Salem Township, Wyandot County

How Salem Township, Wyandot County began

Salem Township, a full thirty-six-section township in the west-central part of Wyandot County, was organized in 1845 and, in the 1884 county history's words, named for Salem, Massachusetts by Job Mattson, its first justice of the peace. Ezra Stewart built the first cabin in October 1831 and John Mann followed in July 1834, grinding neighbors' corn on a handmill made from a boulder. The Tymochtee Creek runs through it, two railroads cross it, and the small village of Lovell was laid out on the Hocking Valley line about 1878. Part of the township lay inside the Wyandot Reservation, and the history preserves a 1837 account of an old Seneca man at a settler's cabin.

Settled 1831-10, incorporated 1845, by organized as a Wyandot County township in 1845, named at the suggestion of first Justice of the Peace Job Mattison.

Where the name comes from

Named for Salem, Massachusetts, on the suggestion of Job Mattison, the first Justice of the Peace to serve under the township's 1845 organization.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or trail is named in Salem Township by the 1884 or 1913 county histories, which say only that before 1837 roads were things unknown 'except the trails worn by the feet of the Indians.' The 1884 history says elsewhere that the township was largely within the Wyandot Reservation and tells of an old Seneca man at Arnold Inman's cabin in fall 1837, who said he had fought in the war of 1813. The Tymochtee Creek runs through the township's center. Across Wyandot County, the wider story includes the treaties, the reserve and the removal of 1843.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Seneca.

Timeline

1. 1831 — In October Ezra Stewart, a Connecticut man with a wife and three children, builds the first cabin, round logs 12 by 16 feet, on the southwest quarter of Section 5.
2. 1834 — Henry Stewart settles on Section 6; on July 6 John Mann camps under a sugar tree and builds a cabin in twelve days, with the nearest settlements those of Judge Brown west of Carey, Judge Carey on Tymochtee Creek and Huston's west of Forest.
3. 1835 — John Nichols settles on Section 19 and Arnold B. Inman begins farming on Section 17.
4. 1836 — Daniel Baughman settles on Section 19; John Mann finds a boulder while haying and makes a run of buhrs, setting up a hand-turned mill in one end of his cabin, later a horse mill that grinds about seventy-five bushels a day for twenty years.
5. 1837 — The township gets its first regular road, from the northeast quarter of Section 19 north along the section line; before that there were only Indian trails. In the fall an old Seneca man visits Arnold Inman's cabin.
6. 1845 — The township is organized with the new Wyandot County, named for Salem, Massachusetts at the suggestion of Job Mattson, the first justice of the peace.
7. 1852 — The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad is built through the southern tier of sections.
8. 1876 — The Columbus, Hocking Valley and Toledo line opens, running diagonally across the northeast quarter through Sections 2, 11, 13 and 24 and past the county infirmary.
9. 1877 — Daniel and William A. Walborn build a two-story frame flouring mill at Lovell for $6,500 (two run of buhrs, twenty barrels a day), and the Methodist Episcopal church of Lovell is built for about $2,000.
10. 1878 — Lovell B. Harris lays out the village of Lovell in Section 2, naming it for himself, two years after the railroad; a post office opens at the same time.
11. 1880 — The 1884 history lists Lovell with one store, one church, one blacksmith shop, a shoe shop and a mill.
12. 2010 — The 12-megawatt Wyandot Solar Facility is completed in April in Salem Township.

Stories

John Mann's boulder mill

John Mann was born in New Jersey, moved to Pennsylvania at about seventeen, married at twenty-one, and earned a horse and a bull by hard work, with which he did teaming in Armstrong County and later built a flouring mill in Mercer County. On July 6, 1834 he reached Salem Township with a yoke of oxen, four cows, a barrel of flour and a few pieces of furniture, pitched his tent under a large sugar tree and built a cabin in twelve days. Settlers there went to Bucyrus, Fort Ball (now Tiffin) or Sandusky City for flour, and about 1836 Mann, making hay, found a boulder from which he cut a run of buhrs and set up a hand mill in one end of his cabin, Mrs. Mann often turning the stone. He later added a horse mill with up to eight horses and a water-powered sawmill, and ground for settlers across a wide stretch of country for nearly twenty years.

A Seneca visitor at Inman's cabin

The 1884 county history says the Indians were often a source of annoyance to early settlers. In the fall of 1837, it says, 'an old Seneca Indian of the original tribe' came to Arnold Inman's cabin when the parents were away and demanded food from the children, threatening them with a long knife when told there was none. He took a johnnycake, found potatoes roasting in the ashes and began to carry them off, until the eldest child, Arwin, let the watch dog loose, took the man's gun that he had left outside the door and ordered him to give the food back. The historian says the boy stood firm and the old man left, the boy throwing the gun over the brush fence after him. The account, recorded about fifty years later and told from the settlers' side, is the only recorded encounter in the township; it also calls the visitor a survivor of the war of 1813, a claim the history repeats without proof.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Upper Sandusky City81% of residentsSandusky River (via Upper Sandusky Reservoirs 1 & 2)
• Carey Village19% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Power plants (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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