Congress, Ohio

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1906 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Congress Township. It lies in ZIP code area 44287. The Survey maps it on the West Salem quadrangle. 132 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,161 feet above sea level.

Congress within Wayne County

Then and now

1906 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 88 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Congress, surveyed 1994

Topographic sheet of Congress, surveyed 1906

Population over time

2 figures

Congress fell from 185 to 132 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	185
2020	132	-53 (-29%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 surveys from 11 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.

1906 USGS West Salem quadrangle1:62500
1908 USGS West Salem quadrangle1:62500
1950 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
1961 USGS West Salem quadrangle1:24000, 2 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

3,379 words on this township

History of Wayne County, Ohio, from the Days of the Pioneers and the First Settlers to the Present Time, published 1878 names this settlement in its chapter on Congress Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Reminiscences of Congress Township by Hon. Michael Totien and James Carlin. - In 1815 the first families moved into what is now Congress township. Some time during the first week in February Michael and Henry Totten accompanied George and Isaac Poe, and cut a trail from Wooster to where the village of Congress stands, which at that time was all forest, the lands having not been entered. We encamped with George Poe, about one-half mile from the village, until we could erect a cabin, which we built on section 27, on the lands owned by John Garver. When we got our cabin completed, some time during the month of February, 1815, Henry and myself went to Wooster and moved our mother and our sister Catharine the first two white women in the township) and all the household furniture on a sled from Wooster to our cabin.

Passage source: History of Wayne County, Ohio, from the Days of the Pioneers and the First Settlers to the Present Time, published 1878.

On the first of» April following George and Isaac Poe and other families came into the township and settled upon the same section. The same spring Peter Warner, with his family, moved into the south-west corner of the township. In 1816 Matthew Brewer and James Carlin, with their families, moved to the same farms upon which they lived till their deaths.

Passage source: History of Wayne County, Ohio, from the Days of the Pioneers and the First Settlers to the Present Time, published 1878.

The next to come were George Aukerman and John Nead, with their families. After this period emigrants came in so fast and settled in such widely different parts of the township that it would be impossible to trace them, or where they located. The first white person who died was Mrs. Amasa Warner, and the second my mother. The first school ever taught was by John Totten in the first cabin built. George Poe was the first Justice of the township. The first school-house was built in 1819, on the south-west quarter of section 37. The first year after moving into the township my brother Henry and I cleared five acres and planted it in corn, which we cut off in the fall and put down in wheat, and which was the first corn and wheat raised in the township. Game was very plenty, and for some time after our arrival it was our chief article of food. We could not raise hogs or sheep after our settlement, as they would be devoured by wolves. One winter we had twelve sheep enclosed in the same lot in which the house stood, thinking they were safe, and that the dogs would guard them, but a herd of wolves, during the night, assailed them and destroyed eleven ; the remaining and last one escaped, and running into the house, awoke the family, but the hungry scavengers of the woods had fled. The next day, there being snow on the ground, I pursued them as far as the Harrisville Swamp, in Medina county, but got no opportunity of shooting at them. Near this swamp were encamped about 30 or 40 Indians. Among other early settlers of the township were John Jeffrey, Walter Elgin, David Gardner, Jacob Holmes, Jacob Shellebarger, Peter and Samuel Chasey, G. W. Howey, David Nelson, the father of James Grimes, James Boyd, Hector Burns, Samuel Sheets, N. N. Perrine, A. Yocum, John Vanasdoll, Rev. John Hazard and family, Isaac Matthews, and others.

Passage source: History of Wayne County, Ohio, from the Days of the Pioneers and the First Settlers to the Present Time, published 1878.

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 Congress Township - it names this place 13 more 13 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 180 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 180 specimens collected within 10 miles of Congress between 1896 and 1973: 127 Animalia, 47 Plantae, 4 Fungi, 2 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A C ALLEN, Bruce Fink, Bruce, J. A. 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
Cercosporina apii (Fresen.) Miura	1896	Selby A. D.	Creston
Aster vimineus Lam.	1897	Selby, A.D.; Thorne, B.H.	New Pittsburg road
Carya glabra (Mill.) Sweet	1897	Selby, A.D.	New Pittsburg Road
Pseudoperonospora cubensis (Berk. & M.A.Curtis) Rostovzev	1897	Selby, A. D.	Creston
Carex platyphylla J.Carey	1898	Selby, A.D.	Fort Hill
Carex rosea Willd.	1898	Selby, A.D.	Fort Hill
Carex scoparia Schkuhr ex Willd.	1898	Selby, A.D.	Fort Hill
Solanum carolinense L.	1898	Duvel, J.W.T	Creston
Aureolaria virginica (L.) Pennell	1899	Selby, A.D.; Duvel, J.W.T	Little Killbuch
Betula alleghaniensis Britton	1899	Selby, A.D.; Duvel, J.W.T	Little Killbuck
Brachyelytrum erectum (Schreb.) P.Beauv.	1899	Selby, A.D.; Duvel, J.W.T	Little Killbuck
Digitaria ischaemum (Schreb.) Muhl.	1899	Selby, A.D.; Duvel, J.W.T	Peewee Hollow

All 180 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this place

8 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Congress in 8 storm reports between 2002 and 2022: 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. 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	Congress	$75,000	A severe thunderstorm tracked east across Wayne County during the evening of the 10th. The thunderstorms took down numerous trees, large limbs, and power lines along a path from just south of Congress through Wooster to around Orrville. A large tree was reported to have fallen onto a house, and another fell onto a car. Some of the damaged utility poles caught on fire. The most concentrated reports of damage came from an area from the northern side of Wooster to as far north as Smithville. Some of the areas affected during this event were coincidently hit by a tornado on November 12, 2003.
June 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Congress	$10,000	Thunderstorm winds downed trees near Congress and Creston.
June 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Congress	$7,500	Side of barn damaged and windows blown-out per photos. Damage occurred about four-miles ESE of Congress.
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Congress	$5,000	Thunderstorm winds downed a large tree in Congress and a second tree in Wooster.
November 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Congress	$3,000	Thunderstorm winds downed a tree near Congress and a second near Rittman.
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Congress	$2,000	Thunderstorm winds downed large tree limbs in Congress and Wooster.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Congress	$1,000	Thunderstorm winds downed one tree.
May 2007	Hail	Congress	-	Quarter size hail was observed.

Every storm recorded in Wayne 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
Armstrong	2.4 miles	11
Aukerman	2.8 miles	11
Pleasant Home	3.1 miles	11
West Canaan	3.4 miles	16
Golden Corners	3.8 miles	16
Cedar Valley	4.0 miles	11
West Salem	4.4 miles	11
Lattasburg	4.4 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 Congress	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2672962	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 1060994. 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.