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When Richland County was separated Knox County in 1813, There were 25 congressional townships that had 36 “sections” which were a square mile each. Then, in the 1840s, there was a mania for county formation, and portions of Richland County were taken to create Ashland, Morrow and Crawford Counties. All of Orange, Montgomery, Vermilion, Green, Hanover, and Congress were transferred but portions of several others (Auburn, Vernon, Sandusky, Bloomfield, Troy, Perry, Clear Creek, Mifflin, and Milton) stayed in Richland County.

Since some townships had been reduced to a few sections, the County Commissioners combined them with larger, neighboring township. Then, the maps were redrawn so several new townships were created, especially north of Mansfield. So the remainder of Auburn Township was attached to part of Plymouth Twp. The rest of Plymouth Twp was renamed “Cass Twp.” Then, part of Bloomingrove Township was attached to the remainder of Clear Creek to create “Butler Twp.” The sections of Vernon Twp that stayed in Richland County were attached to the westernmost part of Sharon Twp. The new entity was called “Sharon Township.” The rest of old Sharon Township became “Jackson Twp.” Some sections from Franklin Twp were added to the remainder of Milton to form Weller Twp. Two sections from Bloomfield Township were attached to Sandusky Twp. Oddly enough, the residual of Mifflin Twp was not added to another township.

In 1856, then, Richland County had the following townships: Plymouth (Auburn); Cass (Plymouth); Bloomingrove; Butler (Bloomingrove and Clear Creek) Sharon (Vernon); Jackson (Sharon); Franklin; Weller (Franklin and Milton); Mifflin; Madison; Springfield; Sandusky (Plus Bloomfield); Troy; Washington; Monroe; Perry; Jefferson; and Worthington. Since some of the new township included part of two congressional townships, there amy be two sections with the same numbersome of them have two of the same section numbers, which can be confusing.

Sometimes, the names that were written on the map were difficult - or impossible- to read. Thus, “Illegible” means that I could not decipher the name; [?] Means that the name may not be correctly spelled, or an alternative spelling seemed likely; Letter followed by . . . means that I could not decode the name, other than the first letter or two.

I’m certain that are there errors in the data, but I hope it is still helpful.

All of the township chopping meant that some townships have 2 of the same section numbers. In order to differentiate one from another, the database records, 1) the original twp with its section #; 2) the current township and it section. To simplify the data, I started at the most northeast section and proceeded to the furthest northwest section.