Fulton County, Ohio

NAMED FOR: Robert Fulton,
Inventor of the Steam Boat
ORGANIZED: February 28, 1850
ESTABLISHED:  By Act - April 1, 1850
2004 EST. POPULATION: 42,919
LAND AREA: 406.8 Square Miles
COUNTY SEAT: Wauseon

On the 28th of February 1850, the General Assembly of Ohio, by an act erected the County of Fulton with its present boundaries, from Lucas, Williams and Henry Counties.

All the criminal and civil suits which were and should be pending in the Counties of Williams, Lucas and Henry on the first Monday in April 1850, were to be prosecuted to final judgment in said counties as though said County of Fulton had not been erected.

All Justice of the Peace were to hold their offices until their service expired or until their successors were elected or commissioned for the County of Fulton.

All writs or other legal processes were to be styled as of the County of Fulton, on and after the first day of April, 1850.  The legal voters residing within the limits of said County were to assemble on the first Monday in April, 1850, to elect officers of the County to serve until the next annual election in  October, 1850.  And the Courts were to be held at some convenient house in the Township of Pike, the place to be designated by the associate Judges of said County, until a permanent seat of justice shall be established within and for said County.

Laurens Dewey of Franklin County, Mathias H. Nichols, of Allen County and John Riley, of Carroll County, were appointed by the legislature of Ohio, Commissioners to fix and locate the seat of Justice in said new County of Fulton.

Accordingly under the provisions of this act, the people of both political parties met in convention at the house of Daniel Knowles, in Pike Township, about the last of March 1850 to nominate officers of the county to be supported at the April elections. This convention was not fully characterized for harmony of purpose but in consequence of the weakness of the then old whig party to succeed in the election of a party ticket, they quietly submitted to a portion of the choice of said convention.  That Convention made a choice of Mortimer D. Hibbard, of Dover, for Auditor; George B. Brown of Royalton, was chosen Sheriff; C. C. Allman of Delta, was chosen recorder; Nathaniel Leggett of Swan Creek, was chosen Treasurer; William Sutton, of Gorham, Christopher Watkins, of Fulton, and Jonathon Barnes, were chosen commissioners, and duly elected and qualified as officers of said new county, and severally entered upon the duties of their respective offices.  The place having been fixed temporally for the business of the County at the house of Robert A. Howard, in Pike under said act creating the new County of Fulton.  Nathaniel Leggett, of Swan Creek, John Kendall, of Franklin, & Alfred C. Hough, of Chesterfield,   were chosen the first Associate Judges. Nathaniel Leggett refused   to serve, Socrates H. Catley, of Swan Creek, was appointed to fill his place.  Samuel Durgin, was appointed Clerk, and John A. Read, Prosecuting Attorney, and in the fall of 1850, Alfred C. Hough was elected to the Auditor's office and resigned his judgeship, and William T. Parmalee, of Chesterfield, and A. M. Flickinger of Gorham, filled said office successfully until the change in the Constitution of the State, in 1851.