Vermillion Township, Ashland County

How Vermillion Township, Ashland County began

Vermillion Township was surveyed in 1807 by Jonathan Cox and settled in the spring of 1811, when George Eckley built a cabin at the place later called Goudy's Mill; at first it included what is now Montgomery Township. The settlers fled to blockhouses in 1812, returned by the end of that year, and filled the township quickly after the Wooster-Mansfield road was laid through it in 1815. Linus Hayes opened a tavern at Hayes's Cross Roads in 1817, and the village of Hayesville grew there, later home to the Vermillion Institute. The township was organized in 1816 according to the 1880 and 1909 county histories (December 25, 1818, in the 1863 history). A Catholic parish, St. John the Baptist, was founded in 1882 by German, Luxembourger and Irish families.

Settled 1811 (George Eckley, spring), incorporated 1816 (Hill 1880, Baughman 1909); 1818-12-25 (Knapp 1863), by commissioners of Richland County.

Where the name comes from

Not documented in the sources consulted; likely named, as elsewhere in Ohio, for the Vermilion River/Vermilion drainage or for red ('vermilion') clay or ochre noted by early surveyors, but no source for this specific township confirms the derivation.

Before the town

Two mounds are recorded in the township by the 1880 county history: a large mound on section 13, which it says later Native people used as a burial place but which it believed was first raised as a signal point by the builders of the county's earthworks, and another large mound on section 14 near Hayesville, at the head of the valley reaching toward the Mohican. A trail from the Mingo village of Mohican Johnstown to the Delaware (Lenape) village of Greentown ran by the site of Goudy's old mill to the Quaker Springs in Vermillion Township and on toward Perrysville; it later became the old Portage road. Captain Pipe, the Delaware leader, lived at nearby Jerometown when the first settlers came, and an Indian known as Johnnycake lived beside the pioneer Joseph Workman, who learned to hunt from him. Presbyterian missionaries traveling to the Seneca and Wyandot missions preached at settlers' houses in the township.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

• Mound on section 13 (mound) — section 13, Vermillion Township, prehistoric; later used for burials (archive.org)
• Mound near Hayesville (mound) — section 14, near Hayesville, prehistoric (archive.org)
• Mohican Johnstown to Greentown trail (later the Portage road) (trail) — past the site of Goudy's mill to the Quaker Springs in Vermillion Township, then southwest toward Perrysville, historic, before 1812 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1807 — Vermillion Township is surveyed by Jonathan Cox.
2. 1811 — In the spring George Eckley builds the first cabin in the township, at the place later known as Goudy's Mill.
3. 1812 — When war comes the settlers leave for the blockhouses at Wooster and on the Lake Fork, returning toward the end of the year.
4. 1812 — General Beall's army camps two weeks on the Griffin farm, a mile and a half northeast of present Hayesville; one rainy night its sentries fire on what they take for the enemy and kill seventeen of the settlers' cattle.
5. 1814 — James Wallace and Robert Newell are elected justices of the peace for Vermillion, which then includes Montgomery; Newell loses his office when Montgomery is set off.
6. 1815 — The first public road, from Wooster to Mansfield, is laid out through the township.
7. 1816 — George Eckley builds the township's first church, used by all denominations and known as Eckley's Meeting House; Constance Lake is the first person buried in its graveyard.
8. 1816 — The commissioners of Richland County organize Vermillion Township, according to the 1880 and 1909 county histories (the 1863 history gives December 25, 1818); James Wallace is the first justice of the peace.
9. 1817 — Linus Hayes opens a public house at Hayes's Cross Roads, the site of Hayesville.
10. 1818 — Methodists raise a large church of unhewn logs, with helpers coming from as far as Mansfield.
11. 1819 — Norman Anderson builds a still-house, and distilling soon spreads to almost every brook in the township until the market is glutted.
12. 1821 — Miss Sedelia Bushnell teaches the township's first school, in the Bushnell district; Sterling G. Bushnell arrives from Trumbull County in May.
13. 1822 — The first wheat offered for cash within Thomas Bushnell's memory, about 1822 or 1823, sells at the Lake and Bentley mill (later Goudy's): one hundred bushels for twenty-five dollars.
14. 1829 — Robert Williams lays out a town called Williamsburg two miles west of present Hayesville; it fails, and no building marks the site.
15. 1831 — John Scott opens the first store at Hayes's Cross Roads on January 7.
16. 1846 — Ashland County is formed and Vermillion Township becomes part of it.
17. 1846 — John Scott Sr. builds a gristmill a mile north of Hayesville on the Ashland road.
18. 1881-11-10 — A group of Vermillion-area Catholic farmers, including Nicholaus Klotz, August Langenfeld, and Jacob Kummer, meet under a tree near Klotz's home to plan a parish of their own rather than travel to New Trier or Coates for Mass.
19. 1882 — St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is founded in Vermillion Township by German, Luxembourg, and Irish Catholic settlers.

Stories

The battle of the Cow-pens

In the summer of 1812 General Beall's army, mostly militia and mounted volunteers on the way to the northwestern frontier, camped for two weeks on what was later the Griffin farm, a mile and a half northeast of present Hayesville. The settlers of Vermillion had already gone to the blockhouses. One dark, rainy night a rifle shot cracked outside the lines; the sentries ran in reporting the enemy, the drums beat to arms, and the camp opened fire into the woods while the cavalry charged. They found no one and reported that the enemy had retreated. At first light the outposts found what they had been shooting at: a herd of the settlers' cattle grazing loose in the forest, seventeen of them dead. The soldiers called it 'the battle of the Cow-pens,' and for many of them it was the only engagement of the war.

Johnnycake and Squire Workman

When Joseph Workman came to the township, Vermillion and Montgomery were still one township with two justices of the peace, Robert Newell and James Wallace; Workman was elected in 1817 to succeed Wallace. His nearest neighbors were an Indian known as Johnnycake and his wife, whom the 1909 county history remembers as a quiet, friendly neighbor. Workman took his first lessons in hunting game from him.

Founding a parish under a tree

Before 1882, Catholic families around the village of Vermillion had no church of their own: German and Luxembourg families rode by horse and buggy to St. Mary's in New Trier, while Irish families went to St. Agatha's in the northeast quarter of Section 8. On November 10, 1881, a group of men — Nicholaus Klotz, August Langenfeld, Jacob Kummer, John Breuer, Joseph Sausen, Johann Therres, Nicholaus Reiter, Gottfried Beissel, Gilles Krausen, John P. Reuter, and Conrad and Michael Holzemer among them — met under a tree near Klotz's home to plan a parish of their own. St. John the Baptist Catholic Church was organized the following year, a small piece of the wave of German, Luxembourger, and Irish immigration that shaped south-central Ashland County's farm townships in the mid-1800s.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · stjohns-vermillion.com · 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 · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Ashland City67% of residentsJerome Fork Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Perrysville Village12% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Loudonville Village9% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Jeromesville Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A4% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Bailey Lakes Village1% of residentsLake Erie
• Hayesville Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Mohican Young Star Academy0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Colleges (1)

Public schools (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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