The Huron River is a waterway in the north central Ohio in the United States. The watershed drains large portions of Erie County and Huron County, the northeast corners of Seneca County and Crawford County, and northern portions of Richland County. The mouth is on Lake Erie at the city of Huron. The main branch of the river is formed when the East and West branches merge near Milan. The East Branch, long, rises west of Fitchville and flows west to North Fairfield, where it bends north and flows through Peru and Norwalk before reaching Milan. The West Branch is long. It rises about south of Greenwich and four miles east of Shiloh, near the intersection of Gilger Road and Noble Road in northern Richland County's Blooming Grove Township. This is within a few miles of the headwaters of both the southwest branch of the Vermilion River and Shipp Creek, which is part of the Ohio River watershed via the Black Fork, Mohican, Walhonding, and Muskingum rivers. The West Branch of the Huron flows north and west from Blooming Grove Township through Huron County's Ripley Township, then back into Richland County's Cass Township and into Plymouth. It is here where the river bends north to flow across the Richland/Huron county line into Huron County's New Haven Township and into New Haven. It passes to the east of Willard, although other tributaries rise north of Willard. Still in Huron County, the West Branch continues north through Greenfield Township, Peru Township, and Ridgefield Township. The West Branch continues north into Monroeville and through the balance of Ridgefield Township. Next, the river crosses from Huron County into Erie County and then bends in an easterly direction through southern Oxford Township before reaching the confluence with the East Branch in the Milan State Wildlife Area.
Tributaries
Note: Willard Marsh, within the Willard Marsh State Wildlife Area, feeds into both the West Branch of the Huron River and the Honey Creek tributary of the Sandusky River. Also, there are numerous creeks, streams, and ditches that are unnamed tributaries in the Huron River basin.
Similarly, the West and East branches have been referred to as the West and East forks.
Also shown on early maps as named the "Guahadahuri".
The word "Huron" refers to a Native-American tribe who were also known as the Wyandots. This tribe had many villages in the area of Sandusky Bay, in the latter-1700s.
The Huron River had been given that name by European explorers at least by 1778, when it appears as such on a map by Hutchins. A much earlier map, by Evans in 1755, names it as the "Guahadahuri". Also in 1755, Pennsylvanian James Smith, who had been captured by Native-Americans and brought to this river to live among them, recorded the river's name as the "Canesadooharie". Whichever one, or both, "guahadahuri" or "canesadooharie", was the more phonetically accurate of a Native-American word, but the word's translation seems lost to obscurity. In 1760, explorer George Croghan refers to the name of this river, also phonetically from its Native-American/Chippewa tribe name, as "Notowacy Thepy"; John Heckewelder recorded it as "Naudowessie Sipi", meaning "the River of the Huron tribe". Some maps of the later-1700s also show the Huron River as "Bald Eagle Creek"; named for a large eagle's nest at its mouth at that time.
In 1787, the Moravian missionary, David Zeisberger, led a group of Christian-converted Native-Americans from their settlement on the Cuyahoga River, to a new settlement called first Petquotting on the Huron River, about 3 miles north of Milan, Ohio. They remained until 1791 when forced by local Native-American unrest, they relocated to Canada; but in 1804, some of the Christian-converted Natives, under the direction of G.S. Oppelt, returned to a new different settlement here and it eventually became the village of Milan, Ohio.
Throughout the latter-1700s, the northern part of the river was a well-known outpost for many French-Canadian traders, including Gabriel Hunot who ran an Indian-trading-post there in the 1780s, and the later John B. Flammand about 1805. ---
Road intersections
West Branch
Here is a detailed account of which roads cross over the West Branch of the Huron River; beginning at the headwaters near Shiloh in Richland County and ending at the confluence with the east branch near Milan in Erie County. Richland County Blooming Grove Township
Noble Road
Pennel Road
Baseline Road
Huron County Ripley Township
Ashland Railway, formerly CSX Transportation/Baltimore and Ohio
Confluence with the east branch of the Huron River
East Branch
Here is a detailed account of which roads cross over the East Branch of the Huron River; beginning at the headwaters near Fitchville in Huron County and ending at the confluence with the west branch near Milan in Erie County. Huron County Fitchville Township
Confluence with the west branch of the Huron River
Main Stem
Here is a detailed account of which roads cross over the main stem of the Huron River; beginning at the confluence of the East and West branches near Milan in Erie County and ending at Lake Erie near Huron in Erie County. Erie County Milan Township
Norfolk Southern Railway, formerly Conrail/New York Central
Lake Erie
Other information
At one point in Huron County's Peru Township, the East and West branches are only separated by approximately. This is near the intersection of Johnson Road and Peru Center Road.
An area near the confluence of Seymour Creek and the West Branch is said to be haunted. This area also has history from the War of 1812 era.
