Pre-Lenape Indigenous Populations
The area now occupied by Wooster originally served as the hunting ground for the Eriehronon, more simply known as the Erie. It is estimated that, by 1656, the Iroquois League had come to the area and scattered the Erie tribes from the area.1 While fleeing west from European settlement, they encountered nations of the League, pushing them even farther west into the land once occupied by the Eriehronon.2 When settlers arrived they encountered a hunting land shared by the Deleware, Shawnee, and Wyandot.3
For more on the indigenous populations of Ohio, see the Ohio Historical Society’s online exhibit, Virtual First Ohioans.
1 Lindsey Wilger Williams, Old Paths in the New Purchase, (Wooster, OH: Atkinson’s Printing, Inc., 1983).
2 “Deleware Indians,” Ohio Historical Soeicty, accessed 6/13/2013, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Delaware_Indians.
3 Paul Locher, When Wooster Was a Whippersnapper: Two Hundred (or so) yarns about Wooster for Two Hundred Years, (Wooster, OH: The Daily Record, 2008).