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

Novelty, Ohio

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1906 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Russell Township. It lies in ZIP code area 44072. The Survey maps it on the South Russell quadrangle. It stands 3,488 feet above sea level.

Novelty within Geauga 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 Novelty, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of Novelty, surveyed 1906

Topographic sheets covering this place

15 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Russell township, in the words of 1880.

1880, Russell Township

The Great Freshet

On the morning of September 13, 1878, the Chagrin river rose higher than it had ever been known to rise before. It had been raining steadily for three days, the rain falling in torrents on the night of the twelfth. The destruction of property was very great Cattle, sheep, fences, fields of grain, mill-dams and bridges were swept away.

Read the rest of this passage

In the 1880 county history

6,754 words on this township

The county history of 1880 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for the smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Russell Township covers the township.

Read the chapter on Russell Township - 6,754 words.

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 2,735 shown

Museums hold 2,735 specimens collected within 10 miles of Novelty between 1887 and 1975: 2,672 Animalia, 56 Plantae, 7 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Hoenigman, A. M. Evans, A. Woolman 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Riparia riparia riparia (Linnaeus, 1758)Riparia riparia riparia (Linnaeus, 1758)1891Fred Haggart
Specimen of Medeola virginiana L.Medeola virginiana L.1895Watson,J.R. s.n. [1895-06-30][label: Herbarium of J.R. Watson, Berea, O.] Geauga Co. [County]
Specimen of Scapania undulata (L.) Dumort.Scapania undulata (L.) Dumort.1896Edo N. ClaassenThompson Ledges
A photograph of the species Dryopteris marginalis, not of this specimenDryopteris marginalis (L.) A.Gray1887Leonard, F.E.Munson
A photograph of the species Etheostoma caeruleum, not of this specimenEtheostoma caeruleum Storer, 18451893A. WoolmanAurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio
A photograph of the species Etheostoma nigrum, not of this specimenEtheostoma nigrum Rafinesque, 18201893A. WoolmanAurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio
A photograph of the species Nocomis micropogon, not of this specimenNocomis micropogon (Cope, 1865)1893A. WoolmanAurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio
A photograph of the species Noturus flavus, not of this specimenNoturus flavus Rafinesque, 18181893A. WoolmanAurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio
A photograph of the species Rhinichthys atratulus, not of this specimenRhinichthys atratulus (Hermann, 1804)1893WoolmanAurora branch of Chagrin River, Ohio
A photograph of the species Cypripedium reginae, not of this specimenCypripedium reginae Walter1896J. R. WatsonGeauga
A photograph of the species Cypripedium parviflorum, not of this specimenCypripedium parviflorum Salisb.1897J. R. WatsonMunson
Ranunculaceae1897Ashcroft, G.B.Munson O.

All 2,735 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms nearby

4 since 1998

The National Weather Service names Novelty in 4 storm reports between 1998 and 2026: 3 hail, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
March 2026Tornado (EF1)Novelty$30,000An EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 100-mph impacted the Chesterland area. Radar data indicate this was a rare anticyclonic tornado. The tornado began just northeast of the intersection of Watt Road and Fairmount Road, where a large barn had its roof collapse. As the tornado moved generally eastward, it downed several large pine trees onto a house along Fairmount Road, about halfway between Watt and Sperry Roads, but there was no obvious damage to the home. A power pole was snapped in half at this same location. Farther east along Fairmount Road, the tornado downed additional large pine trees. One of the trees fell onto a home and caused some roof and gutter damage. The tornado ended soon thereafter, just west-northwest of the intersection of Fairmount and Rockhaven Roads.
August 2011HailNovelty-Penny to quarter sized hail was observed.
August 2011HailNovelty-Quarter sized hail was reported.
May 1998HailNovelty-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Geauga 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Briar Hill Corners0.3 miles15
Chesterland1.9 miles13
Scotland2.2 miles13
Russell Center2.2 miles15
Fullertown2.2 miles15
Chester Center2.7 miles13
Beudale (historical)3.5 miles15
Yates Corners3.5 miles15

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 NoveltyAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q48834283The 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 1049029. 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.