Townsend Township, Huron County

How Townsend Township, Huron County began

Townsend Township's first settler, George Miller, arrived from Milan in 1811 and built the township's first cabin; further Connecticut and New York families followed over the next several years, several of whom fled the township entirely in 1812 on word of General Hull's surrender at Detroit, fearing a Native uprising. The township is named for Kneeland Townsend, a New Haven, Connecticut landowner who acquired roughly 22,000 acres here as part of the Firelands land claims paid to Connecticut families burned out by British and Hessian troops in 1779; Townsend himself built a blockhouse and traded with Native people still present in the area. Today the township's center is the crossroads community of Collins, itself a merger of two older hamlets, Collins and East Townsend, along U.S. Route 20.

Settled 1811 (George Miller, first settler), by George Miller, of Pennsylvania by way of Milan; Kneeland Townsend, New Haven, Connecticut fire-claim landowner.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for Kneeland Townsend, a resident of New Haven, Connecticut who acquired about 22,000 acres of Firelands land here -- compensation tied to the burning of nearby East Haven, Connecticut by Hessian and British troops on July 5, 1779 -- and named the resulting township after himself.

Before the town

Townsend Township's settlement-era history records specific, personal contact with Native people rather than only distant land claims. An unnamed Native man who befriended the Burdue family (settlers from 1811) tracked and recovered their stolen horses from a Native camp to the south, and later warned the family in secret that an attack on settlers was being planned after General Hull's surrender at Detroit in 1812, urging them to flee; he was never seen in the area again. That surrender triggered a genuine panic: multiple township families fled on foot toward Cuyahoga and Painesville, walking eight days through unbroken wilderness expecting to be 'tomahawked and scalped' each night, before returning to find their cabins undisturbed months later. A separate, violent episode touched the township indirectly: a boy in a settler family recognized a Native visitor as 'Omick' (John O'Mic), who was afterward executed at Cleveland for murder -- a reference to a documented 1812 case. Landowner Kneeland Townsend, for his part, built a blockhouse and traded directly with Native people still in the area when he came to occupy his claim.

Timeline

1. 1779 — British and Hessian troops burn East Haven, Connecticut on July 5, entitling its residents, including Kneeland Townsend, to later Firelands land claims.
2. 1810 — The township's Baptist congregation, founded in Penfield, New York as the 'Peace Baptist Church' -- its constitution condemning 'all carnal wars and fighting' -- is organized with five members who relocate to Townsend the following year.
3. 1811 — George Miller, of Pennsylvania by way of Milan, becomes the township's first settler, building its first log cabin on lot five; Orisimus Kellogg's family arrives from Batavia, New York on July 5.
4. 1812 — On word of General Hull's surrender at Detroit, several Townsend families flee on foot toward Cuyahoga and Painesville fearing a Native attack, walking eight days through wilderness before returning home months later to find their hidden belongings undisturbed.
5. 1817 — Families from Penfield, Ontario County, New York, including Jasper Miles, Benjamin Bailey and Hezekiah Barber, settle the township's western part.
6. 1818 — The township's first schoolhouse is built in the Barber settlement.
7. 1855 — The Western Reserve Union Institute, a private seminary, is established at Collins largely through the efforts of W. S. Hyde; it operates until about 1870, when the township buys the building for a district school.
8. 1871 — Norwalk, whose water system later also serves part of Townsend Township, builds its first municipal water plant.

Stories

A blockhouse and a trading post before the township had a name

Kneeland Townsend was a landowner, not a settler in the usual pioneer-family sense: he held a Firelands claim of roughly 22,000 acres, the compensation Connecticut set aside for New Haven-area families like his whose town, East Haven, Hessian and British troops had burned on July 5, 1779. When Townsend actually came out to occupy the land, he built a blockhouse and did business directly with the Native people still living in or passing through the area -- a detail that survives in local township history even though the specific nation, individuals, or terms of that trade are not recorded.

Eight days' flight on word of Hull's surrender

At midnight on July 8, 1812, word reached the Burdue and Kellogg families' corner of Townsend that General Hull had surrendered Detroit, and that a Native uprising against the scattered Firelands settlers might follow. Family member Caroline Fay later described how the household rose and packed by ten the next morning, then walked toward Cuyahoga and Painesville with several other families, sleeping on wet ground, fording flooded streams, and killing seven blacksnakes discovered under their bedding at an abandoned sugar camp. They covered the journey -- eight days and seven nights without passing a single cabin -- surviving mostly on nine bushels of wheat flour Fay's father had happened to bring home from the mill the day before. The family stayed away more than a year, first at Cuyahoga, then Painesville, before returning in October 1813 to find their house and the furniture they had hidden under the floorboards untouched, even though Native people had occupied the cabin in their absence.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Norwalk City100% of residentsHuron River / East Branch Huron River (via Upper, Memorial, and Lower Reservoirs)
• Milan Village0% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (10)

Money issues on the ballot since 2017: 2 of 2 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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-11

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