Claridon, Ohio

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1913 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Claridon Township. It lies in ZIP code area 43314. It stands on Otter Creek. The Survey maps it on the Denmark quadrangle. It stands 984 feet above sea level.

Claridon within Marion County

Then and now

1913 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 81 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Claridon, surveyed 1994

Topographic sheet of Claridon, surveyed 1913

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 13 printed 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.

1913 USGS Mount Gilead quadrangle1:62500
1916 USGS Mount Gilead quadrangle1:62500
1943 USGS Mount Gilead quadrangle1:62500
1950 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
1961 USGS Denmark quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
1962 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
1966 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1986 USGS Mansfield quadrangle1:100000
1994 USGS Mansfield quadrangle1:100000

In the county-history sources

79,933 words on this township

The History of Marion County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns, Churches, Schools, Etc; General and Local Statistics; Military Record; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio, published 1883 names this settlement in its chapter on Claridon Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

INDESCRIBABLE thoughts and feelings are awakened in the mind and heart of one, when contemplating the mighty work done by the fearless, hardy and brave army of pioneers, whose untiring efforts have subdued the mighty forests of this county and caused her waste places to smile in the sunlight of Heaven and yield an abundance of grain and fruit, and who have cleared her myriads of hills and valleys, which are annually covered with rich harvests or crowned with green pastures. To the early settlers of Claridon Township who endured the privations incident to establishing homes in a new and unbroken country, and who bravely battled to remove her majestic forests and to make it possible to cultivate her fertile plains are due their full portion of credit and the everlasting gratitude of their posterity.

Passage source: The History of Marion County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns, Churches, Schools, Etc; General and Local Statistics; Military Record; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio, published 1883.

Claridon was taken from the territory of Canaan Township and was one of the first townships organized in Marion County. Although there is no entry od the records of the county defining clearly its exact limits as first created, yet there is no doubt but that it has always included the constitutional requirement of territory - a full surveyed township of six miles square; and although Scott Township has made repeated efforts to obtain its northern tier of sections, they have always proved unavailing, and to-day this township remains as one of the only two townships containing the full constitutional area in Marion County. Just how fierce the struggle was on the part of the people of Claridon Township, to retain their full territory, or just how vigorous and determined the efforts were on the part of the citizens of Scott to obtain the northern tier of sections, we are, at this late date, unable to chronicle; but a simple record of the proceedings will show that repeated efforts were made, and that they were invariably resisted. The residents on the territory in controversy were divided in their opinions as to the propriety of detaching these six sections from Claridon and attaching them to Scott Township, as will appear from the following entry taken from the record:

Auditor and Commissioners' Office, Marion, Marion County, Ohio, March 7. 1848. This day came Lawrence Van Buskirk and others, being a majority of the householders residing within the boundary of the portion of Claridon Township hereinafter named, and made application, by petition, for an alteration of the boundaries of the townships of Claridon and Scott, as follows, to wit: To attach to the said 'township of Scott one tier of sections from off the north side of said township of Claridon, and it appearing to the satisfaction of the Commissioners that legal notice had been given, and that all things appertaining to said application have been done in due form of law, it is ordered that the said one tier of sections from off the north side of said Claridon Township be and the same is hereby attached to the township of Scott.

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 Claridon Township - it names this place 113 more 113 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 313 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 313 specimens collected within 10 miles of Claridon between 1837 and 1975: 299 Animalia, 8 Plantae, 6 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Ogilvie, Acker, G., Baumgartner, L. 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
Sagittaria latifolia Willd.	1837	Frank B
Sicyos angulatus P.J.Bergius	1837	Frank B	in civitatate Ohio
Catocala habilis Grote, 1872	1959	not recorded	Camp Owens
Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop.	1919	W. J. Campbell	Edison
Fusarium culmorum (Wm.G.Sm.) Sacc.	1919	Lewis H. L.	Marion
Helminthosporium teres Sacc.	1919	MCFARLAND F. T.	Marion
Puccinia rubigo-vera var. tritici (Erikss.) Carleton	1919	MCFARLAND F. T.	Marion
Photinus pyralis (Linnaeus, 1767)	1923	not recorded	Marion
Rallus limicola limicola Vieillot, 1819	1923	Lyle D. Miller	Claridon, Lake Aquilla
Buteo jamaicensis borealis (Gmelin, 1788)	1924	Lyle D. Miller	Claridon
Acris crepitans Baird, 1854	1929	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard)	Grand Twp: along Tymochtee Cr., Marion Co., Ohio
Rana clamitans Latreille, 1801	1929	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard)	Montgomery Twp.: Tymochtee Creek trib., Marion Co., Ohio

All 313 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Claridon: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Fire Clay (Refractory). Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Caledonia Plant	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Marion County

Storms near this place

3 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Claridon in 3 storm reports between 2002 and 2025: 3 thunderstorm wind. 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
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Claridon	$12,000	Thunderstorm winds downed a couple trees and several large limbs in Claridon. Two vehicles were damaged by fallen limbs.
May 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Claridon	$10,000	Thunderstorm winds downed several trees.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Claridon	-	Line of thunderstorms generated a 73-mph peak straight-line convective wind gust (measured) at River Valley High School in the Caledonia area.

Every storm recorded in Marion 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
Beech (historical)	2.0 miles	13
Wood Valley	2.7 miles	13
Highlands of Marion	3.8 miles	12
Crystal Lakes	3.9 miles	12
Caledonia	4.0 miles	12
Logan (historical)	4.3 miles	12
Yorkshire Terrace	4.4 miles	12
Air View Acres	4.8 miles	12

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 Claridon	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q14716392	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 1056804. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.