Townsend Township, Sandusky County

How Townsend Township, Sandusky County began

Townsend Township occupies the county's northeastern corner along Sandusky Bay, bordering Erie County's Margaretta and Groton townships. It was ordered detached from the town of Croghansville by the county commissioners in April 1820 and named for the Townsend family, early settlers who made the township's second improvement in the spring of 1818. It contains no incorporated village, only the census-designated places of Vickery and Whites Landing.

Settled 1818, incorporated 1820, by detached from the town of Croghansville by order of the county commissioners at their April 1820 session.

Where the name comes from

Named for the Townsend family, early settlers who made the township's second cabin improvement in the spring of 1818, on the present Brush farm. Abraham Townsend had emigrated from New York to Canada before the War of 1812; his son Ephraim K. Townsend joined the United States army during the war, a step that, with his American sympathies, the 1882 county history says made it necessary for the family to return to the States at the opening of the war; they came to this county in 1818. Townsend is one of two townships of that name in Ohio, the other in Huron County.

Before the town

No Native village, trail, mound or treaty event specific to Townsend Township is recorded in Everett's 1882 county history, apart from a few asides: the settler Cornelius Widener adopted the Indian method of grinding corn in a stump mortar, and the old army trail from the east passed through the center of the township, about a mile south of the northern prairie. The township borders Erie County's Margaretta Township, home to the Castalia Blue Hole and the Wyandot village of Junundat (occupied mid-1700s, destroyed 1763), but that ground lies across the county line.

Timeline

1. 1818 — Moses Wilson built the township's first cabin, on the North ridge; the Townsend family made the second improvement, on the present Brush farm, the same spring.
2. 1818-11 — William Tew Sr. builds the fourth cabin in the township in November; his son Hiram dies in 1819 and is the first person buried in the Tew cemetery on the North ridge.
3. 1820 — The county commissioners ordered a township detached from Croghansville and named Townsend, with the first election held at the house of M. Wilson.
4. 1820 — Ephraim K. Townsend marries Rebecca Tew, the first resident of the township to marry, and serves as the first township clerk; William Tew Sr. is the first postmaster.
5. 1820-10-24 — Daniel Rice, a justice of the peace who later settles in Townsend in 1825, solemnizes the first marriage recorded in Sandusky County, between West Barney and Sophronia Wilson.
6. 1822 — A. C. Jackson settles on the ridge; his cabin is the first house of entertainment in the township. Samuel Love and Josiah Holbrook, a potash maker, also arrive.
7. 1822-1823 — The establishment of Green Creek township in 1822 and Riley township in 1823 cut down Townsend's original, much larger territory to its present size.
8. 1824 — Azariah Beebe and his family, the first settlers near Rockwell Spring, come about this time; the Townsend family moves to Huron County.
9. 1830 — Simeon Haff, Zelotes Parkhurst (who donates the Parkhurst cemetery), Alpheus McIntyre and the Whitmores settle; after 1830 the township fills so fast the historian names only a few settlers.
10. 1832 — Hezekiah Higley, born in 1790, settles after living in Portage and Erie counties; he is still living in 1882.
11. 1834 — A tornado of 'midnight blackness' cut a path through neighboring Green Creek and then this township on April 11, 1834, killing a Mr. Keiser of Townsend and breaking Stephen Gillett's arm.
12. 1845 — Edward Chambers, born in Ireland, settles in Townsend after living in Boston.
13. 1850 — C. G. Sanford sank the township's first artesian well, casing through quicksand to a layer of hard conglomerate rock, after which the well filled and flowed on its own; similar wells, fed by mineral-tinctured underground currents, were later found across the township.
14. 2020 — The census counts 1,523 people living in the township.

Stories

The 1834 tornado

On the afternoon of April 11, 1834, after a day of warm thunder-showers, a black cloud gathered over the forest near Green Creek and rolled northeast, crossing the pike and cutting through Townsend across the North ridge road near the county line. Its path was less than a quarter mile wide, but not a tree was left standing in it, and the storm's effects were traceable half a mile on either side. One cabin was scattered to pieces by the wind, and the roof of a house on the ridge, though not directly in the storm's path, was torn off, scattering the household's feather bedding like snow. Only one life was lost, that of a Mr. Keiser of Townsend, and Stephen Gillett broke his arm bracing against a stump when a falling limb struck him.

A thief's punishment

In the township's early years, a stranger who had spent the previous night as a guest in A. C. Jackson's cabin returned the next day while the family was out, stole a gun and the household's entire supply of spare clothing, and nearly left the house at risk of catching fire. Mrs. Jackson raised the neighborhood on her return, and the man was found in the woods, though the stolen goods were not. When he lied about where the gun was hidden, telling the truth only about that, the neighbors beat him with cudgels for over an hour to force a confession about the clothing; a man named William Tew finally intervened, judging the thief insane, and had him released on a promise to work off the value of the goods in Jackson's clearing. The man worked a few days, then disappeared for good; the stolen clothing turned up some time later in Huron County.

The stump mortar and the road called Pickle Street

Among the Widener brothers who came from Pennsylvania by way of Huron County in 1822, Cornelius adopted what the 1882 county history calls the Indian method of grinding corn in a stump. A hardwood stump was hollowed out by burning and chopping into a mortar, and a section of ironwood trunk hung from a spring-pole was dropped on the corn; a strong man could crack enough in a day to last a family a week, which mattered when mills were far off and a mother had to hear her children cry for bread. The same chapter explains how a road in the township came to be called Pickle Street: a man named Lyon lived on it soon after it was laid out, and a little ill-feeling between him and a neighbor, Mr. Smith, about a piece of meat gave the road its name.

Pioneer dances and logrollings

The historian of Townsend describes the gatherings that ended a logrolling, raising or quilting. Neighbors from miles around brought their wives, daughters and sisters, the day closed with wrestling and lifting contests, and at night everyone went to a cabin or a specially built stand with a floor of split puncheons to dance the Virginia Reel and the French Four. One girl of the period told the writer that their dresses were shorter and their steps higher than in 1882. A fiddler like Harry Snow's father, one of the best in Erie County, was in demand; the party broke up long after the wolves had stopped howling and everyone followed the woodland paths home.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Clyde City51% of residentsRaccoon Creek & Beaver Creek Reservoirs (upground, off Sandusky River basin)
• Erie Co. Margaretta District41% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)
• Bellevue City7% of residentsFrink Run & Berry Creek/Big Ditch runoff (own reservoirs); backup Lake Erie via Erie Co.

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Superfund sites (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Who holds office

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

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 4 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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 2025-07-24

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