Swan Creek Township, Fulton County

How Swan Creek Township, Fulton County began

Swan Creek Township occupies the southeastern corner of Fulton County, bordering both Lucas and Henry counties, and takes its name from Swan Creek, which runs almost due east across it to the Maumee. It was erected in 1836 in Lucas County, lost its land north of the present line to Fulton Township in 1841, and gained a two-mile strip from Henry County in 1850. William Meeker, who settled at the edge of the Six Mile Woods in 1833, is counted its first settler; in 1838 he opened a post office on his land and named it Delta, a name later carried to the village. Much of the township was sandy oak openings and wet ground that gave poor crops until it was ditched in the later 1800s, and the old stage-road hamlet of Centerville grew into the part of Swanton that lies south of the railroad. Part of Delta also lies in its northwest.

Settled 1833, incorporated Erected 1836, by William Meeker (first settler).

Where the name comes from

Named for Swan Creek, which runs almost due east across the township and into the Maumee River; Aldrich (1888), Mikesell (1905) and Reighard (1920) all give the creek as the source of the name. The same creek gives Swanton village its name. No source consulted explains who named the creek itself or when. Swan Creek Township is, per Wikipedia, the only township of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

Aldrich (1888) explains the township's 'openings', its sandy tracts of scrub oak and brush, as most likely the result of Native people burning the land each year to keep down the timber and help their hunting. George Curtis's family, who came from Orleans County, New York, in 1836 and settled on the creek near Centreville, had as neighbors a camp of about three hundred Indians on the opposite bank, on the farm later owned by J. E. Coon, and the Curtis boys played with the Indian children. Wells Watkins, who came in 1838, recalled Indians as plentiful and peaceable. The sources do not name the nation. The township lies inside the tract ceded at the 1807 Treaty of Detroit.

• Indian camp opposite the Curtis homestead (camp) — on the creek near Centreville (south of Swanton), on the farm later owned by J. E. Coon, 1836 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1807-11-17 — The Treaty of Detroit cedes the strip of northwest Ohio north of the Maumee River that includes the future township's land.
2. 1833 — William Meeker settles at the edge of the Six Mile Woods, the first settler in the township, as recorded by the Providence tavern keeper Peter Manor.
3. 1834 — John Witmer, a native of Bern, Switzerland, settles with his family on section 17, living first in a house of bark; Nathaniel Leggett and Eccles Nay also settle about this year.
4. 1836 — Swan Creek Township is erected in Lucas County from territory then in York Township.
5. 1836 — The Raker cemetery is laid out on the only rising ground for miles, and Martin Raker, Sr., builds a saw mill on his homestead.
6. 1838 — William Meeker opens a post office on the farm later owned by S. H. Cately and names it Delta, believing the word meant 'fertile valley'; the office moves to the village of Delta in 1842.
7. 1838-08 — Wells Watkins and his bride Sarah reach section 10 after nine days from Wayne County; that winter he carries corn three miles on his back to a horse mill.
8. 1839 — Jacob Reighard, from Pennsylvania, settles on section 28.
9. 1841-03-01 — Fulton Township is organized, taking Swan Creek's land between its present northern line and the Fulton line.
10. 1850-04-01 — Fulton County, and with it Swan Creek Township's territory, is organized from parts of Henry, Lucas and Williams counties; a strip two miles wide from Henry County is added on the south.
11. 1852 — Wesley Knight of Middlebury, Vermont, takes over the old tavern at Centerville and keeps it nineteen years without selling liquor.
12. 1853 — Martin Raker and William Meeker build a stone feed mill, run until Raker's death about 1865.
13. 1855-03-12 — The township trustees let the first recorded ditch contract, John King bidding 115 rods at 44 cents a rod.
14. 1870 — The township has 1,100 people, rising to 1,196 in the 1880 census.
15. 1881 — The Raker Union Church, open to all denominations, is dedicated in the western part of the township.
16. 1886-10 — United Brethren members buy the Union schoolhouse on section 31 and move it two and three-quarter miles east to section 35 as a church.
17. 2020 — The township's census population is recorded at 8,555, a count that includes the parts of Swanton and Delta villages within its borders.

Stories

How Delta got its name

The first post office for the settlers of the Six Mile Woods in Swan Creek and York townships was opened in 1838 by William Meeker, Swan Creek's first settler, on the farm later owned by S. H. Cately. Meeker was postmaster and chose the name. According to Aldrich (1888), he named it Delta because he believed the word meant 'fertile valley'. In 1842 the office was moved to the growing village in York Township a few miles west, which took the office's name. Meeker lived on in Swan Creek, building mills with Martin Raker, and died in 1866 or 1867 when he was caught by the sweep of his own sorghum cane mill.

The Centerville tavern

Centerville, at the first crossroads south of the later Swanton railroad station, grew up in the 1840s on the stage and wagon road, and a village began there about a quarter mile inside the Fulton County line when the plank road from Maumee was built about 1850. Its frame tavern on the northwest corner, with a low-ceilinged ball room, was for years the only public house in miles of wet, wooded country, and travelers sat by its fire trading hunting stories or danced through the night at country balls. Wesley Knight of Middlebury, Vermont, kept it for nineteen years from 1852 without selling liquor, unlike those before him. When the railroads were built north and south of it, Centerville's trade faded.

Three hundred neighbors across the creek

George Curtis and two brothers-in-law left Orleans County, New York, in 1836 and, after weeks on muddy trails, nearly drowned fording the Maumee near Turkey Foot Rock on a stranger's advice rather than paying the ferry. They reached Centreville, then half a dozen log cabins, where the Curtis family stayed; Curtis entered three hundred acres and built a log cabin on the bank of the creek. Their neighbors were about three hundred Indians camped on the opposite bank. The Curtis boys played with the Indian children, and when two men came to the house asking for whisky while the father was away at Maumee, Mrs. Curtis told one he could have all his basket would hold; he returned with the basket coated inside and out with ice and got his whisky.

Sand-lappers and railroad ties

The Air Line division of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern railway, built in the 1850s, cut across the northern part of the township, while Swanton's station stood just over the line in Fulton Township. The scrub oak of the sandy openings in southern Swan Creek made good railroad ties, and cutting and selling ties became a source of income for the poor families there. Aldrich (1888) wrote that some tie cutters were not careful to stay on their own land and were a terror to absentee speculators who held large tracts, and that the nickname 'sand-lapper' for the people of southern Swan Creek was losing its point as ditching made the land productive and speculators sold out to resident farmers.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Swanton Village54% of residentsSwan Creek, stored in Swanton Reservoir
• Delta Village37% of residentsBad Creek, stored in Reservoir No. 2 (feeds Maumee River)
• Arrowhead Lake MHP3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Swanton Meadows3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Liberty Center Village2% of residentsMaumee River (via Bowling Green Reservoir)
• Swancreek Water District1% of residentsLake Erie

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

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