The Pioneers who founded Columbia Township (the first settlement west of the Cuyahoga River) in 1807 were rugged, religious and persevering - but they were also gamblers. They had acquired their land in a lottery that cost them $20,087 to enter.
The Connecticut Land Company owned this Western Reserve section when Ohio became a state in 1803. After the treaty with the Indian nation in 1805, surveying began on land west of the Cuyahoga River. Before any settler came, each Township was laid out in blocks five miles on a side. Each Township contained 100 lots of 160 acres each.
Ohio's Western Reserve looked like the promised land to the Bronson and Hoadley families of Waterbury Connecticut. They formed the Waterbury Land Company and raised the $20,087 needed to buy a Township, and sold all their mapped lots before they even knew which Township they would draw.
On April 4, 1807, they paid their money and drew a numbered piece of paper to see which Township they had purchased. (All the land in Lorain, Medina and Huron Counties was sold that way.) The elder Bronson son and a crew of men were the first to arrive. It was September 4, 1807 before the other families (8 men, 7 women and 18 children) set out from Waterbury, Connecticut, for their trip West. The Columbia Historical Society can provide many fascinating stories from their eventful trek to Cleveland, where most of the party wintered, and eventually to Columbia.
By the summer of 1808, there were eight cabins in Columbia and the Bronsons opened the first school. That same year, the first gristmill was set up and the first township government established. To Sally Bronson went the honor of naming our Township and she called it Columbia after her hometown in Connecticut.