Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Chatham, Ohio

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1904 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Chatham Township. It lies in ZIP code area 44275. The Survey maps it on the Lodi quadrangle.

Chatham within Medina County

Then and now

1904 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 82 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Chatham, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of Chatham, surveyed 1904

Topographic sheets covering this place

12 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

947 words on this township

Pioneer History of Medina County, published 1861 names this settlement in its chapter on Chatham Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Chatham township was organized Dec. 5, 1833. The first township officers were Nedabiah Cass, Joel Lyon, and Irani Packard, trustees. At the first election there were only eleven voters, to wit : Gay lord C. Warner, Joel Lyon, Nedabiah Cass, Moses Parsons, Barney Daniels, Amasa Packard, Ebenezar Shaw, Amos Utter, Iram Packard, Harvey Edwards and Thomas F. Palmer. Six of which in 1861, are yet residents in the township.

Passage source: Pioneer History of Medina County, published 1861.

The first couple married were Henry K. Joline and Eleanor Parsons, in 1820, and thirteen years prior to the organization of the township. A messenger traveled through to Sullivan, a distance of fourteen miles without any horse, and piloted Esquire Close through the woods to Chatham to tie the marriage knot. When Esq. Close started for Sullivan, he came to the sage conclusion to go the trail to Harrisville and from there by another trail tojjhis home, rather than to venture fourteen miles travel through woods.

Passage source: Pioneer History of Medina County, published 1861.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Chatham Township - it names this place 2 more 2 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 339 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 339 specimens collected within 10 miles of Chatham between 1884 and 1975: 307 Animalia, 17 Plantae, 14 Fungi, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Roberts, B Zahuranec & party, B.J. Zahuranec and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Contopus virens (Linnaeus, 1766)	1890	not recorded
Camptosorus rhizophyllus (L.) Link	1894	Watson, J.R.	Medina Co.
Hinea Townsend, 1916	1897	J. Hine	Medina
Sciurus niger Linnaeus, 1758	1884	unknown	Medina
Halictus confusus confusus	1885	H. E. Summers	Medina
Lilium canadense L.	1888	E. Barrick	Chatham
Plantago cordata Lam.	1891	F. E. Lloyd	Selsville, north of Columbus
Aleurodiscus oakesii (Berk. & M.A.Curtis) Cooke	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Atrichum angustatum (Brid.) Bruch & Schimp.	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Lobaria amplissima (Scop.) Forssell	1894	Francis D Kelsey	Penfield
Mnium stellare Hedw.	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Mycosphaerella macularis (Fr.) J.Schröt.	1894	Kelsey F. D.	Penfield

All 339 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this place

10 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Chatham in 10 storm reports between 2001 and 2025: 6 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2001	Tornado (F2)	Chatham	$1,000,000	A tornado touched down along New London Eastern Road near Pawnee in southwestern Chatham Township. The tornado then traveled northeast for approximately 7.5 miles before dissipating along State Route 83 about three miles north of Chatham. The damage path was intermittent and approximately 250 feet in width. A new home was completely destroyed near the location of the initial touchdown. A truck nearby was thrown 500 feet by the tornado. A church and parsonage were damaged along Old Mill Road. The tornado then struck an alpaca farm along State Route 83 north of Chatham and destroyed three barns and damaged several other outbuildings. Several garages and a home were damaged elsewhere along the damage path. Over three hundred trees were knocked down and two cars destroyed.
September 2002	Hail	Chatham	$10,000	Walnut size hail was observed.
April 2002	Hail	Chatham	$5,000	Dime size hail was reported north of Chatham near Litchfield.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Chatham	$2,000	Thunderstorm winds downed several large tree limbs north of Chatham in Litchfield Township.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Chatham	-	Trees snapped and shingles ripped off the roof at a residence about five-miles north of Lodi. Damage caused by outflow-dominant showers.
August 2014	Hail	Chatham	-	Penny sized hail was observed.
June 2013	Hail	Chatham	-	Penny sized hail was observed.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Chatham	-	Thunderstorm winds were estimated to be at least 60 mph.
August 2011	Hail	Chatham	-	Quarter sized hail was observed.
August 2003	Hail	Chatham	-	Penny size hail was observed.

Every storm recorded in Medina County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Geisingers Corners (historical)	1.7 miles	12
Risley (historical)	2.7 miles	11
Pawnee	3.5 miles	12
River Corners	3.8 miles	12
Pine Villas	4.1 miles	12
Evergreen Estates	4.3 miles	12
Lodi	4.6 miles	12
Litchfield	4.7 miles	11

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Chatham	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q22133644	The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1065958. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.