History of Paulding County Sheriff's Office
Compiled by Sheriff David I. Harrow and former Sheriff Robert Iler, February 10, 2000: “We have gathered a large amount of information about the Sheriff’s Office and the past Sheriffs. We hope to publish a larger version with more pictures and articles as they become available.”
The Office of Sheriff
The Office of Sheriff was created in 1792 when the first Sheriff was appointed by Northwest Territorial Governor St. Clair. Under the 1802 Ohio Constitution the office became an elective post; the original two-year term was extended to four years in 1936.
The duties of the Sheriff have remained unchanged since the creation of the office. The Sheriff is required to attend the Court of Common Pleas, Court of Appeals, County Court, and upon request, the Probate Court. In addition to insuring that order is maintained throughout these court proceedings, the Sheriff is empowered to adjourn the Court of Common Pleas if the judge fails to appear, and the Court of Appeals if a quorum is lacking.
Presently, the Sheriff serves all warrants, writs, subpoenas, and other orders from the Court of Common Pleas, Court of Appeals, County Court, Juvenile Court, and Probate Court. Warrants issued by the Governor are executed by the Sheriff’s Office, which also serves writs and subpoenas issued by various state officials and boards.
In 1805 the Ohio General Assembly defined additional duties of the Sheriff: to preserve the peace by suppressing riots, unlawful assemblies and insurrections, to act as the official custodian of the county jail to apprehend and incarcerate all felons and traitors, to serve as county executioner (until 1886), to enforce the election laws at the request of the board of elections or the Secretary of State, to be present at all drawings of jurors, and to serve notice upon jurors.
Today, the Sheriff possesses jurisdiction coextensive with the county boundaries, including all municipalities and townships. In municipalities, the Sheriff and Mayor hold equal authority as law enforcement officers under state law.
Jail history, from the 1892 Paulding County Atlas
The first jail in the county was a small brick one erected in Charloe in
- It was not a very substantial building, and its walls have long since fallen down and crumbled away. The second jail was erected on the southeast corner of the court yard in Paulding, shortly after the removal of the county seat to that place. It was built of hewn logs closely fitted together. But escapes from the jail were frequent enough that a new and more substantial one became necessary, and on May 7, 1874, notice was published for six consecutive weeks announcing the commissioners’ intention to build a new jail.
The contract for a new jail and Sheriff’s residence combined was let shortly after. The building was not completed until 1876, at a cost of about $25,000. The basement is of cut limestone, above which are two stories of brick with stone trimmings — regarded as one of the securest jails and most convenient Sheriff’s residences in Northwestern Ohio. It is located on Williams Street, about one-half block south from the southwest corner of the Court House yard.
The Tunnel Story
It has long been rumored that a tunnel was constructed between the Courthouse and the jail for the purpose of taking prisoners back and forth to the courts. This story has been researched and no plans or talk of construction have been located. The jail was completed in 1876. When the Courthouse was completed in 1888, the jail was connected to the water cistern on the third floor of the Courthouse to furnish water to the jail by an underground pipe — the only known connection between the two buildings. An unattributed county history typescript elsewhere in this archive gives the exact completion date (May 24, 1888) and the building’s total cost: $42,524.29.
Sheriffs of Paulding County, 1837–1992
A.J. Smith (appointed 1837) · Ephriam Burwell (appointed 1841) · Matthew Fleming (elected 1843) · Wm. K. Daggett (1847) · Thomas C. Banks (1849) · John Crossen (1853, 1855) · Isaiah Richards (1857) · Freeborn Mellinger (1861) · Fielding S. Cable (1863) · Andrew J. Meng (1865) · Jasper A. Fergerson (1869/1877) · Dr. Hiram Ayers (1873) · Samual J. Tate (1879) · David W. Parr (1883) · Edward C. Swain (1887) · John J. Clark (appointed 1889) · A.H. Saylor (1889) · Edward Staley (1891) · Charles E. Hakes (1895) · Henry B. Wilson (1897) · T.W. Poorman (1899, 1902) · Henry Betts (1904) · Chancy Vogel (1908) · Frank Zuber (1912) · Vern Shirley (1916) · Clair Hughs (1920) · H.D. “Doc” Betts (1924) · Frank Jackson (1928) · Irvin Shaw (1930) · Arthur Betts (1934) · Roy Bates (1940) · Frank Wallar (1948) · John L. Keeler (1952/1972) · F. Paul Carnahan (1968) · Steven Porter (1984) · Michael Lee (1988) · Robert Iler (appointed 1992) · David Harrow (elected 1992)
John L. Keeler holds the record for longest service as sheriff, at 28 years.
