Brownhelm Township, Ohio
Brownhelm Township is one of the eighteen townships of Lorain County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,877.
Brownhelm was the first local government of any kind in the United States to elect a black man to public office; on April 2, 1855, John Mercer Langston, a black man from Virginia, became town clerk. He later became a United States congressman.
Geography
Located in northwestern Lorain County along the shores of Lake Erie, it borders the following townships and cities:- Lorain - northeast
- Amherst - east, north of Amherst Township
- [Amherst Township, Lorain, Ohio|Lorain County, Ohio|Amherst Township] - east
- New Russia Township - southeast corner
- Henrietta Township - south
- Florence Township, Erie County - southwest corner
- Vermilion Township, Erie County - west
Name and history
It is the only Brownhelm Township statewide.Brownhelm Township was "founded" in 1816 but judicially established in 1818. Some historians assert that the name "Brownhelm" was derived from the word holm, added onto the surname "Brown", referring to Col. Henry Brown, who founded the settlement in 1816. Alternatively, the name refers to the fact that Brown was "at the helm" of his settlement. The first pioneer-settlers within present-day Brownhelm Township in 1816 were Peter P. Pease, and Daniel T. Baldwin. Due to the 19th-century practice of excluding single men from the definition of "settlers", these two men were not credited at the time as the first settlers of the township. As a result, modern historians have commonly attributed the "first pioneer-settlement" of Brownhelm Township as being in 1817.
Notable person
- Burt Shotton, former Major League Baseball player and manager