Williamsfield Township, Ashtabula County

• Pymatuning LakeBuilt 1934 · 17,088 acres

How Williamsfield Township, Ashtabula County began

Williamsfield takes its name from General Joseph Williams, who bought three-fifths of the township's eastern portion on September 26, 1799. Charles Case and his son Zophar, from Connecticut, arrived on August 24, 1804 and built the township's first cabins, in an area Wikipedia records as home to Delaware (Lenape) people at the time of European settlement. The township organized in 1826, having previously been governed as part of Wayne Township. It was also home to the elder Joshua Giddings, father of the abolitionist congressman of the same name, who settled here in 1809; the younger Giddings began practicing law from a log office here in 1819, helped carry a neighbor's coffin three miles to burial in 1813, and moved to Jefferson in 1822, a decade before his more famous political partnership with Benjamin Wade. The township later gained two railroad stations and, at Capt. Stanhope's farm "Burnside," an eccentric menagerie of Cuban cows and hairless sheep.

Settled August 24, 1804 (Charles Case and son Zophar, first settlers), incorporated 1826 (organized as a separate township, having been part of Wayne Township since 1811), by Charles Case and Zophar Case; land bought chiefly by General Joseph Williams.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for General Joseph Williams, who purchased three-fifths of its eastern portion on September 26, 1799.

Before the town

Wikipedia's township article states that Delaware (Lenape) people inhabited the area at the time European settlers arrived, though it gives no further detail -- no named village, leader, or specific location within the township. This is a more specific nation attribution than many other Ashtabula County townships receive, but it remains a single, brief mention rather than a developed account.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. September 14, 1799 — Samuel Parkman makes one of the township's earliest recorded land purchases.
2. September 26, 1799 — General Joseph Williams purchases three-fifths of the township's eastern portion, giving the township its name.
3. August 24, 1804 — Charles Case and his son Zophar, from Connecticut, arrive and build the township's first log cabins.
4. spring 1806 — Ashtabula County's Giddings family relocates from Pennsylvania, settling in the county (per americanhistorycentral.com's biography of Joshua Reed Giddings, which does not name Williamsfield specifically).
5. 1809 — Joshua Giddings, father of the future abolitionist congressman of the same name, settles on the farm later occupied by James Reed.
6. 1812 — A post office opens at West Williamsfield with Elias Morse as postmaster.
7. 1813 — John Inman, the township's first adult to die, is buried on the bank of the Pymatuning; Deacon Ezra Leonard conducts the service and Joshua Reed Giddings himself helps build the wooden bier that carries the body three miles to the burial ground.
8. 1816 — Levi Smith, a Methodist, donates land for the township's first church, built in neighboring Wayne Township for a congregation drawn from both townships.
9. 1819 — Joshua Reed Giddings begins practicing law from a small split-log office near the Reed farm -- a decade before his better-known partnership with Benjamin Wade in Jefferson; a modern biography instead dates his admission to the Ohio bar to February 1821.
10. 1811-1826 — Williamsfield is governed as part of Wayne Township (itself detached from Trumbull County by special legislative act in 1811) until organizing as an independent township in 1826, when Gilbert Palmer, Samuel Tuttle, and Samuel Morse are elected trustees.
11. 1822 — Joshua Reed Giddings moves his law practice from Williamsfield to Jefferson.
12. 1872 — A post office opens at Simonds when the Franklin branch railroad is built through the township's eastern edge, with H. W. Simonds as postmaster; West Williamsfield already had a station on the Youngstown branch of the New York Central.

Stories

Captain Stanhope's exotic farm

For many years one of the most talked-about spots in Williamsfield was not a mill or a church but a stock farm called "Burnside," run by a Capt. Stanhope. Rather than the usual Western Reserve mix of cattle and sheep, Stanhope filled his pastures with imported curiosities: Cuban cows, hairless and woolless sheep, real Hamburg geese brought over from Germany, and other breeds of stock and fowl that were, as the 1924 county history puts it, 'foreign to local breeds.' Stanhope spent considerable time, money, and travel acquiring the collection, and took evident pleasure in showing it off to visitors -- an odd, almost showman's counterpoint to the township's otherwise steady identity as a dairy and farming community.

Local history sources: ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · conneautohio.us · americanhistorycentral.com

Mostly private wells The water here

• Andover-camplands Water76% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Andover Village24% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)

Private schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 5 of 5 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2026-05-05; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-08-05

Statewide question: State Issue 3: Voter ID

Races, candidates and every question for an address: your ballot. County offices and judges are on your county board's sample ballot.

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