First Sheriff: Andrew J. Smith
Among the early settlers of Paulding County was A.J. Smith, born in 1810 in New York, son of Thomas and Jane (Jones) Smith, who moved to Indiana when he was a boy. In 1856 he came to this county and purchased a farm of 76 acres, which he cleared and improved. He was the first Sheriff of Paulding County, a Republican. He married Catherine Bogert in 1857; they had nine children. Sheriff Smith is buried in Diehl Cemetery, Allen County, Indiana.
Sheriff John Crossen, killed in the Civil War
About 1851, John Crossen and his wife Annie homesteaded a farm where Oakwood is now located, building their house near the present American Legion Hall. About 1852 they opened a store in one room of their house. Crossen was elected Sheriff of Paulding County in 1853. He enlisted in Company F, 38th Regiment and rose to the rank of Captain before he was killed in the Civil War, in 1864.
Captain Crossen was wounded in a charge at the Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia, September 1, 1864, and died September 10, 1864. This was the severest engagement in which the company participated during the war, with losses in killed and wounded numbering nearly one-half of the officers and men engaged in the hand-to-hand struggle. Sheriff Crossen is buried in Marietta National Cemetery, Section G, Grave 8319, Marietta, Georgia.
The 1899 Poorman-Wilson election dispute
Sheriff T.W. Poorman probably had the most difficult time in assuming his elected office of any elected official in the history of Paulding County. In the 1899 election Poorman defeated incumbent Sheriff Henry B. Wilson, to everyone’s amazement. Wilson’s friends in the county government did everything possible to keep Wilson as Sheriff.
The Paulding Republican newspaper, January 1900, ran this story under the headline “DASTARDLY: Is the Attempt of the Democrats to Steal the Office of Sheriff” — subheaded “On the Merest of Technicality, the Commissioners Declared the Sheriff’s Office Vacant and Appointed Henry B. Wilson to fill the Vacancy” and “People of all Parties Condemn the High-Handed Proceeding as Being Unjust and Unprecedented”:
Poorman had moved into the jail preparatory to assuming office and presented his $25,000 bond, secured by the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. of Baltimore, on Monday, January 1st. The Commissioners were not present that day, so the bond was given to the Prosecuting Attorney, who endorsed its legality. On Tuesday, when the Commissioners arrived, they refused to accept the bond, claiming it was not filed within the time prescribed by statute, declared the office vacant, and appointed Henry B. Wilson. The paper argued Poorman had complied with the spirit and intention of the law, having tendered his bond before he attempted to transact any business as Sheriff. A petition in mandamus was filed in the Supreme Court to compel the commissioners to accept Poorman’s bond.
Note: After a brief legal battle with the Commissioners, Sheriff Poorman assumed his duties in March 1900 and was elected to a second term in 1901.
From the Commissioners’ Journal
1862, Sheriff F.T. Mellinger: “The Board of Commissioners finding that F.T. Mellinger, County Sheriff, has taken more than ordinary care of the Court House yard in preventing animals from pasturing or running in it, therefore the Board give him the privilege of cutting and appropriating to his own use the grass now growing on the same.”
1876, Sheriff H.M. Ayres: “The Board orders and directs that the Sheriff of Paulding County Ohio proceed to cause the old jail privy to be torn down, and fill the vault up and well cover the same using lime or some disinfectant in doing so if it may be found necessary. And if it is necessary, and cannot be done without, to cause a small and cheaply privy to be erected at some convenient and not too conspicuous place upon the Court House Square.”
Record of persons sentenced to be executed, Ohio Penitentiary, Dec. 21, 1894
Charles Hart, No. 26131, County of Paulding. Convicted of murdering Ashby and Elsie Good, November 14, 1894, by striking them in the head with a club and cutting their throats with a butcher knife. Hart, who was 17 years of age, was playing in the woods with the Good children. Hart made an assault with the intent to commit rape upon Elsie and to prevent information from being made against him of the fact of the assault. He persuaded the little boy and girl to permit him to tie their hands with cord, telling them that it was in fun. After having tied their hands, he struck each of the children on the head with a club and afterward cut the throat of each of them from ear to ear with a butcher knife. He also, with the same knife, disemboweled both of the children and then made an unsuccessful attempt to burn the bodies.
This official state record names the victims (Ashby and Elsie Good) and describes Charles Hart acting alone with a clear motive. It’s worth weighing directly against the “Jim Powell” account elsewhere in this archive’s source material, which frames the same 1894 case very differently and implies the wrong person may have been executed — see this repository’s ROADMAP for that pending review.