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Franklin Township is a civil township located in Portage County, Ohio, United States. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio on the western edge of the county. The 2000 census found 5,276 people in the township and 5,527 at the 2010 Census. The township is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area and the larger Cleveland-Akron-Canton Combined Statistical Area. Franklin Township was originally surveyed as Town 3 Range 9 as part of the Connecticut Western Reserve and was purchased by Aaron Olmsted in 1798. It was one of the first civil townships organized in the Western Reserve and initially covered a large area. The township was named by Aaron Olmsted after his son Aaron Franklin Olmsted. It was first settled in 1805 by John Haymaker and its government structure, which consists of three township trustees, was established in 1815. Today Franklin Township is a mostly rural area largely associated with the neighboring city of Kent as the two share a common history, public school district, ZIP code, and fire department. ==Name and history== The area that makes up Franklin Township was originally inhabited by a number of American Indian tribes including the Mound Builders who built a burial mound in the eastern part of the township sometime during the 1st century in what would become Towners Woods Park. Captain Samuel Brady crossed the area around 1780 as part of his campaigns against an unknown tribe, escaping by leaping the Cuyahoga River in present-day downtown Kent and hiding in Brady Lake. In 1796 the area was surveyed by the Connecticut Land Company as part of the Connecticut Western Reserve. The original survey township was known as Town 3 Range 9 and contained and of land. Aaron Olmstead of East Hartford, Connecticut purchased this township at a cost of 12.5 cents an acre and named it for his son Aaron Franklin Olmstead.〔 ''Comes from page 24 of the ''Combination Atlas Map of Portage County'' by L.H. Everts, published in 1874, which is included as part of the 1978 Atlas''〕 It is one of twenty-one Franklin Townships statewide. In 1802, much of the original Trumbull County, which covered the entire Western Reserve, was organized under the name of Franklin Township. The area under the Franklin Township name included all of present-day Portage County and much of present-day Summit County as well as parts of present-day Trumbull County. The following year, the township was surveyed into individual lots. At the formation of Portage County in 1807, Franklin Township included what would become Brimfield, Charlestown, Ravenna, and Rootstown townships.〔〔Brown & Norris, p. 195〕 The first settlers arrived in November 1805 when John Haymaker and his family moved west from Warren to the banks of the Cuyahoga River. They were joined by John's brother George and their father Jacob Haymaker and their families early the next year, and built a gristmill in 1807. Initial growth in the area was slow, but eventually two small villages would develop due to the potential power generated by the Cuyahoga River that could be used in gristmills and manufacturing. The first village, known as Franklin Mills, or locally as the "Lower Village", developed mostly around the original Haymaker property. In 1818, Joshua Woodard arrived in the area and began constructing buildings just north of the village forming the "Upper Village" that would come to be known briefly as Carthage.〔Brown and Norris, p. 435 "...the twin settlements were known respectively as "Upper Village" and "Lower Village." The name Carthage was afterward applied to the Upper Village."〕 In the 1820s, Franklin Township was included in the route of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal (P & O Canal). When construction began on the canal in the mid-1830s, land speculation was rampant in many areas of northeast Ohio along the canal, including Franklin Mills. As a result, an industrial and business region was established along the east side of the river in what is now downtown Kent. Factories and mills were either planned or constructed along the Cuyahoga River, some of which either were never built or ultimately failed, due mostly to effects of the Panic of 1837.〔Grismer, pp. 19–25〕 The canal officially opened in 1840, but it would be relatively short-lived, lasting into the 1860s. By 1870 the canal was completely shut down. During this time, what would become the Franklin Township Hall was constructed in 1837 as the intended home of the Franklin Silk Company. The company failed before the building was finished so the township took over the building, finished construction, and began using it for the seat of township government beginning in 1840. In 1851, the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad was built across the northern part of the township with a station at Earlville, a small settlement that once existed along present-day State Route 43 north of Kent. Though the railroad did little in terms of spurring economic development in the township, it would indirectly lead to later economic and population growth. The creation of what would become the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad under the direction of Marvin Kent began that year after Kent was upset by the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad bypassing Franklin Mills. The arrival of the Atlantic and Great Western in the township in 1863 and the establishment of Franklin Mills as the site of the railroad's maintenance yards and shops the next year fueled a new spurt of prolonged economic and population growth in the village, culminating in it being renamed Kent in 1864 and formally incorporating in 1867.〔Grismer, p. 29〕〔Grismer, p. 37〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Franklin Township, Portage County, Ohio」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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