The story
Welcome to Jefferson Township
Jefferson Township, east of Albion, was praised by the 1920 county history for its gently rolling surface and rich black loam. Settlers from Richland and Huron counties, Ohio, came in 1836, and the township has never had a town of its own.
Jefferson was one of the townships named at the first session of the Noble County commissioners in 1836. In 1854 two of its sections, 18 and 19, were taken with two from York Township to make Albion Township. The 1920 history describes the land as gently rolling, with few marshes, a rich black loam over clay, and a valuable growth of black walnut, poplar, oak, cherry, ash, beech and hard maple.
The first land entered was the northeast quarter of section 5, by a man named Miller, but the first actual settler was David Herriman of Richland County, Ohio, on section 12; after a year he sold to Samuel C. Spencer of Huron County. In October 1836 a party from Richland County — Lewis and Benjamin Potts, Jehu Foster, and James and Manassa Thompson — settled on sections 10 and 11, with James Skinner from Huron County. John Call, Alfred Martin, John Grubb, Martin Smith, Henry Carothers and Smith Ashley came between 1836 and 1838.
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Township government began with the spring election of 1838, when Skinner, Lewis Potts and Foster were chosen trustees, Call justice and Martin constable. For years the settlers went to Fort Wayne, thirty miles off, for supplies, and to Stoufer’s mill near Goshen, about thirty-five miles, for grinding. Samuel C. Spencer built the first sawmill in 1846 on Buck Creek in section 20, and a blacksmith shop was later opened at Baker’s Corners. About 1838 James Skinner gave a spot on his farm south of the Kendallville road for the burial of his brother Alfred’s child, the first death in the township, and it grew into a cemetery; a later one was laid out near the Rehobeth Church.
Jefferson Township voted a tax in 1872 to help build the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which began running in 1874. “There are no towns or villages in Jefferson Township,” the 1920 history says; Albion lies against its western edge. The 2020 census counted 1,551 people in the township.
