The first settlement at Metamora was made in the 1830s. A post office called Metamora has been in operation since 1841.
The name of Metamora is from a very popular 1829 play titled Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags, by John Augustus Stone, that had a stage run over 60 years. This play inspired four new Midwestern towns to adopt the name Metamora — Metamora, Ohio in the 1830s, Metamora Township, Michigan in 1838 after the 1836-37 Toledo War caused the removal of Metamora from Michigan Territory to Ohio, Metamora, Indiana also in 1838, and Metamora, Illinois in 1845.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Metamora. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1911Swanton 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 Metamora.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Metamora, 1905–1920
Passages that mention Metamora, cut from the printed page as they were published.
A standard history of Fulton County, Ohio, an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county1920 · page 316Read the page →
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As before narrated, Frank O’Neil, in the ’thirties, built the first house, or log cabin, within what eventually became the boundaries of the village of Metamora, but no movement toward founding a village began for many years. Hezekiah Culver and Delbert Compton may be given the places of honor as the main founders of Metamora, although Jonathan Saunders was stated to have been one of the original proprietors of the village. It was in 1845 that the first impetus came in the erection then by Culver and Compton, or by Culver with the
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A standard history of Fulton County, Ohio, an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county1920 · page 318Read the page →
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How Metamora came to be so named is not on record. For very many years it was the only post-office in the township; in fact until 1880, when Siney post-office was established to serve the western part of Amboy. The post-office for the eastern half of Amboy, and the first to be established was situated about one-half mile west of Metamora, stated Lewis S. Hackett. Continuing, he gives the information that: “Morev S. Potter was postmaster. This office supplied mail to patrons for several miles away, in all direction. We (the Hackett
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he located in Sandusky, Ohio, which was then a mere village, and he was there employed at his trade for the ensuing four years, at the expiration of which, in 1856, he came to Fulton county and located in the little town of Metamora, where he continued in the work of his trade five years, as a contractor and builder as well as general workman. He then purchased thirty acres of land in Section 17, Amboy township, reclaiming and improving the same, to which he later added by the purchase of a contiguous tract of twenty acres, and still later he
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of Amboy township, where he reclaimed a fine farm from the virgin wilds, and of this old homestead his son, Edgar H., now owns one hundred acres, eligibly located, one and one-half miles south of the village of Metamora. John W. Ritchey retired from the farm in the autumn of 1888 and took up his residence in Metamora, where he was successfully engaged in general merchandise business until the time of his death, which occurred February 14, 1900, at which time he was seventy-four years of age. His widow still resides in
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Metamora, 1841 to 1911
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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 (6), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), 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.
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