Ottawa (Ohio)

Ottawa is a village in and the county seat of Putnam County, Ohio, United States. The population was 4,460 at the 2010 census.HistoryThe region was originally inhabited by the Wyandot tribe and by the Ottawa tribe. In 1817, a large tract of land in Northwestern Ohio was ceded to the United States, and Blanchard's Fork Reserve was established, until the Reserve was ceded and extinguished in 1831, and Ottawa population on that Reserve removed to Kansas in 1832. Within the Reserve, two Ottawa villages existed, of which the Lower Tawa Town became the Village of Ottawa, Ohio.In 1792 Major Alexander Truman, his servant William Lynch and guide/interpreter William Smalley were sent by George Washington on a peace mission. Truman and Lynch were killed; Truman was apparently killed prior to April 20, 1792 at what later became Ottawa, Putnam County Ohio. A similar mission under Colonel John Hardin also ended in Hardin and his servant Freeman being murdered in Shelby County.Among the early settlers of the Ottawa area was Henry Kohls, who arrived in 1835 and settled with his family in the village of Glandorf. In the early 1900s, his grandsons, Charles and Frank, were each elected Putnam County treasurer in successive two year stints. Notably, while serving as treasurer they each appointed the other as their chief deputy.