Royalton Township, Fulton County

• The Toledo WarThe 1835-36 Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute over the Toledo Strip: a bad map, a 3 a.m. court, one stabbing, no deaths, and the Upper Peninsula trade.

How Royalton Township, Fulton County began

Royalton Township lies in northern Fulton County along the Michigan line, in ground disputed between Ohio and Michigan in the Toledo War. Eli Phillips, generally acknowledged as the first settler of what became Fulton County, settled here on June 10, 1833 (the 1888 county history says 1832), and the Lucas County commissioners organized the township on June 4, 1837, with its first election at Phillips Corners. The only armed clash of the Toledo War, in April 1835, took place within its bounds. The village of Lyons began as Morey's Corners on the Toledo to Morenci plank road in 1850.

Settled 1833, incorporated 1837-06-04, by Eli Phillips (first settler); organized by the Lucas County commissioners.

Where the name comes from

The origin of the name Royalton Township is not recorded; it is the only Royalton Township in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or trail specific to Royalton Township is recorded. The township sits inside the tract ceded at the 1807 Treaty of Detroit.

Timeline

1. 1807-11-17 — The Treaty of Detroit cedes the tract of northwest Ohio that includes the future township's land.
2. 1833-06-10 — Eli Phillips settles on sections 10 and 11 by his own 1884 account, with his nearest neighbor five miles away in Michigan; the 1888 county history gives June 10, 1832, and the 1920 county history calls him the pioneer settler of Fulton County.
3. 1834 — Butler Richardson, George W. Welsh, Warren Dodge, Frazier Smalley and Joseph H. Applegate settle; Smalley is the father of the first white male child born in the township.
4. 1835-04-26 — Ohio surveyors marking the disputed Harris Line are fired on by 50 to 60 Michigan militia under General Joseph W. Brown and nine are captured, in the only armed engagement of the Toledo War, at Phillips Corners within this township.
5. 1837-06-04 — The Lucas County commissioners organize Royalton with Amboy and Chesterfield, taking all of town nine south and town ten south, range three east; the first election is held at Phillips Corners.
6. 1837 — Amos Rathbun builds a log schoolhouse with puncheon floor a mile south of the later Lyons; the 'Little Red School House' later stands on or near the site until about 1850.
7. 1840 — The township, then including the part later ceded to Pike, has 401 people.
8. 1841-03-01 — Royalton cedes its southern tier of sections to the new Pike Township; a further tier is added to Pike in 1846.
9. 1850 — Morey's Corners, later Lyons, in the township's north, has its start when a plank road is completed to the site.
10. 1850 — The Plank Road Company builds a sawmill beside the future Lyons cemetery to saw plank for the Toledo to Morenci road, the first sawmill in the township, with James Baker of Gorham as manager.
11. 1862 — The Universalist church at Lyons, the first church in the township, is built; the Disciples build in 1877, and by 1905 there are four churches.
12. 1866-02-01 — Fire destroys Butler Richardson's barn with hay, farm tools and nineteen head of cattle; his son Chapman, caring for the stock, is thought to have been murdered, but no convictions follow.
13. 1870 — The township has 871 people, 1,142 in 1890, 1,198 in 1900, 1,272 in 1910 and 1,135 in 1920.
14. 1900 — Lyons village incorporates.
15. 2020 — The census counts 1,515 people in Royalton Township.

Stories

The Only Shots Fired Over Toledo

For most of 1835, the argument between Ohio and Michigan Territory over a 468-square-mile strip of land including the port of Toledo stayed a matter of dueling surveys and legislative posturing. That changed on April 26, when an Ohio survey party working to mark the Harris Line -- Ohio's preferred boundary, further north than Michigan's own claimed Ordinance Line -- ran into fifty to sixty members of General Joseph W. Brown's Michigan militia in what is now Royalton Township. Michigan's men fired, by their own later account, only warning shots into the air; the Ohio surveyors' account describes being advised to retreat and then fired on as they fled, with thirty to fifty shots reported and nine of their number captured before the rest got away. Nobody died. But the Battle of Phillips Corners, as it came to be called, was the only armed clash of the entire Toledo War, and it pushed both sides to the edge of open conflict months before Congress finally settled the dispute -- awarding Ohio the strip, Toledo included, and compensating Michigan with the Upper Peninsula on its admission to statehood in January 1837. The field where it happened sits, largely unmarked in the modern landscape, inside a township that today borders the very state whose militia fired those shots.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Lyons Village79% of residentsMaumee River (via Napoleon pipeline) + Big Ditch/Stucky Ditch, in reservoirs
• Delta Village20% of residentsBad Creek, stored in Reservoir No. 2 (feeds Maumee River)
• Swancreek Water District1% of residentsLake Erie

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 7 of 7 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 3 of 3.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-01-13

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