ABOUT

Sugar Creek Township is one of the sixteen townships of Wayne County, Ohio, United States. It is one of five Sugar Creek Townships statewide. The 2000 census found 6,502 people in the township, 4,897 of whom lived in the unincorporated portions of the township.

NAME AND HISTORY

It is so named because the North Fork of Sugar Creek flows through the township.

The first person to settle in this area of Ohio was James Goudy in 1808. He established a lumber mill along the banks of Sugar Creek in the northeast part of Sugar Creek township. Between 1808 and 1810, a road was cut through the densely-forested land from Canton to Wooster. In 1812, four townships were created in Wayne County, Sugar Creek, Wooster, Mohican, and Prairie. In 1814, the Church of Sugar Creek was organized and in 1817 the village of Dover (part of present-day Dalton, OH) was surveyed.

In 1819 the village of Jericho (near present-day Kidron, OH) was established in the southwestern part of Sugar Creek township. These settlers were Mennonites from the canton of Bern in Switzerland. 

In 1821 there was one house in the area now known as Dalton and one tavern, the Eagle House, site of the present-day Dalton Historical Society.  The post office in Dover was established in 1825.  In March of 1828, a village called Sharon was surveyed to the west of Dover and the area between Dover and Sharon was surveyed as Middletown in December 1828.  These three communities ceased to exist when they combined into the village of Dalton in 1854.

A village called Moscow was surveyed at the intersection of Kidron Road and Old Lincoln Highway and was recognized as a village from 1889-1903. 

The village of Jericho was repeatedly flooded out and eventually abandoned during the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Merchants moved their businesses about a mile away to the site of Kidron which appears first on the 1897 map of Wayne County.

Sources:

  • “History of Wayne County”, 1878, Ben Douglass.
  • “Brief Historical Memento of Dalton, Ohio”, August 8, 1940, Carl Lawrence and Dean Norris.
  • Wooster Daily Record, Monday, January 10, 1949.
  • Wooster Daily Record, Tuesday, September 23, 1957.

GEOGRAPHY

Located in the eastern part of the county, it borders the following townships:

  • Baughman Township – north
  • Tuscarawas Township, Stark County – east
  • Sugar Creek Township, Stark County – southeast
  • Paint Township – south
  • Salt Creek Township – southwest corner
  • Green Township – northwest corner
  • East Union Township – west

The village of Dalton is located in northern Sugar Creek Township, and the unincorporated community of Kidron lies in the southwestern part of the township.

GOVERNMENT

The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees, who are elected in November of odd-numbered years to a four-year term beginning on the following January 1. Two are elected in the year after the presidential election and one is elected in the year before it. There is also an elected township fiscal officer, who serves a four-year term beginning on April 1 of the year after the election, which is held in November of the year before the presidential election. Vacancies in the fiscal officership or on the board of trustees are filled by the remaining trustees.