Sandusky Township, Sandusky County

How Sandusky Township, Sandusky County began

Sandusky Township sits at the center of the county that takes the same name, and is the only one of the county's twelve townships that does not border another county. It was organized as a township of Huron County in 1815, before Sandusky County existed, and was reduced to its present boundaries in 1878 when Fremont township was set off from it. Most of the city of Fremont, the county seat, lies in the township's southern part, along with the unincorporated village of Stony Prairie in the southwest. Settlement lagged behind the rest of the county because the low, swampy land west of the Sandusky River discouraged the earliest pioneers, and the first families did not arrive to stay until the years around 1816 to 1819.

Settled 1816-1819, incorporated 1815, by organized as a township of Huron County in 1815, before Sandusky County was formed in 1820.

Where the name comes from

Named, like the county and the city of Fremont's earlier name Lower Sandusky, for the Sandusky River, which flows through the township before reaching Sandusky Bay. The 1882 county history records that the Wyandot chief William Walker explained the word Sandusky, properly pronounced Sa-un-dus-tee, as meaning 'at the cold water,' the same root that gave Upper Sandusky and Lower Sandusky their names.

Before the town

Because most of Fremont, sited on the former Wyandot village of Junquindundeh at the lower rapids of the Sandusky River, lies within this township, its Native American history is largely the city's, including the Wyandot village, the 'cities of refuge' tradition, and the wider treaty history. The 1882 county history adds that within the township's own rural territory, on the dry sand ridges along the east side of the Sandusky River, stood a chain of mounds and earthworks attributed to the Mound Builders rather than the historic Indian nations; one mound, since eroded away by the shifting river channel, was excavated and found to contain a skeleton laid between plates of mica. The same history records that Rev. Joseph Badger and his assistants established a missionary post within the township's territory while working among the Wyandot.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Sandusky River mounds (east bank) (mound) — east side of the Sandusky River, central Sandusky Township, prehistoric (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1815 — The territory was organized as a township of Huron County, its boundaries then reaching west of the Sandusky River into parts of present Seneca and Ottawa counties.
2. 1816-1819 — Reuben Patterson, generally remembered as the first settler to make a permanent home in the township (after the earlier Whittaker and Williams families), brought his family from New York; they lived for a time in the old fort at Lower Sandusky before moving into an unfinished cabin on the west side of the river in the spring of 1819.
3. 1817 — Three Pennsylvania families, those of George Overmyer, Michael Overmyer and one other, make the first settlement in the part of the township west of the Muskallonge and north of the Perrysburg road.
4. 1819 — The Reuben Patterson family, having lived in a log house inside the old fort at Lower Sandusky, moves in the spring into an unfinished cabin on the Whittaker Reserve west of the river; Mrs. Patterson later buys their farm at the government land sale at Delaware.
5. 1820 — Sandusky Township took shape as part of the newly formed Sandusky County, of which it is the geographic center.
6. 1823 — Lysander C. Ball, who later marries Patterson's daughter Eveline, settles in the township.
7. 1827 — A road is opened along the Muskallonge and clearings begin; Daniel Hensel cuts his way to 160 acres of swampy forest in the Black Swamp.
8. 1829 — George Reed's family reaches its 100 acres in the northwest part of the township, taking three days to travel the seven miles from Fremont over a mud-hole of a pike; Samuel Crowell, a settler and teacher on the Muskallonge, is elected sheriff.
9. 1840 — The Methodist Protestant church, the only congregation of that denomination in the county, organized a class in the township; a meeting house followed on Henry Bowlus's farm two years later, and the present house was built in 1873.
10. 1849 — Casper Remsburg, who settled on the Muskallonge in 1822, dies; the township's settlement had been held back by the miasma-ridden swamp country west of the river.
11. 1873 — The Methodist Protestant class, organized in 1840, builds its present house of worship.
12. 1878 — Fremont township was set off from Sandusky Township, reducing it to its present boundaries.

Stories

Shooting on Bark Creek

Bark Creek, which winds through Ballville and Sandusky townships roughly parallel to the Sandusky River, took its name from a method early hunters used to take deer along its course. The stream spreads into small ponds where deer gathered in herds at night to escape flies. Hunters worked the water in canoes, carrying a torch shielded on three sides by a piece of elm bark peeled for the purpose, so that the hunter sat hidden in the dark end of the boat while the water ahead was lit. Deer were drawn to the light and would stand in the shallows watching it approach, giving the hunter a clear shot; one old hunter told the county historian he had taken as many as twelve deer in a single night by this method.

George Shannon and the tomahawk

George Shannon, who had come to Lower Sandusky in 1809 and married Mary Whittaker, took his family to the Scioto for safety when the Indian troubles of 1812 began, then returned alone to harvest his corn crop. Indians camped regularly on the riverbank near his cabin, and one day, while Shannon was at work, his wife's warning cry came too late: an armed Indian was already close by. In the sudden meeting, an angry Indian drew a tomahawk and swore he meant to kill Shannon. Shannon sprang forward, seized the tomahawk's handle in one hand and the Indian's arm in the other, and threw him to the ground; when the Indian cried out 'Friendship,' Shannon turned his raised blow aside and buried the tomahawk in the earth instead. Brought inside and questioned, the Indian explained he had been told that a man named Joe Williams, who had once sold him spoiled pork, lived in that cabin, and had come to kill him by mistake. He left a friend of Shannon's rather than an enemy.

Mrs. Patterson goes to the land sale

Reuben Patterson brought his wife and six children from New York in 1816, tried the peninsula and was driven off by sickness, and then found no room at Lower Sandusky except a clay-floored log house in the old fort, shared with Esquire Morrison and Mr. Baker. The family cleared land on the Whittaker Reserve and moved into an unfinished cabin in spring 1819, filling the cracks with clay and straw mortar. When the government land sale was advertised at Delaware, it was Mrs. Patterson who took her bag of silver coin, mounted her horse, and rode there with Lysander C. Ball and James Whittaker, and she bought the Patterson farm on the east side of the river. Reuben Patterson lived there until his death in 1841, a year after his wife's.

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

Sandusky River (surface water). River water is reportedly pumped to the city's off-line Fremont Reservoir, then flows by gravity to the treatment plant. The water here

• Fremont City99% of residentsSandusky River (via Ballville Dam intake and city reservoir)
• Shorewood Village Subdivision1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Brightstar Fremont MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-01-24: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 1 of 1 passed.

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 2025-12-30

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