Venice Township, Seneca County

How Venice Township, Seneca County began

Venice Township, the only township of that name in Ohio, was established in 1829 and covers 39.6 square miles in the southeastern corner of Seneca County, bordering Huron and Crawford counties. The village of Attica sits in its northern portion, and the unincorporated community of Caroline lies at its center; the township is also home to Attica Raceway Park. Otherwise the township's history is bound up with that of Attica, which lies in its northern part.

Incorporated 1829 (organized), by organized by Seneca County.

Where the name comes from

The only Venice Township in Ohio. Johnson Ford, an early settler, suggested the name to memorialize his former home in Cayuga County, New York.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, trail, or treaty site specific to Venice Township is documented in the sources checked. The county's historic-era Native history includes the Seneca reservation, which lay to the north and west of this township, and the 1831 removal.

Timeline

1. 1827 — Cornelius Gilmore, a blacksmith, builds a cabin on the south bank of Honey Creek, becoming the first settler in what becomes Venice Township; that same year Colonel James Kilbourn of Worthington surveys the Columbus and Sandusky turnpike through the area.
2. 1828 — Ezra Gilbert settles in the township, followed within months by Samuel Halsted (August), Johnson Ford (September), Thomas West (October), William McPherson (November), and Elisha Fair (December), each building a cabin near what becomes Attica.
3. 1828-02-28 — Colonel Kilbourn surveys and plats Caroline on sections ten and eleven, naming it for a daughter of first settler and co-proprietor Cornelius Gilmore.
4. 1829-06-01 — Having been part of Bloom Township, the settlement is organized as Venice Township on Ezra Gilbert's petition; Johnson Ford suggests the name, for Venice, Cayuga County, New York, his former home. The first election follows on June 13.
5. 1830 — Jacob Newkirk, from New York, builds the first frame house in the township, about 1830 or 1831, where F. H. Steigmeyer's store later stands.
6. 1833 — Attica is founded in the township's northern portion.
7. 1833 — A union Sabbath school is organized in the spring by Rev. Mr. Patty of the American Sabbath School Union; Johnson Ford becomes superintendent and holds the post for twenty-five years.
8. 1833-10 — A Presbyterian church is organized with thirteen members; the Methodists form a class in 1835 and English Lutherans a church in 1838.
9. 1840 — A one-story brick school house is built about this year where the later school stands; no township officer had made any charge for services until 1840.
10. 1841 — The English Lutherans, with help from the community, erect the church later owned by the United Brethren; they cannot pay for it and Johnson Ford buys the building so the community will not lose its place of worship.
11. 1876-07-04 — H. J. Ford delivers a Fourth of July historical address at Attica recalling that fifty years earlier the township was an unbroken forest.
12. 1880 — The township's population reaches 2,231, up from 1,222 in 1840 and 1,781 in 1870.
13. 1911 — Flat Rock and Franks, stations on the Pennsylvania railroad, are the only villages left in the township besides Attica; the Baltimore & Ohio and the Columbus and Sandusky pike also cross it.
14. 2020 — The 2020 census counts 1,683 residents in Venice Township.

Stories

A funeral without a minister

The township's first death came in the early 1830s, when Esther, wife of pioneer Johnson Ford, died and left her husband to arrange the burial alone. A neighbor traveled to Republic to have a cherry-wood coffin made, and at the funeral the remains were carried on a rude sled drawn by oxen, with Samuel Halsted driving the team and Ezra Gilbert walking eight miles beside the grieving widower to a burial ground in Scipio Township, where a service had been arranged at a neighbor's house. No minister arrived, and the settlers gathered there buried Esther Ford without a single prayer spoken over her. The township's second death was a child of Samuel Halsted; for its third, Johnson Ford himself donated an acre of his farm for a cemetery, and a child of settler Philip Muck became the first burial there.

Johnson Ford shoulders the church debt

Around 1840 or 1841 the English Lutherans of Venice Township, with the help of the community at large, raised a church that they could not finish; the writer of the 1876 centennial address remembered rude slab benches without backs. The society then failed to pay for the building and was forced to sell it. Fearing it might be put to some other use and that the township might lose its only place of public worship, Johnson Ford, who had named the township for his old home in Venice, New York, took on the debt himself and got a clear title. He had the church reseated and improved, and for years the Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians worshiped in it together, holding Sabbath school and services in harmony. The building passed later to the United Brethren.

The well that struck a spring

Samuel Horner lived on a farm about a mile east of Flat Rock where a little spring served all the neighbors, who kept it in bad condition. Horner decided to dig a well of his own and went down about six feet before striking rock. He took a crowbar and hit the rock, and a stream of water burst up that overflowed the well and formed a constantly running brook.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Attica Village100% of residentsHoney Creek (via 2 storage reservoirs)

Public schools (3)

Public EV charging (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-28

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