Saint Marys Township, Auglaize County

How Saint Marys Township, Auglaize County began

St. Marys Township surrounds the city of St. Marys at the portage between the St. Marys and Auglaize rivers, the ground where James Girty kept a store at a Shawnee village from 1782 and where Anthony Wayne's troops built Fort St. Marys in the mid-1790s. The county history calls it the oldest permanently settled part of what became Auglaize County: it was organized in 1824, when it had a little over twenty residents, and served as seat of Mercer County until 1840. Farms, the Miami and Erie Canal and the St. Marys reservoir (now Grand Lake St. Marys) shaped the rest of the township, and its history is closely bound to the city of St. Marys at its center.

Settled 1820s.

Where the name comes from

The township takes its name from the city of St. Marys at its center, which in turn was named for Fort St. Marys (1795), itself named for the St. Marys River.

Before the town

The township's history center is the site of Girty's Town, a Shawnee village at the St. Marys-Auglaize portage where, by the county history, James Girty kept a trading store from 1782 for a little over seven years. After the Treaty of Greenville (1795), General Anthony Wayne had Fort St. Marys built on the site to hold the portage. No other Native sites specific to the rest of the township's farmland were found in the sources searched. Shawnee reservations, treaties and removal framed this area through 1832.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Girty's Town / Fort St. Marys site (village) — city of St. Marys, at the river portage, pre-1790 to 1795 (hmdb.org)

Timeline

1. 1782 — James Girty, who had lived at Wapatomica and traded with the Shawnee, sets up a trading store at the junction of the three branches of the St. Marys River; the place is known as Girty's Town, and he holds the Indian trade there for a little over seven years.
2. 1795 — Fort St. Marys is built at the river portage that anchors the township.
3. 1820 — The whole population of the future township does not exceed twenty, all centered on the St. Marys trading post.
4. 1823 — The town of St. Marys is platted within the township.
5. 1824 — St. Marys Township is organized; its tax duplicate lists 29 names and its taxes come to $26.64, and the town becomes seat of justice of Mercer County, where Judge Joseph H. Crane holds the first term of court that fall.
6. 1825 — The Rev. James B. Finley organizes a Methodist society at St. Marys, the Mission Church, which meets in the old log schoolhouse; societies form at the same time at Celina, Shane's Crossing, Fort Amanda and Wapakoneta.
7. 1828 — The Mercer County commissioners contract with W. McClung for a two-story frame courthouse, twenty by twenty-four feet, at a cost of $291.49.
8. 1839 — The township records are destroyed by fire, and twice more by later fires, so that no list of township officers before 1881 can be given.
9. 1840 — Celina replaces St. Marys as seat of Mercer County; a frame Methodist church is built at St. Marys the same year.
10. 1848 — The township becomes part of the newly organized Auglaize County.
11. 1876 — The first free turnpike is built in the township; by 1903 every public road is a free pike.
12. 1886 — The discovery of petroleum begins a period of rapid growth for St. Marys, the township's only town; the oil rock underlies the township.
13. 1903 — The township has ten brick or frame district schoolhouses and two United Brethren country churches in its southeast, and the St. Marys reservoir covers parts of sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 17 and 18 while the Miami and Erie Canal passes through the township with a lock in each of six sections.
14. 2020 — The census counts 11,065 people in the township.

Stories

A township built around a river portage

St. Marys Township's identity was set before it was a township at all: the short carry between the St. Marys and Auglaize rivers made the spot valuable to traders, then to the Shawnee village called Girty's Town, then to the United States Army, which built Fort St. Marys there in 1795. The county history of 1905 calls the township the oldest permanently settled part of what became Auglaize County, and says its entire early settlement centered on the St. Marys trading post.

A county seat for $291.49

When St. Marys Township was organized in 1824, its whole population had been twenty a few years earlier and its tax duplicate carried just 29 names, taxing them $26.64 in all. Yet the same year the little trading post became the seat of justice of Mercer County, and Judge Joseph H. Crane held the first term of court in the fall in whatever rooms could be had. Not until March 1828 did the commissioners contract with W. McClung for a courthouse, a two-story frame building twenty by twenty-four feet on lot 27 that cost $291.49; the county settled for it on March 2, 1829, valuing the lot at $40. A jail followed at the corner of Spring and Main streets. St. Marys held the seat until 1840, when Celina took it.

Local history sources: hmdb.org · en.wikipedia.org · islands.com · www2.auglaizecounty.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · cityofstmarys.net · en.wikipedia.org

Teays River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells) The water here

• St. Marys City83% of residentsTeays River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• New Bremen Village15% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• New Knoxville Village2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• The Way International0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (2)

High-hazard dams (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-18: county board of elections.

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, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-07

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