York Township, Fulton County

How York Township, Fulton County began

York Township, organized on June 6, 1836, is the oldest township in Fulton County: when Lucas County created it, York took in nearly all of the future county south of the Michigan strip, and most of the other townships south of that line were carved from it between 1836 and 1843. It sits in southern Fulton County on the Henry County line, mostly on the heavy clay of the Black Swamp, and holds the northeastern part of the village of Delta, which grew from two creekside homesteads of 1838 on the state road from Maumee. William Jones and the King family, who came from Londonderry, Ireland, settled in May 1834 (though the Kings' own account says Jones was not yet there when they came), and the township's first election was held at York Center on June 30, 1836. It is one of ten York Townships across Ohio; no source consulted explains its name.

Settled 1834-05, incorporated Organized June 6, 1836, by William Jones and the King family (settlers of May 1834; accounts differ on whether Jones had arrived yet).

Where the name comes from

No source consulted gives a specific naming account for this township; Aldrich (1888), Mikesell (1905) and Reighard (1920) record its organization in 1836 but not the reason for its name. It is one of ten York Townships across Ohio, a common township name statewide, likely echoing the English city or an eastern namesake township, though no source checked confirms this for Fulton County's York Township specifically.

Before the town

Aldrich (1888) found nothing to record of the township's prehistoric period and says Native activity in the valley centered on the Maumee River, with little attention to this interior forest. He names the Ottawa and Potawatomi as the nations that ranged through the valley in the 1830s, their numbers reduced by government removals, and says the last of the Ottawa were removed beyond the Mississippi in 1838; he also repeats the local saying that no Indian ever shed a white man's blood within Fulton County. James Trowbridge, arriving in July 1837, found an Indian camp at Maumee where government officers were gathering the valley's Native people for removal west. A member of the Skeels family who came to York in April 1840 recalled that the Indians had gone but that several of their log or pole houses with pole roofs still stood. The land lies inside the tract ceded at the 1807 Treaty of Detroit.

Nations recorded here: Ottawa (Odawa), Potawatomi.

• Abandoned Indian log and pole houses (village) — near the Skeels farm, York Township (exact place not given), still standing in 1840 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1807-11-17 — The Treaty of Detroit cedes the tract of northwest Ohio that includes the future township's land.
2. 1834-05 — William Jones and family settle on the northeast quarter of section 18, about five miles west of Delta, generally counted the township's first settlers.
3. 1834-05 — William King's family, emigrants from Londonderry, Ireland, are guided from Providence into the Six Mile Woods and enter land on section 24; King walks three days to the land office at Wapakoneta.
4. 1834-06-21 — A tornado about two miles wide and thirty miles long sweeps the forest from west to east; the settlers need eight days to cut their way out of the windfall.
5. 1834-09 — The first road through the township, surveyed in August by Judge Ambrose Rice from Maumee by way of the Delta site west to West Unity, is completed about September 1; it becomes the State road.
6. 1836 — York Township is established.
7. 1836-06-06 — York Township is organized under Lucas County, covering all of the future county south of the Fulton line except the strips later taken from Henry and Williams counties.
8. 1836-06-30 — The first township election is held at York Center to choose officers for the whole territory south of the Fulton line.
9. 1837-07-20 — James Trowbridge's family, from Saratoga, New York, reaches its land near the site of Delta, twenty miles from a post office, a doctor or a mill.
10. 1838 — An epidemic that begins among the Maumee canal diggers spreads to the settlers in the woods; eight die that summer.
11. 1838 — The first post route opens from Toledo by way of Delta west to West Unity on the State road; York Center is the township's first post office.
12. 1838-03-05 — Clinton Township is organized from York's western territory, fixing York's west line.
13. 1841-03-01 — Pike Township is organized from York's northern territory, fixing York's north line.
14. 1842 — The Delta post office, opened in 1838 in Swan Creek Township, moves to the village of Delta in York.
15. 1850 — A two-mile strip from Henry County is added on the south, bringing in the Beta post office.
16. 1853 — A plank road from Toledo to West Unity is completed on the old State road; the townships along it are bonded for its cost, and it soon wears out.
17. 1854 — The Air Line railroad is built through the township; Aldrich writes that pioneer life vanished with it.
18. 1863-08-03 — Delta, whose northeastern portion sits in this township, incorporates as a village.
19. 1886 — Plattstown post office is established.
20. 1905 — Thomas Mikesell publishes 'The County of Fulton,' a history of Fulton County including its individual townships, documenting York Township among them.
21. 1920 — The preliminary census count gives York Township 2,835 people and Delta 1,543.

