Portage Township was one of the sixteen original townships in
Summit County, Ohio. It was located in the middle of Summit County. It included the cities/towns of
Akron
Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...
and
Cuyahoga Falls
Cuyahoga Falls ( or ) is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 51,114. The second-largest city in Summit County, it is located directly north of Akron and is a suburb of the Akron metropol ...
as well as an earlier part of
Middlebury. Eventually, the township was absorbed by Akron and Cuyahoga Falls and ceased to exist.
When created, it was in area and included Survey Town 2, Range 11 in
Western Reserve
The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. The Reserve had been granted to the Colony under the terms o ...
. The township derived its name from the
Portage Path, which extends north to south through the middle of the township.
Geography
Portage Township lays between the other original townships of
Copley,
Northampton
Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...
,
Tallmadge, and
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
. In time, several villages were established within Portage, including the village of
Middlebury in the southeast, Akron in the south and Cuyahoga Falls in the northeast.
History
The first white settler who settled in Portage was Major Miner Spicer in 1810, in "
Spicertown", now located at the corner of Spicer and Carroll streets Ohio. The township was formally organized at a meeting held in the house of
Warren H. Clark in 1838 with first offer:
* Trustees:
Wm. B. Mitchell,
Simon Perkins, Jr., George Babcock; Clerk,
Horace K. Smith
* Treasurer,
Samuel A. Wheeler.
In the early days, Portage Township was sparsely populated. Most of the land was titled to one landholder,
Simon Perkins General Simon Perkins (September 17, 1771 – November 6, 1844) was an early settler, businessman and surveyor of the Western Reserve of Connecticut, which would later become northeast Ohio. He co-founded Akron, Ohio with Paul Williams in 1825. H ...
, and the land was not easily arable due to variable terrain.
The history of Portage Township is challenging to reconstruct, since it is often considered as an appendage to the town of Akron.
Counties
Portage Township's land has been in the following counties:
References
* Author unknown, (1999-2005)
County Formation Maps Retrieved May 2, 2005.
* Grant, C.R., Findley, A.I.; (1891). Illustrated Summit County, Ohio (1992 reprint). Hudson, Ohio: Hudson Genealogical Study Group.
*
*{{cite book , author=McGovern, Frances , title=Written on the Hills: The Making of the Akron Landscape , location=Akron , publisher=The University of Akron Press , year=1996 , isbn=1-884836-21-6
Geography of Summit County, Ohio
Defunct townships in Ohio