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The Early Years
About one million years ago when the climate began to
cool, ice sheets formed. The Illinois and Wisconsin glaciers, often a mile thick, covered the Huron County area carrying rocks from Canada and the Adirondacks, limestone and other foreign materials which they mixed and crushed as the ice sheets moved southward and then retreated. The scouring action of the glaciers rounded the hills and filled in the valleys with rich composite soil or till. The till in Wakeman is 15 to 40 feet deep. When the Wisconsin glacier receded it left a new land behind. It had created some of the most productive land in the country, which greatly influenced the settlement and economic development of this area. |
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It is believed that human beings first appeared in this
area about 10,000 years ago. Mounds found in Huron County are thought to belong to Erie or Whittlesey Culture Indians. In 1654, tribes of Ohio Indians who had been living here for six hundred years were exterminated or dispersed by the Iroquois Confederacy. It was about 1750, just before the white man entered Ohio, that the Wyandots, Ottawas, Delawares, Senecas, and Chippewas returned to Ohio territory. Despite various claims of Europeans to Ohio land, these Indians regarded it as theirs. |
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The French claimed this area by right of exploration.
The English claimed it by right of charter. Kind James I issued a charter for a Connecticut colony in 1662. Its western boundary was the Pacific Ocean. When the English won the land as a result of the French and Indian war, Ohio territory was open for settlement. But British land policy failed to keep peace with the Indians. For a while the Ohio Territory was part of Quebec. |
