Windham Township, Portage County

How Windham Township, Portage County began

Windham Township began as a real-estate venture: on September 11, 1810, sixteen men meeting in Becket, Massachusetts formed the Becket Land Company and, on November 11, 1810, bought about 14,825 acres from Massachusetts Governor Caleb Strong, dividing it into 100 lots among investor families. Those sixteen families left Massachusetts on May 2, 1811 and arrived six weeks later; the township was first called Strongsburg for Strong, then Sharon around 1813-1820, before settling on Windham, honoring Windham, Connecticut, home to some of the original settlers. Settlers laid out a Connecticut-style village green, and the Congregational church built on it still operates today as a United Church of Christ congregation. The village of Windham became independent of the township in 1993. Today the township has 1,784 residents (2020).

Settled June 1811 (arrival, after departing Massachusetts May 2, 1811), platted November 11, 1810 (Becket Land Company purchase and division into 100 lots), by The Becket Land Company: sixteen investors including Thatcher Conant, Elijah Alford and Nathan Birchard, meeting in Becket, Massachusetts.

Where the name comes from

First called Strongsburg (or Strongsburgh), for Massachusetts Governor Caleb Strong, who sold the land; renamed Sharon around 1813-1820; then renamed again to Windham, honoring Windham, Connecticut, the home of some of the original settler families.

Before the town

The 1957 county history 'Portage Heritage' lists Windham Township among those with recorded prehistoric burials, though without an exact location. No named historic-era Native American village or camp specific to the township is documented in the sources consulted. For the county's broader Native history.

Timeline

1. 1810 — Sixteen men meet in Becket, Massachusetts on September 11 to organize the Becket Land Company, and buy about 14,825 acres from Governor Caleb Strong on November 11, dividing it into 100 lots.
2. 1811 — Sixteen investor families depart Massachusetts on May 2 and arrive at their new land about six weeks later; the first religious service is held July 28.
3. 1811 — On March 16 four young men reach the township on foot with a sled and build the first cabin, twenty feet by fifteen, on Lot 84; the first house is followed by Bills Messenger's family on June 12, Alpheus Streator on July 5 and Thatcher Conant and Jeremiah Lyman in July.
4. 1812 — Col. Benjamin Higley harvests 100 bushels of wheat from three bushels sown on four acres, the first crop; the first living white child is born to Wareham Loomis on August 27 and the first wedding, Dr. Ezra Chaffee and Polly Messenger, is on June 11.
5. 1813-1820 — The township, first called Strongsburg for Caleb Strong, is renamed Sharon and then Windham, for Windham, Connecticut.
6. 1813 — The township is set apart on March 2 under the name Sharon, because Gov. Strong was an unpopular Federalist, and holds its first election in April.
7. 1814 — Dillingham Clark, the largest investor, arrives on January 2 and becomes one of the most honored citizens of the county.
8. 1817 — The burial ground at the Center is moved to its present site, and seven burials are transferred; a benevolent society for the needy and for missions is formed in 1818.
9. 1820 — The township's name is changed to Windham.
10. 1823 — Eleven deaths in the year break a long record of good health in the township.
11. 1993 — The village of Windham becomes legally independent of the township.
12. 2020 — The census counts 1,784 people in Windham Township, which surrounds the village of Windham and whose southern half lies in the Ravenna Training and Logistics Site.

Stories

Sixteen families buy a township sight unseen

Windham Township exists because sixteen men in Becket, Massachusetts decided in September 1810 to pool their money and buy a piece of Ohio none of them had likely ever seen. Meeting formally to organize as the Becket Land Company, they closed on roughly 14,825 acres from Massachusetts Governor Caleb Strong that November and divided it into 100 lots among themselves. The following spring, on May 2, 1811, the investor families loaded what they could carry and set out from Massachusetts, arriving after a six-week journey to a township that briefly bore Strong's own name — Strongsburg — before settling, after a name change or two, on Windham, honoring the Connecticut hometown some of the settlers had left behind. They wasted no time establishing the institutions of a proper New England town, laying out a village green in the Connecticut style and holding their first religious service that same July.

The otter, the stone and the hole

Windham's first lawsuit, after almost two years in which the justice's docket stood blank, turned on a sale of an otter. Hiram Messenger had found a hole where he saw an otter go in, and he stopped it with a stone. He then sold otter, stone and hole for $3 to Thatcher Conant. Conant looked and found nothing, and refused to pay. Messenger won the suit, and when Conant threatened to appeal, Justice Elijah Alford, who had been elected on November 15, 1813 by seventeen votes on a single ticket, paid the three dollars himself. The 1885 county history tells the story as an example of how little need there was for a magistrate among the Becket families of the township, whose Congregational church had been organized before they left Massachusetts, with Alford as deacon.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Windham Village53% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Garrettsville Village39% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Pm Estates5% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Homestead Manor MHP4% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Shale and injection wells (5)

Superfund sites (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

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