Wayne

How Wayne began

Wayne, in Montgomery Township, was surveyed in March 1836 by Hiram Davis for John Bailey and Henry Buchtel as Freeport, and was long known as Freeport or Prairie Depot, the name its post office took in 1852; the post office was renamed Wayne in 1927 for General Anthony Wayne. Michael Brackley and T. G. Frisbie opened a log store in the summer of 1836, Michael Hanline a tavern, and Frisbie built the pioneer steam gristmill. Freeport was incorporated by a petition granted on September 7, 1876. The oil boom of 1889-90 raised 120 derricks inside the town. The village had 815 people in 1900, reached a peak of 949 in 1960 and had 841 in 2020.

Settled summer 1836 (Brackley and Frisbie's store, Hanline's tavern), platted March 1836 (surveyed by Hiram Davis for John Bailey and Henry Buchtel, as Freeport), incorporated September 7, 1876 (petition of April 21, 1876 granted), by John Bailey and Henry Buchtel (proprietors).

Where the name comes from

The village was platted as Freeport and kept that name locally for nearly a century, though its post office was called Prairie Depot from 1852; the post office name changed to Wayne in 1927, honoring General Anthony Wayne, whose 1794 victory at Fallen Timbers led to the Treaty of Greenville. The 1897 county history titles its account 'Freeport, or Prairie Depot' and does not say why the post office took the second name.

Before the town

The 1897 county history states that there are no mounds, extensive burying grounds or old worn trails in Wood County to show more than temporary occupation for war, hunting and sugar-making, and no earthwork or village is recorded for Wayne itself. The land lay in the Black Swamp country that remained Native ground until the Treaty of Fort Meigs, signed September 29, 1817 by the Wyandot, Seneca, Lenape, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe, ceded some 4.6 million acres of northwestern Ohio. The same history, in its chapter on Montgomery Township, records that Native people still came to the settlers' cabins in the 1830s and paid a shilling a meal, and tells of a hungry group at John A. Kelly's house who ate corn fritters until it was found that a woman had hidden a quantity in her blanket. The village's present name honors Anthony Wayne.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Seneca, Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa (Odawa), Ojibwe (Chippewa).

Timeline

1. 1834-12-01 — Montgomery Township is set off from Perry Township and named for Gen. Richard Montgomery, killed at Quebec in 1775.
2. 1836-03 — Hiram Davis surveys the ground on which the village stands for John Bailey and Henry Buchtel; the place is called Freeport.
3. 1836 — In summer Michael Brackley and T. G. Frisbie build a log store, and Michael Hanline a log tavern, the first buildings of the village.
4. 1840 — The Methodists hold their first quarterly meeting in Frisbie's gristmill at Freeport.
5. 1842 — Rev. N. T. Fay organizes the Congregational church at Freeport, which builds the village's first church, of logs.
6. 1843 — The Frisbie mill, the first steam gristmill in the vicinity, burns about this time and is rebuilt as a grist and saw mill by Frisbie and Hanline.
7. 1852-05 — A post office named Prairie Depot opens, with T. G. Frisbie as postmaster; until then mail was carried from Montgomery Cross Roads.
8. 1858 — The Disciples organize a congregation at Freeport, completed in 1860; its church is built in 1865-66.
9. 1876-09-07 — The county commissioners grant the incorporation of Freeport on a petition of 45 residents dated April 21, 1876; W. R. Bryant is elected the first mayor.
10. 1886 — Prairie Depot Lodge No. 646, I.O.O.F., chartered at West Millgrove in 1876, has its charter transferred to the village.
11. 1890 — Oil comes in near the village in March, a well flowing 210 barrels in two hours, setting off a stampede; by November over 400 wells are drilled in Montgomery Township and 120 derricks are raised inside Freeport.
12. 1893-08 — A fire destroys the buildings at Main and Center streets, including Tilton and Sage's store, a three-story hotel and the council room with the village archives.
13. 1894-09-19 — The Prairie Depot Observer, the village's first newspaper, is issued by George C. Williams.
14. 1900 — The census counts 815 people in the village.
15. 1927 — The post office is renamed Wayne.
16. 1960 — The census counts 949 people, the village's peak; it falls to 803 in 1990 and recovers to 887 in 2010.
17. 2020 — The census counts 841 people; the village is in the Elmwood Local School District and is served by the Wayne Public Library.

Stories

The 1890 oil stampede

In 1865 or 1866 a few Freeport men with Austin Beck as president drilled 150 feet for oil, found none, and quit. In 1886 John Fuher and Charles Villwock drilled on land north of the village and got a fair gas well and a fair oil well. The village then drilled for gas and got oil instead. The great stampede began in March 1890 when a well near the village flowed 210 barrels in two hours. The Lesher, Angus and Horton wells of September 1890, on the W. King farm near the depot, were among the first big producers, No. 2 making 300 barrels in twelve hours. By the end of November more than 400 wells had been completed or begun within Montgomery Township, and 120 derricks stood inside Freeport, which for a time was an oil city of considerable importance. Production fell by degrees and did not rise again until 1895. A. Lesher, who drilled the first wells, built the modern 'Freeport House' hotel at Prairie Depot in 1895.

A boiler hauled by oxen

The first merchants of Freeport were not satisfied with the horse-power and water-power mills of the township, and built a large steam gristmill with good machinery. Michael Bordner got the contract to freight the boiler from Perrysburg and did it within a week with two yoke of oxen. The mill stood where O. N. Bryant's house stood in 1897. T. G. Frisbie built it, and Henry Buchtel, John Brooke and Caleb Minkler were its owners when it burned about 1843, Michael Hanline rented it and soon afterward it burned, and Frisbie and Hanline rebuilt it with sawmill machinery, but by 1860 the concern had been abandoned and an old soldier of 1812 named Kieffer lived in it as a tenant. Another early sawmill, on the outlet of Freeport Prairie, had water in plenty but no fall; people said the sawyers had to help turn the wheel, and called it 'elbow and water-power'.

Freeport or Prairie Depot?

The village was surveyed as Freeport in March 1836, and the 1897 county history calls it 'Freeport, or Prairie Depot'. Rochester and Montgomery Cross Roads had mail service for years before the department 'took cognizance of the new village', and until May 1852 the village's mail was carried from Montgomery Cross Roads and left with E. R. Sage until the Brookes, Carters, Spinks, Bordners and others came to call for their letters. When the post office was granted in 1852 it was named Prairie Depot, with T. G. Frisbie as postmaster, and the double name lasted: the newspaper of 1894 was the Prairie Depot Observer and the lodge was Prairie Depot Lodge. The post office took the name Wayne in 1927. The county history's record says the petition for incorporation was dated April 21, 1876 and granted September 7, 1876.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Wayne Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-06

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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