The following is a data base that Dianne Kline and I (Mary Williams) have made to help locate the schools in Defiance County. It really is a work in progress for which we need a lot of help on many of the townships. When we began this project, in our ignorance, we though there would be only nine schools in each township logically and chronologically numbered, since there had been a law that said schools should be no further than two miles apart. As it turned out, some townships have had at least 14 schools and not at all logically numbered! In order to help locate the schools in Defiance County, we relied especially on two maps-- 1876 and 1890. After that, w e added schools as other knowledgeable persons identified and located them for us. From our initial research of the schools, we discovered that in many cases the names of the same schools changed from one generation to another. Also, apparently as an older school fell into disrepair, a new school might be built across the road or on an opposite corner so that a school's section number might have changed even though it retained the same district name/number. We also have discovered that the district number of the school may have changed throughout the years.

If you have any information or memorabilia/pictures we might copy, please contact either of us at the e-mail addresses below. In addition to the data base, we also have placed folders of individual schools at the Defiance Public Library with copies of information such as memory booklets, or pictures that people have let us copy. -Dianne Kline and Mary Williams, Jan. 2002

Dianne Kline, dijimkline@gmail.com

Mary Williams, marywil@bright.net