Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Canaan Township

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Canaan Township

28% of Canaan Township’s homes were built before 1940

Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1913 on, and old-book passages.

0on the National Register
28%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
From Canaan Township’s archive · credits on each photo

What stands out about Canaan Township’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

★ What stands out · Help out

Start Canaan Township’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Canaan Township’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds

Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.

Marits
1833–1907
Climax
1881–1929
18301930today
Hamlets and corners on the map
ClimaxDenmark
Gone or out of use
Beech Grove SchoolschoolClimx Post Officepost officeCohan SchoolschoolNorth Canaan SchoolschoolSalem SchoolschoolWest Salem SchoolschoolWorden Schoolschool
4cemeteries and burying grounds inside Canaan Township
North CanaanRiceSouth CanaanWorden

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

On the map

Canaan Township on the map, 1913 to 1972

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Canaan Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Canaan Township on the 1913 USGS mapCanaan Township on the 1943 USGS mapCanaan Township on the 1961 USGS mapCanaan Township on the 1972 USGS map1913Mount Gilead sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Canaan Township.

The story so far

Canaan Township, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Canaan Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Canaan Township is one of the sixteen townships of Morrow County, Ohio, United States. The 2020 census found 900 people in the township.

Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 963 to 900 (-7%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Canaan Township in 1880

Passages that mention Canaan Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Canaan Township originally embraced the territory at present forming four townships : Tully, Scott, and Claridon Townships, in Marion Co., and what is now Canaan Township, in Morrow.
History of Morrow County and Ohio1880 · page 472Read the page →
Read the text

Canaan Township originally embraced the territory at present forming four townships : Tully, Scott, and Claridon Townships, in Marion Co., and what is now Canaan Township, in Morrow.

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Canaan Township originally embraced the territory at present forming four townships : Tully, Scott, and Claridon Townships, in Marion Co., and what is now Canaan Township, in Morrow.
History of Morrow County and Ohio1880 · page 472Read the page →
Read the text

Canaan Township originally embraced the territory at present forming four townships : Tully, Scott, and Claridon Townships, in Marion Co., and what is now Canaan Township, in Morrow.

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Timeline

Canaan Township, 1833 to 1929

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1833Post officeThe Marits post office opens
  3. 1881Post officeThe Climax post office opens
  4. 20th century
  5. 1907Post officeThe Marits post office closes
  6. 1913On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  7. 1929Post officeThe Climax post office closes
By decade

Canaan Township, decade by decade

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Canaan Morrow
Retake this viewCanaan Morrow

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Canaan Township’s page.

Retake this view · +15
Famous people

Famous people close to Canaan Township

Nobody well known was born in Canaan Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.

See all →
Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Questions about Canaan Township’s history

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (2), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.