Wooster Township, Wayne County

How Wooster Township, Wayne County began

Wooster Township surrounds the city of Wooster, the Wayne County seat, and was organized on April 11, 1812 along with Sugarcreek, Mohican and Prairie townships; it was named for Revolutionary Gen. David Wooster. Its early settlers (James Smith in 1810, the Larwills, Robisons and Benjamin Jones) built the mills, roads and the first jail of the county, from the logs of Capt. George Stidger's 1812 blockhouse. The hilltops around Wooster carry enclosures that a 1910 county historian called prehistoric forts, and the same author recorded Delaware, Mohican and Mingo chiefs at Wooster's springs. The township had 1,145 residents in 1870; most of its history is carried by the city.

Settled 1810 (James Smith, near the later Henry mill); Benjamin Jones and others by 1814, incorporated April 11, 1812 (township organized with Sugarcreek, Mohican and Prairie townships), by Settlers including James Smith, the Robisons, the Larwills and Benjamin Jones.

Where the name comes from

Both Douglass (1878) and Bowen (1910) say Wooster Township was named for Gen. David Wooster, The township shares the name of the city of Wooster; it is the only township of that name in Ohio.

Before the town

The Wooster area carries the heaviest Native record in Wayne County, though most of it rests on one 1910 author's account, written from relic collecting and boyhood memory. That author describes enclosures with a trench and embankment, probably palisaded, on nearly every hill around Wooster: a 30-to-50-acre work on Madison Hill (now the Experiment Station farm and Wooster cemetery), a five-to-seven-acre work on Clear Creek west of town, an oval one near Big Springs on the Killbuck, and Fort Hill, a promontory at the junction of the Little and Big Killbuck with a ditch across its neck, a circle and two small mounds. He found over fifty small triangular arrow points below Fort Hill and says the mounds of the county were 'many, but small.' For the historic period the same author names Delaware (Lenape), Mohican and a few Mingo as the peoples of Wayne County; says Chief Beaver Hat had a winter wigwam near the Wooster cemetery and an apple orchard on Apple Creek; says the Delaware leader Killbuck (Gelelemend), whose main home was at Tullihas on the Mohican, kept a cabin by the Big Spring on the Killbuck, a great fishing place (on the Dowty farm in Franklin Township); and tells how in 1841 a delegation of Delawares came to ask for the bones that had been dug up for a mill race, which his grandfather, the Rev. Elijah Yocum, helped them rebury in a box. Benjamin Jones recalled that a laborer on his Muddy Fork road contract was killed and mangled by Indians. None of these accounts has been checked against archaeological records here.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Mohican (Mahican), Mingo.

• Fort Hill enclosure (earthwork) — promontory at the junction of Little and Big Killbuck, near Wooster; about 600 by 150 feet, ditch across the northwest neck, a circle and two small mounds, prehistoric; undated (archive.org)
• Madison Hill enclosure (earthwork) — Madison Hill, first county seat, now the Experiment Station farm and Wooster cemetery; 30 to 50 acres, partly stone-walled, prehistoric; undated (archive.org)
• Clear Creek enclosure on the Eicher farm (earthwork) — west of Wooster on Clear Creek; five to seven acres, embankment still three feet high about twenty years before 1910, prehistoric; undated (archive.org)
• Beaver Hat's winter wigwam (camp) — near the Wooster cemetery, late 1700s (per the 1910 author) (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1810 — James Smith, a Wayne County pioneer, settles near the future Henry mill site and builds an early gristmill half a mile south on the main branch of Apple Creek along the state road from Wooster to Canton.
2. 1812 — On April 11 Wooster Township is organized with Sugarcreek, Mohican and Prairie townships; the first trustees are Joseph Hughes and Dennis Driskel.
3. 1812 — Capt. George Stidger builds a blockhouse near Wooster; Robert McClarran is commissioned justice of the peace on June 13.
4. 1814 — Benjamin Jones rides to Coshocton for flour, bacon and salt and brings the supplies by pirogue up the Killbuck and Apple Creek to Wooster.
5. 1816 — Jones builds the first county jail (1816-17) out of the old logs of the Stidger blockhouse.
6. 1824 — On July 4 Jones and his wife, keeping the Wooster Hotel, roast an ox and sell over 300 dinner tickets at fifty cents; Congressman John Sloan and Brig. Gen. Beall are among the guests.
7. 1833 — Stephen and Johnson Henry build the Henry mill on the main Apple Creek and the state road from Wooster to Canton.
8. 1841 — A delegation of Delawares visits Wooster to see whether their ancestors' graves have been disturbed and rebury bones dug up for a mill race, according to the 1910 author's boyhood memory.
9. 1870 — The census counts 1,145 residents in the township, outside the city.
10. 1884 — A short-lived post office named Honeytown operates from 1884 to 1885 in the township.
11. 1897 — The one-room Valley College School is built on what is now Route 226.
12. 1900 — The census counts 7,160 residents including the city of Wooster.

