Ridgeville Township is located in Range Five Town Six, and was organized in 1841. In the 1890 census it had a land acreage of 6,673 acres with an average valuation of $14.57. The township is devoid of natural waterways except for a couple of small creeks.
Some settlement of the township occurred soon after 1830.
The township was surveyed by James Riley and the first election was held on April 5, 1841.
Ridgeville Township was declared one school district on June 9, 1841.
The main road through the township in 1841 was the Independence, Ridgeville and Adrian Free Turnpike that ran from Adrian, Michigan, along the old Indian trail that followed the Belmore Ridge to Independence on the Maumee River in Defiance County. The Ridge Road had been laid out about 1831. Points in Ridgeville Corners are surveyed from two stones in this road.
For a time there were two post offices in the township. Ridgeville Corners post office was established in 1841. Tubbsville was located in the northeastern part of the township.
The timber was cut and ditches drained the swamp land. The big news in the township in 1903 was that the township had gone wet and Ridgeville would have a saloon.
The twenties brought many changes in the township. The Bryan Pike was finished to Ridgeville and the old mud hole on the way to Napoleon was finally gone. Automobiles became fairly common and now families could go farther from home to reunions, church outings to Girty’s Island or the Texas Riverside Park. The bandstand was an important part of community life and band concerts on Thursday nights attracted people from all over.
Ridgeville Corners
Until the post office was established at the Barton Palmer home, in 1841, the scattered settlement simply said they lived in Ridgeville. The post office became known as Ridgeville Corners, but very early deeds still bore just the name Ridgeville.
In August, 1867, John Scofield filed his first plat of Ridgeville. In 1869, he filed his original plat of Ridgeville, his first addition in 1877, his second addition in 1879.
An 1867 description of Ridgeville Corners is interesting. “It is a nice little town that has one grocery store that is a seven by nine affair where tea, coffee, staples are available at such high prices that a greater part of the citizens buy in other villages where prices are more reasonable. There is also a sawmill and a cheese factory.”
By 1882, the town had grown to include two well stocked stores selling groceries, drygoods, hardware, medicines, drugs, paints, oil and each store ran a huckster wagon. There was a bicycle shop, a blacksmith shop, a steam sawmill, a repair shop, a shoe shop, a hotel, a brick and tile yard, a feed mill, a resident physician, two large churches, one music teacher, a new school, and no saloons.
Reprinted from Henry County, Ohio. A Collection of Historical Sketches and Family Histories Compiled by Members and Friends of The Henry County Historical Society, Volume I. Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas, TX, 1976.
