Evidence of both Prehistoric People and Native Americans has been found in the area. Paleoindians are believed to have hunted at Old Woman Creek and Hopewell burial mounds have been found along the Huron River. There were also accounts of a mound near the mouth of Sawmill Creek. Native American artifacts have been discovered for years in Huron Township farm fields and along the Huron River. (Video: Story of Ogontz)
This effigy pipe was uncovered at the two Esch Mounds in 1930 at a farm on Mudbrook Road near Thunderbird Golf Course. The farm was owned by Dr. J.P. Esch. a Huron physician and son-in-law of Jabez Wright and later farmed by Louis Enderle. The two mounds were built around A.D. 590 by the Hopewell. The mounds were partially excavated by a Huron Boy Scout troop and then by archeologists from the Ohio History Connection. The Hopewell buried their dead in the mounds with ornaments and tools. Twenty skeletons were found along with flint and stone tools, ceramic jars and ornaments. The pipe and other artifacts are on display at the Ohio History Connection Museum in Columbus.After the Great Peace of 1701 in Montreal, which was a peace treaty between the Iroquois Confederacy and the French, and their Indian allies Native Americans settled in Ohio. Prior to that time the Iroquois had prevented other tribes from moving into the state. By 1775 there were about 9,000 Native Americans living in Ohio, but with the increasing numbers of white settlers, most of the Indians were driven out of the state by the 1840s.The 1795 Treaty of Greenville marked the beginning of the systematic loss of Native American land.The 1805 Treaty of Fort Industry (near Toledo) required the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee, Delaware, Potawatomi and Shawnee tribes to relinquish 500,000 acres of land south of Lake Erie and west of the Cuyahoga River.The Treaty of Ghent in 1814 ended the War of 1812, and with it the removal of all British soldiers from U.S. territory. The loss of British support left the Indians powerless to defend their territory against the encroaching Americans.
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