not live to see the war's end; he died of natural causes later that year, shortly before Tecumseh fell at the Battle of the Thames. Roundhead's village site sat empty of its original residents by the time Jonathan Carter arrived in 1829, built a cabin, and in 1832 platted the first town in what would become Hardin County -- naming it, as the township still is, for the chief who had farmed the ground before him.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · remarkableohio.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com

Mostly private wells The water here

• Belle Center Village42% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Waynesfield Village39% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Sun Valley Family Campground19% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tammis Mobile Village Ltd.1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

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