Stories

The Kings' land hunt

William King came from Londonderry, Ireland, with his wife, three sons, a daughter and his aged parents. At Manhattan they hired a team to take them to Providence, meaning to go on to Defiance, but at Providence the tavern keeper Peter Manor, a Frenchman, persuaded them to look at the Six Mile Woods twelve miles north and went with them. At the edge of the woods they hired William Meeker, who had settled there the year before, to show them land the government was selling at $1.50 an acre. They walked due west to the site of Delta, on to the center of York Township, a mile south and then east to the oak openings, and chose land on section 24. King then walked to the land office at Wapakoneta, three days through mud to his boot tops on a trail marked by blazed trees, and on his return moved the family onto the land.

The tornado of 1834

Shortly after the Kings settled, on June 21, 1834, a tornado struck at sunset after a calm, sultry day. William King recalled that it came with heavy thunder, a great volume of rain and total darkness, and lasted about twenty minutes, cutting a track about two miles wide and thirty miles long through the forest from west to east. King took shelter at the foot of a large oak, which was twisted off a few yards above his head and carried away. Fallen trees were piled around the family's shanty but none fell on it, and a horse tied beside it survived. The settlers needed eight days of steady work to cut their way out of the windfall.

Twelve hills of corn

Catharine Moyer landed at the mouth of Swan Creek on May 14, 1838, wading ashore, and rode out over corduroy roads with a six-month-old baby. At one cabin the drinking water had to be strained of wigglers before it was offered. Her first house had a shake roof, board floor, a two-legged bedstead, a chest for a table, a log sawed out for a window, a blanket for a door, and one side of the house for a fire, and she said people thought them well off. That spring she hoed up earth around the house and planted twelve hills of corn, and she wrote that she never again felt as rich as when that first corn on her own land came up. She taught school for pay in produce; her husband later worked as a blacksmith in Delta and died in California after going there in 1849.

Arriving in 1837

James Trowbridge, his wife and two children left Saratoga, New York, on July 4, 1837, by Erie Canal freight boat to Buffalo and the steamer Commodore Perry to Toledo, landing at Perrysburg on July 17. At Maumee they found an Indian camp where government officers were gathering the valley's Native people to move them west. Elijah Herrick took them into the Six Mile Woods over wet prairie and sand openings with no roads, stopping the night at Swanton and struggling across Swan Creek, and they reached their land near the site of Delta on July 20. Trowbridge said it was then twenty miles to a post office, a doctor, or a saw or grist mill, and the roads were Indian trails and cow paths. The next summer an epidemic that began among the canal diggers reached the scattered settlers, and eight people died.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Wauseon City52% of residentsMaumee River (via Napoleon pipeline) + Big Ditch/Stucky Ditch, in reservoirs
• Delta Village43% of residentsBad Creek, stored in Reservoir No. 2 (feeds Maumee River)
• Northeast Water System2% of residentsLake Erie
• Liberty Center Village1% of residentsMaumee River (via Bowling Green Reservoir)
• Swancreek Water District1% of residentsLake Erie

Superfund sites (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (5)

Spills reported since 2021 (8)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 6 of 9 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 3 of 4.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-09

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