Saint Joseph Township, Williams County

How Saint Joseph Township, Williams County began

St. Joseph Township, named for the St. Joseph River that divides it, was organized on December 2, 1832, from territory attached to Carryall Township, with its first election at John Fee's house on April 4, 1832 (as Shinn records it). Samuel Holton, who settled on Fish Creek a mile north of the future Edgerton in the autumn of 1827, is usually called the first settler and disputes with James Guthrie the claim to be the county's first permanent settler. Judge Payne C. Parker, an English immigrant who traded with the Indians, laid out the village of Denmark in 1836, with a public square, store, tavern and school, and it was the first village in the township. Edgerton was platted in 1854 on the railroad and had 1,043 residents in 1900.

Settled 1827, incorporated December 2, 1832, by Samuel Holton; Judge Payne C. Parker laid out Denmark.

Where the name comes from

Named for the St. Joseph River, which flows north to south through the township; the only St. Joseph Township in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail or treaty site specific to St. Joseph Township is recorded. The township's namesake St. Joseph River is a Maumee tributary, distinct from the St. Joseph River that flows into Lake Michigan.

Timeline

1. 1817 — The Treaty of the Maumee Rapids carries Indian title to this part of northwestern Ohio, including the future St. Joseph Township, to the United States.
2. 1827 — Samuel Holton settles in the autumn on Fish Creek, one mile north of the future Edgerton; for some time he brings all his family supplies from Defiance, a four-day journey. A John Zediker may have been in the township as early as 1821-22, but Shinn calls that supposition.
3. 1831 — The first white child born in the township is born to Samuel Holton and his wife about this year or in 1832; the first marriage is a double wedding of Samuel and John Holton to two daughters of the widow Fee.
4. 1832 — The first election is held April 4 at John Fee's house, designated as the voting place; the township is organized December 2 from territory formerly attached to Carryall Township.
5. 1835 — In August the township's residents include the widow Fee on Section 10, the widow Craig on Section 11, George Aucker and Robert McCullough on Section 15, Solomon Lewis on Section 33, Samuel Holton on Section 21 and a Mr. Haskins; Daniel Farnham, from New York, arrives and clerks for Payne C. Parker, who trades with the Indians.
6. 1836 — Judge Payne C. Parker moves from Defiance, where he had sold goods, buys a large tract and lays out Denmark, with a store, ashery, tavern and the township's first schoolhouse, where Rev. Elijah Stoddard teaches; William Bender marries another daughter of the widow Fee, and guests come down the St. Joseph from Denmark in boats.
7. 1838 — John W. Bowersox, a shoemaker from Stark County, Benjamin and John Cornell and George Long come; Bowersox builds a round-log cabin on Section 5 in the fall, and holds United Brethren services in his log barn.
8. 1841 — Denmark's plat is vacated after the village fails to attract a canal or railroad and cannot compete with nearby towns.
9. 1854 — Charles Pratt plats Edgerton, in the township's south, at the crossing of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad and the St. Joseph River.
10. 1854 — As the Air Line railroad is built, a Baptist service in a log schoolhouse is disrupted by a dozen or more railroad workers; the preacher's friends, including the Wright brothers, John Gnagy and the Bowersoxes, fight them and rout them.
11. 1856 — The first Congregational church in the township is organized in a schoolhouse three miles north of Edgerton by Rev. Worts of Ligonier, Indiana, and is reorganized at Edgerton a few years later.
12. 1900 — The census counts 1,043 people in Edgerton, an increase of 76 in the decade, with the village a busy trading point in a good farming country.

Stories

The English Judge's Vacated Village

Around 1836, an English-born judge named Payne C. Parker platted a village he called Denmark on the strength of the same optimism that drove dozens of little Ohio townsites in this decade: a public square, a general store, a tavern, a log schoolhouse, an ashery for turning wood ashes into potash, and a church all went up within a few years. What Denmark never got was the one thing that made or broke a Williams County village in the 1830s and 40s -- a canal or a railroad. Without either, it could not compete with better-connected neighboring towns, and by 1841 its plat was formally vacated, erasing it from the map only five years after Parker had drawn it. Its rise and fall in half a decade makes Denmark one of the plainest examples in the county of how completely a town's fortune rode on a transportation line it had no control over.

Wedding guests came down the river

The first marriage in St. Joseph Township, Shinn says, was a social event of considerable importance attended by families from considerable distances: Samuel Holton and his brother John, the first settlers on Fish Creek, married two daughters of the widow Fee. A third daughter, married to William Bender in 1836, had a wedding of consequence, for which the people gathered in large numbers, coming down the St. Joseph River from Denmark in boats. Daniel Farnham, who had lately come from Delaware County, New York, and was clerking for the Indian trader Payne C. Parker, was an invited guest. Parker, an English immigrant and judge, had moved from Defiance, where he had sold goods for years, and laid out the village of Denmark with a public square, storeroom, ashery and the township's first schoolhouse, where Rev. Elijah Stoddard taught; by 1840 it was quite a village, the first in the township. The first tavern was at Parker's own house, and the first burying ground on his farm, where Stoddard was one of the first buried; the bodies were later moved to Edgerton's cemetery, and Denmark's plat was vacated in 1841.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohioghosttowns.wordpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Groundwater wells (3 wells) The water here

• Edgerton Village95% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Edon Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-07-06: county board of elections.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-23
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-03

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