[Photo:  Melrose (Ohio). 1890 circa. Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University (OH). Ohio Memory Project.]

Statistics (from 1882)
The population of the county in 1830 was 161; in 1840, 1,034; in 1850, 1,766; in 1860, 4,945; in 1870, 8,544; in 1880, 13,489.  Number of acres of arable or plow land as returned in 1880, 47,199. Number of acres meadow or pasture land, 7,230. Number of acres timber land, 205,970. Total number of acres in county, 260,399.

Click on the following links to read more history:

Geographic Position

Introductory History

Early Settlers

Formation

Soil and Timber

Canals and Railroads

Manufacturing

Offices

County Officers

War Record

Press

Source:  History of Paulding County by Prof. Everett A. Budd as printed in the Historical Hand-Atlas:  History of Northwestern Ohio and History of Paulding County, Ohio. H. H. Hardesty & Co., Publishers:  Chicago and Toledo. 1882.

Helpful Links

Ohio Historical Society

Paulding County 
Genealogy Society

Ohio Memory Scrapbook

Paulding County 
Carnegie Library

Formation, Organization and Extent
The Indians of Northwestern Ohio, having ceded their lands to the United States, the Legislature of that State, by an act of February 12, 1820, proceeded to divided the newly acquired territory into counties, of which Paulding county is one, and dates its formation from the above-mentioned year.  The county was named in honor of John Paulding, a native of Peekskill, New York, and one of the captors of the brave but unfortunate Andrew.

The base line from which the surveys of the public lands were made was established in May, 1819, by Sylvanus Bourne.

The township lines were established in 1820, by Alexander Holmes, Samuel Holmes and others; and in 1821-22 the townships were subdivided into sections by James W. Riley and his assistants.

The county of Williams was organized February 2, 1824, and Paulding county was attached to it for judicial purposes, until its own organization in 1839.  On March the 4th, 1815, by an act of the Ohio Legislature, the county of Defiance was formed.  Its territory was composed of eight townships taken from Williams county, three from Henry, and a half township from Paulding.  The formation of this new county reduced Paulding to its present shape, which, were it not for this half township taken from its northeastern corner, would be a rectangle, extending east and west, twenty-four miles in length, and eighteen in width.  Its present boundaries embrace ten full townships, six miles square, and Emerald township, containing thirty-tow sections, and Auglaize township, containing twenty-two; in all an area of 416 square miles.

First Court and County Seats
Following the organization of the county, the first Associate Judges, Nathan Eaton, Gilman C. Mudgett and John Hudson, met in the Fall of 1839, and appointed H.N. Curtis Clerk, pro tem, and Andrew J. Smith, Sheriff.  The first court was held in the Spring of 1840, at the village of new Rochester, with Hon. Emery D. Potter as the Presiding Judge.  The writer has no means of giving a synopsis of the business transacted at that court, as the records have not been preserved.  The village was situated on the south bank of the Maumee, about a mile north of the present village of Cecil.  It was at that time the most flourishing place int he county, containing about thirty or forty families, three hotels, three store-room, two blacksmith shops, two tailor shops, and was passed by daily stages that ran on a route from Toledo to Fort Wayne.  But now its buildings have rotted away, its once busy streets have become deserted, and the cereals area grown upon its sunny slopes; naught but an old moldering schoolhouse remains to mark the location of Paulding county's first place of transacting county business.

From New Rochester the county seat was established at Charloe, and the court and county business removed to that place in the year of 1841.  The village was laid out by Benjamin F. Hollister, and was pleasantly located on the left bank of the Big Auglaize. A neat, commodious brick court house was erected, with county offices below and court room above.  It is yet standing, but in a dilapidated and decaying condition.

Some of the early settlers of Charloe were John W. Ayres, G.H. Philips, John H. Taylor, A.H. Palmer, and the Hankins and Kingery families. Its site was that of an old Indian town, where Oquanoxa, an Indian chief, lived with about six hundred Indians (a portion of the Ottawa tribe), before they were removed beyond the Mississippi.  Charloe's location is a beautiful one, its scenery is picturesque and grand, and at one time it was a busy and enterprising village, but, like New Rochester, when shorn of its county-seat honors, the star if its destiny went down, and decay was imprinted upon its bosom; many of its first buildings have crumbled to dues and only a few families remain to tell the story of its former greatness.

Paulding, the third and present county-seat of the county, was laid out by George March, August 10, 1850; Ezra J. Smith, surveyor.  It is located on the left bank of Flat Rock, or Crooked Creek, one and a half miles north of the geographical center of the county.  By a special act of legislature the county-seat was located there in 1851, and the county business was  removed from Charloe in the Spring of that same year.  The site was selected in consequence of its central position.  At first it was in the midst of a heavy forest and almost without roads or communication with the "outer world."  Many of its first county officers lived in log cabins  Its courthouse was a hastily constructed two story frame and was burned down January 2, 1868.  It was supplanted soon after with a neat one-story frame in which the courts are still held.

The jail was constructed of hewn logs, and was used until 1876, when a large substantial brick one was erected.  The county offices are in a brick building erected for that purpose.

Paulding has a population of 800, and is fast taking rank as a manufacturing town; if no withering blights fall upon it as upon the other county-seats its future will be full of hope, bright and promising, even as it is at the present writing.