Upper Sandusky is a city in and the county seat of Wyandot County, Ohio, United States, along the upper Sandusky River. The city lies approximately 59 miles (95 km) south of Toledo and 62 miles (100 km) north of Columbus. The population was 6,698 at the 2020 census.
The city was founded in 1843 and named for an earlier Wyandot village of the same name, which was located nearby. Despite what its name may suggest, Upper Sandusky is actually about 55 miles (89 km) southwest of the city of Sandusky. It was named "Upper" because it is located near the headwaters of the Sandusky River, which flows downriver through the city of Sandusky and empties into Lake Erie.
At a Glance
- County: Wyandot County
- County seat of Wyandot County
- State: Ohio
History of Upper Sandusky
Upper Sandusky was a 19th century Wyandot town named for its location at the headwaters of the Sandusky River in northwestern Ohio. This was the primary Wyandot town during the American Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783), and was sometimes also known as Half King’s Town, after Dunquat, the Wyandot "half king". The town and the surrounding settlements, like Captain Pipe’s Town, were closely allied with the British at Fort Detroit. During the Crawford expedition of 1782, Pennsylvania militiamen sought to destroy the town after the Wyandot began killing American settlers in the region, but were defeated en route.
After the war, in September 1783, a number of Native Americans met at Upper Sandusky and formed the Western Confederacy, a confederation intended to resist U.S. expansion into the Northwest Territory. The Northwest Indian War followed.
In the War of 1812, the village became the site of Fort Feree (or Ferree) on a bluff overlooking the flood plain of the Sandusky River The Fort was built in late 1812 by Pennsylvania militia led by Lieutenant Colonel Joel Ferree, by order of General William Henry Harrison.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Upper Sandusky, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.