Washington Township, Sandusky County

• Toledo and PerrysburgNearly tied at 1,222 and 1,041 people in 1840, two Maumee River towns split into a glass-making city and a growing suburb. How it happened, from Fallen Timbers to 2020.

How Washington Township, Sandusky County began

Washington Township, the largest in the county by area, was organized in December 1830 on the petition of A. C. Ross, who chose its name; the county history notes wryly that 'Perry' would have honored local history more directly, but deferred to Ross's own preference. Nearly the whole territory lay within the notorious Black Swamp, so wet and forested that only three families lived within its present bounds as late as spring 1830. It contains three villages -- Hessville, Helena, and Lindsey -- of which Helena is shared with neighboring Jackson township and Lindsey grew from a station first called Washington before taking its present name in 1868.

Settled 1830, incorporated 1830, by organized on the petition of A. C. Ross, presented to the county commissioners December 6, 1830; the first election was held January 1, 1831, at the house of Daniel Karshner.

Where the name comes from

Named Washington in deference to the wish of A. C. Ross, the petitioner most active in seeking the township's organization; the 1882 county history remarks that a more historically fitting name would have been Perry, but that such choices are rarely guided by an appreciation of historical harmony.

Before the town

No source found records a Native village, trail, mound, or treaty event specific to Washington Township. The township lies within the region opened to settlement by the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids.

Timeline

1. 1826 — Josiah Topping, the first settler of Washington Township, locates on the pike; David Grant and John Wolcutt follow, and George Skinner is the fourth in 1831.
2. 1830 — Only three families lived within the township's present limits in the spring of this year, so thoroughly did the Black Swamp discourage settlement; A. C. Ross's petition to organize the township was granted by the county commissioners on December 6.
3. 1830 — George Skinner, his wife Mary and eight of their twelve children arrive in April from Perry County and settle in the southeast of the township; Mrs. Skinner dies on September 24, 1831 and Skinner in 1838.
4. 1831 — The first township election was held January 1 at the house of Daniel Karshner; Josiah H. Topping was elected justice of the peace, Michael Overmyer treasurer, and George L. Overmyer clerk, an office he held for many years.
5. 1833 — Neighbors raise the township's first schoolhouse in a day, of round logs with greased-paper windows and puncheon floor; Narcissa Topping is the first teacher (the county history also gives about 1822, and a second school in the southwest corner about 1834).
6. 1835 — William Haverfield opened a store at the hamlet that became Hessville, then nicknamed 'Cashtown' after tavern-keeper Henry Bowman, known locally as 'Old Cash'; Levi Hess later gave the trading point his own family name when he laid out its north part.
7. 1843 — Hessville's union meeting house is built for the German Reformed and Lutheran congregations; the Lutherans build their own house in 1851 and a $3,000 church in 1877.
8. 1850 — The Wilson Union class of United Brethren forms about this year, building a meeting-house on the Washington-Sandusky township line and a new brick one in 1876.
9. 1858 — A new Methodist chapel replaces the stone church known as Washington Stone Chapel, founded by Israel Smith; the Evangelical congregation in the south builds its brick house in 1859.
10. 1867 — Henry Reiling buys the Hessville mill built by B. Bowman and in 1871 adds a distillery producing about one hundred barrels a year.
11. 1868 — Charles Loose built a grain elevator and store at the site that became Lindsey; the station was first named Washington, and the post office was called Loose, before both were renamed Lindsey that year to match a change in the station's name.
12. 1871 — Joseph Garn surveyed the first lots of Helena in September, with John Ickes laying out the first addition that November; the village straddled the Washington-Jackson township line along the Toledo branch of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad.
13. 1873 — The Dunkards (German Baptists) build a meeting-house on the Noah Hendrick farm; the township has nine churches of six denominations by 1881.

Stories

The Black Swamp

The 1882 county history describes the territory later organized as Washington township, before settlement, as part of the vast tract an 1825 map of Ohio labeled the Black Swamp, stretching from the Sandusky River far beyond the Portage River. Trees locked their tops together and were bound by heavy vines, blocking out sunlight, while gases rising from muck sixty feet below fed a dense undergrowth that made the forest floor a permanent shadow. In spring, water dammed by fallen timber flooded whole townships at once; in dry weather it drained slowly toward the bay, leaving soil so saturated that even deer struggled to move through it. The county history describes a settler's typical cabin of the period -- round logs chinked with mud and leaves, windows of greased paper, a stick chimney that forced smoke back into the room -- and states that as a result of these conditions, immigrants either turned back at the swamp's edge or pushed straight through it, leaving more than half of three counties an almost unbroken waste as late as 1828.

The Skinners go into the swamp

George Skinner of Perry County had well-improved land there, but wanted to start his growing children in life and sold it in 1830 to enter a larger tract in the Black Swamp, larger than any man's purchase in the township. In April 1830 he, his wife Mary and eight of their children, three of them married, reached Lower Sandusky and then made a settlement in the southeast part of Washington Township, where only three families lived. Mary Skinner died there on September 24, 1831, about eighteen months after leaving Perry County, and George died in September 1838, aged fifty-seven. Several of their children settled nearby; others later went to Michigan, Illinois and Williams County.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Gibsonburg Village41% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Fremont City28% of residentsSandusky River (via Ballville Dam intake and city reservoir)
• Lindsey Village23% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Elmore Village7% of residentsLake Erie
• Shorewood Village Subdivision0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Green Valley Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Brightstar Fremont MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

Who holds office

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

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 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.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-31

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