Stories

Benjamin Jones, the pioneer who did everything

Benjamin Jones was one of the first settlers around Wooster, and the county histories repeat his recollections. In 1814 he rode to Coshocton, bought flour, bacon, salt and dried fruit, loaded it on a pirogue and, with a few strong men, paddled it up the sluggish, driftwood-choked Killbuck and Apple Creek to the old Robison mill, where the people of Wooster rushed down to greet the first boat of supplies. He built the first bridge across the Muddy Fork and the road across the quagmire to Reedsburg, with sixteen men on the contract, half of whom stood guard each night; one laborer was killed by Indians. In 1816-17 he built the county's first jail from the logs of the 1812 blockhouse, and on July 4, 1824 he and his wife roasted an ox for over three hundred diners at the Wooster Hotel. Once, carrying meat in a gourd, he was chased by wolves, and once he caught three bear cubs and had to throw one out of the sack when their mother came near.

Forts on every hill around Wooster

The 1910 county history devotes pages to the 'forts' of the Wooster hills. The author, who collected relics there for more than sixty years, says every hill around the town was crowned with an enclosure of trench, embankment and palisade, so placed that signals could be passed to hills near Shreve, Funk, Jeromesville, Ashland and Mansfield. The largest, thirty to fifty acres on Madison Hill, had a stone-built north wall that was still recognizable forty years earlier. Fort Hill, on a promontory where the Little and Big Killbuck meet, had a ditch across its neck, a spring on the west and over fifty small triangular points lying where an arrow would fly. The author calls them the work of a vanished people, but also describes the Delawares who came in 1841 asking for the bones dug from a mill race. As he tells it, his grandfather made them a large box, and he watched them rebury the remains with many curious signs.

When Wooster's jail was a blockhouse

In 1812, the summer of Hull's surrender, Capt. George Stidger built a log blockhouse at Wooster as a refuge for the settlers. When the county needed a jail in 1816-17 Benjamin Jones built it cheaply from the old blockhouse logs, and so the county's first lockup was made of its first fort. The township itself was organized on April 11, 1812, with Joseph Hughes and Dennis Driskel as trustees, Robert McClarran as clerk and Christian Smith and John Driskel as supervisors; William Larwill, William Robison and John Robison followed as trustees in 1813 and 1814.

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

The Wooster Water Production Facility, 1020 Old Columbus Rd, commissioned in 1998, draws from a well system of seven wells in two well fields (North and South), piped to this one plant for lime-soda-ash softening and chlorination. The water here

• Wooster City97% of residentsKillbuck Creek Buried Valley Aquifer (own wells)
• Spruce Tree Village MHP2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Green Meadows Estates1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Wooster Rolling Wheels Estates MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Nursing homes (2)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (5)

Spills reported since 2021 (6)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-23

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