Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1975. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Franklin Township Hall, also referred to historically as the "Town Hall", is a town hall located in Kent, Ohio, United States, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building, located along Gougler Avenue in central Kent near the Cuyahoga River, was built in 1837 and has served as the seat of government for Franklin Township since 1840.”
Wikipedia article Franklin Township Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 42 National Register listings in Portage County · listed in 1975 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.75001525- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The ground it stands on
3,758 words
The chapter on Kent City in A Visitation of the County of Kent, published 1906 names Kent. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
Stowe MS. 621 in the British Museum, formerly the property of John Holland, is described in the catalogue : « Original Pedigrees of Kentish Families to 1663 (in which year Bysshe made a Visitation of the County), with the signatures of members of the several families, f. 2," and on the title page is written " A peice of the Visitation of Kent." This manuscript contains sixteen pedigrees in the same handwriting as the Heralds' College copy, and all signed by the heads of the families or their representatives, whereas the pedigrees of the same families lare not signed in the College copy, so it would seem that some of the original pages had been mislaid and a copy substituted for them in the official copy in the College. These pedigrees are marked (Stowe MS. 621) in the reference.
These complaints were delivered to Sir Edward Bysshe by his own request by Sir Edward Walker, Garter King of Arms.* He appaiently disregarded them, for at fo. 100 we find that an order was made by James, Earl of Suffolk, deputy to the Earl Marshal, prohibiting Sir Edward Bysshe to make airy new Visitations until he had rectified the errors and defects of the books of his Visitation of Kent (among others). There is in Add. MS. 22,883 a summary of the alleged errors in this Visitation, as follows : - have been done." It is curious to note that these complaints were mostly made between 1670 and 1674, whereas the Visitation is said to have been finished in 1668, but there is no further reference to them in the correspondence. Sir Edward Bysshe died in 1679.f
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 770 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Franklin Township Hall between 1883 and
1975: 498 Animalia, 232 Plantae, 33 Fungi, 5 Unrecorded, 1 Protozoa, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. D. Huryn, A. F. Clewell, A. K. Wyatt 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
12 workings within 5 miles of Franklin Township Hall: 5 past producers, 5 producers, 2 plants.
7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Kent, the town this property stands in, in 34 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 25 thunderstorm wind, 8 hail, 1 flash flood.
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.
A thunderstorm downburst with winds estimated at 85 to 95 mph hit the west side of Kent. The area affected by the downburst was one quarter wide mile and approximately a mile in length. Several hundred trees and 40 power poles were downed. A total of 25 homes were damaged including four that were declared unhabitable. In addition, a camper and over a dozen automobiles were crushed by fallen trees. Widespread power outages occurred and a state of emergency was put in effect because of the widespread and severe damage.
Widespread flash flooding in Kent and Ravenna. Several roads flooded and impassable with several feet of standing water, including OH-59 between downtown Ravenna and OH-44. Dispatch received 30 calls to assist motorists stranded in flood waters. Widespread basement flooding reported. Radar estimates and gauge measurements indicate 3 to 3.25 inches of rainfall in a two hour period.
Thunderstorm winds downed between 15 and 20 trees in Kent and surrounding Franklin Township. Two houses in Kent were damaged by fallen trees. Both houses sustained roof damage with one also having a wall knocked down.
Members of the public and social media indicated tree damage in Kent. Two trees were downed on Riverbend Trail and three trees were downed in Artemis Drive Park.
Trained spotter's personal weather station recorded a peak convective gust of 80 mph about 1.5-miles southwest of Kent. Numerous large trees were snapped in the area.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
2,094 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
Franklin Township Hall is a 2-story, 3-bay facade, brick building. The earlier window. A fire escape leads from it. only remaining original feature is the open, curving stairway in the CONDITION RUINS XALTERED DETERIORATED EXCELLENT DESCRIPTION FAIR CHECK ONE are two original inside chimneys along each side of the building.An southeast corner of the building. The interior has been extensively remofeled after a serious fire.Its brick is painted white.All windows have green shutters and are 6/6 pane, one doorway which is on the west side, second floor and replaces an - UNEXPOSED - UNALTERED earlier belltower has been replaced by a modern octagonal, louvered cupola.
The rear of the building has four openings, three windows and The with plain stone lintels and sills.Window sashes are replacements.The DATE. AREAS OF
Statement of significance
for the building was Zenas Kent, a locally prominent builder. The when James A. Garfield was nominated as an Ohio Senator, an event COMMERCE ECONOMICS PHILOSOPHY TRANSPORTATION ART PERIOD ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC EDUCATION SCIENCE 1600-1699 ENGINEERING RELIGION THEATER PREHISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE 1900- AGRICULTURE LITERATURE SCULPTURE CONSERVATION INVENTION EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT INDUSTRY MILITARY XARCHITECTURE ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC the first Roman Catholic Church services in the village were held The well-preserved and cared for Township Hall building is important which marked the beginning of his political career. contractor was Fredrick Wadsworth. Mr. Nathan Button designed the The structure was originally planned in 1836 as headquarters for to Franklin Township and to the City of Kent.
for the Kent city board of education. -1700-1799 the Franklin Company.Failure of the local alpaca mills in the A major event took place in the Franklin Township Hall in 1859 over by the township and completed as a township hall.Architect -1400-1499 Local History -MUSIC - LAW College. From 1954 tothe present it served as executive offices 1837 there. From 190l-1936 it served as a summer school for Kent State hall from 1840-1867.School was taught there in 1842 and in 1851 9
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75001525, 11 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
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