Washington Township, Hancock County

How Washington Township, Hancock County began

Washington Township was organized on March 5, 1832, out of Congressional Township 2 north, Range 12 east, in the northeastern corner of Hancock County, and named for George Washington. John Gorsuch built its first cabin in April 1831, and settlers followed through the 1830s clearing land that included a wind-fallen tract known locally as the Wildcat Thicket. Two villages grew up inside the township: Risdon, platted in 1832, which later merged with Rome to become part of the city of Fostoria; and Arcadia, settled by the Peters brothers in 1834 or 1835, platted in 1855 and incorporated in 1859. Today the township holds part of Fostoria in its northeast and the village of Arcadia in its southwest, and remains largely farmland.

Settled 1831, incorporated 1832, by John Gorsuch (first cabin, April 1831); township organized March 5, 1832.

Where the name comes from

The township was named in honor of George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary armies and first President of the United States.

Before the town

No mound, earthwork, village, trail, or treaty line specific to Washington Township itself is recorded. The one township-specific account is anecdotal: when Ambrose, David, and Ephraim Peters settled the site of Arcadia in 1834 or 1835 on the south edge of the Wildcat Thicket, they found the resident Wyandot in the area friendly and helpful. This places living Wyandot people in the township in the early 1830s, in the years just before the Wyandot removal from Ohio under the 1842 Upper Sandusky treaty, but no named village, camp, or trail is given. For the prehistoric cultures, the historic nations who held this part of Ohio, and the treaties that ceded it.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1830 — Joseph Long of Fairfield County makes the first land entry in the township on November 24, the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 4.
2. 1831 — John Gorsuch built the first cabin in the township, on the northeast quarter of Section 1, in April.
3. 1832 — Washington Township was organized on March 5, covering Congressional Township 2 north, Range 12 east, about 23,040 acres.
4. 1832 — The first election is held on July 21 with 13 votes cast, and Liverton Thomas is elected justice of the peace; John Gorsuch lays out Risdon on September 6, half in Hancock and half in Seneca County, named for the surveyor Daniel Risdon.
5. 1832 — The township's first religious society, Methodist, is organized at the house of John Gorsuch, with services at the cabins of Gorsuch, James G. Wiseman, James Swaney, Elijah McRill and Oliver Day.
6. 1834 — Ephraim, Ambrose and David Peters, brothers from Virginia, settle on the site of what becomes Arcadia in 1834 or 1835; the 1886 county history says Ambrose and David lay out the village in 1854.
7. 1837 — Risdon post office is established on January 28 with Alvin Coles as postmaster; it is discontinued on January 17, 1855, when Risdon and Rome are amalgamated as Fostoria.
8. 1854 — Wikipedia dates the merger of Rome and Risdon into Fostoria to 1854, while the 1886 county history gives 1855; Risdon became the Hancock County side of Fostoria.
9. 1855 — David and Ambrose Peters laid out Arcadia, with 123 lots; the plat was acknowledged July 17.
10. 1858 — The Methodists build the first church in Arcadia.
11. 1859 — Arcadia is incorporated as a village and the Lake Erie & Western Railroad is completed through it; the New York, Chicago & St. Louis follows in 1881.
12. 1870 — The township has 1,579 people, down from 1,662 in 1860; the 1880 count is 1,945.
13. 1886 — Washington Township has six churches and nine schoolhouses, including a graded school in Arcadia and the United Brethren Academy in Fostoria.
14. 2020 — The census counts 4,353 people in Washington Township, which includes part of Fostoria in the northeast and Arcadia in the southwest.

Stories

The Wildcat Thicket

Early settlers clearing Washington Township found a band of wind-thrown timber, a half mile to a mile wide, cutting across the township. The tangle of fallen trunks and brush gave shelter to wildcats in numbers large enough that settlers named the tract the Wildcat Thicket. The Peters brothers built their farms on its south edge in the mid-1830s, and the name stuck in local memory long after the thicket itself was cleared for farmland.

Two villages, two fates

Washington Township produced two villages with very different histories. Risdon, laid out by John Gorsuch in 1832 at the township's northeast corner with half its sixty lots across the line in Seneca County, merged in 1854 with the neighboring community of Rome to form the city of Fostoria, whose Hancock County side still sits inside the township today. Arcadia, settled a little later by the Peters brothers, took the opposite path: David and Ambrose Peters platted 123 lots there in 1855, and the village incorporated in 1859 and became the township's lasting village.

Photographs

Local history sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Fostoria City82% of residentsEast Branch Portage River (via 6 storage reservoirs)
• Arcadia Village17% of residentsEast Branch Portage River (via 6 storage reservoirs)
• Evergreen Poplar Village MHP1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Fostoria Mobile Estates0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

High-hazard dams (2)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Cite this page