When he caught up with him he leaped on his back, but Hammond, undaunted by the additional weight, continued running. Eleazer unfortunately chose to chase the larger of the two, Lewis Hammond. They were summoned to appear before the Justice of the Peace, but upon reaching the outside of his house and seeing Eleazer, they lost their courage and took off in opposite directions. Two men, