Wayne Township, Auglaize County

How Wayne Township, Auglaize County began

Wayne Township was organized in 1834, while still part of Allen County, and is named for General 'Mad' Anthony Wayne, one of twenty Wayne Townships across Ohio honoring the officer whose 1794 victory at Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville the following year opened the region to American settlement. Its first settlers, William Hiett and John Hurley, built cabins on the north side of the East Prairie in the fall of 1830 or spring of 1831; the prairie itself, drained over decades by miles of hand-dug ditches, is divided between this and neighboring Goshen Township. It sits in the northeastern corner of Auglaize County and contains the village of Waynesfield, laid out by E. G. Atkinson in 1848, in its southwest corner. The township remains agricultural, with soybean and other row-crop fields typical of the flat till-plain landscape.

Settled 1830-1831, incorporated 1834, by first settled by William Hiett and John Hurley.

Where the name comes from

Wayne Township is named for General 'Mad' Anthony Wayne, whose army defeated a Native confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, leading to the 1795 Treaty of Greenville that ceded most of Ohio to the United States.

Before the town

No Native villages, mounds or treaty sites specific to Wayne Township were found in the sources checked; the township's own name commemorates the U.S. military campaign (Fallen Timbers, 1794, and the Treaty of Greenville, 1795) that ended organized Native resistance in this part of Ohio, rather than any site within the township itself. The land lay within territory the Shawnee and Miami held before that treaty and the later cessions of 1817-1818 and 1831 that emptied the county's reservations at Wapakoneta and Lewistown.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1830-1831 — William Hiett and John Hurley, the township's first settlers, build cabins on the north side of the East Prairie.
2. 1831 — Joseph W. Bowdle, Moses Ross, Jacob Williams, Robert Sproul, James Mahin and a dozen others enter land in the township in its first year of sale, most around the East Prairie.
3. 1834 — Wayne Township is organized while still part of Allen County; the first election, held at Samuel Moecraft's house, draws thirteen votes, and James Mahan becomes the first justice of the peace.
4. 1834 — Settlers such as Richard Berry find the Bellefontaine-Lima road uncleared and have to haul provisions from Logan and Champaign counties and grind their grain at Cherokee, fifteen miles away, a trip of two or three days.
5. 1836 — The township's first school, a log cabin with paper windows oiled in coon's oil, opens; Asa R. Mahan teaches the first term for ten dollars a month.
6. 1840 — Hopewell Methodist Protestant Church (section 11) and Wallace Fork Methodist Protestant Church (northeast corner of section 22) are both organized or built about this year.
7. 1848-07-01 — Waynesfield village, laid out by E. G. Atkinson in the township's southwest corner, is surveyed the same year Auglaize County is created.
8. 1876 — The Uniopolis and Waynesfield Pike, the township's first improved road, is built in summer and fall at a cost of $20,670; nearly every public road has become a free turnpike by 1903.
9. 1880 — By 1880 Waynesfield has three stores, a hotel, two churches, two physicians and a steam grist and saw mill, and the county history describes small farms of forty to 160 acres on land once thought too wet for anything but grass; the headwaters of the Wallace Fork of the Scioto and of Wrestle Creek rise in the township.
10. 1903 — Seven brick district schools have replaced the pioneer log schoolhouses in the township.
11. 2020 — The census counts 1,508 people in Wayne Township.

Stories

Clearing the East Prairie

Wayne Township's first settlers found more open ground than most of Auglaize County offered: the East Prairie, shared with neighboring Goshen Township, gave early grass for pasture before the surrounding timber was cleared. But turning it into farmland took generations of hand labor, miles of ditches ten to thirteen feet wide and four to seven feet deep, cut and re-cut to drain land that had been thought fit only for hay. Early settlers had to haul grain to Cherokee, fifteen miles off, to have it milled, and later hauled wheat all the way to Lower Sandusky, an eight-day round trip, for fifty to sixty cents a bushel, the only way they had to raise cash for taxes, coffee and salt. What is now ordinary row-crop farmland along the county's northeastern edge cost that much labor to make.

Eight days to market

Richard Berry settled on the East Prairie in 1834, and his son F. A. Berry later told the county historians what that meant. The Bellefontaine and Lima road was not cleared all the way and there was no bridge between the north fork of the Great Miami and Lima, so flour and feed for the stock had to be hauled in from Logan and Champaign counties. When wheat finally came in, the settlers ground it at Cherokee, fifteen miles off, a journey of two or three days, and the wheat they sold went by wagon to Portland, now Sandusky, or to Lower Sandusky, now Fremont: about eight days for a load that fetched fifty to sixty cents a bushel. That sale was the only way to find the cash for taxes, coffee and salt; sugar was made at home, deer and coons were the principal meat, and the stock ran loose in common woods because there was no pasture.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Waynesfield Village98% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Sun Valley Family Campground2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-09-18: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 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

• Fiscal watch: declared 2019-06-26, still in effect. source
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-07-07

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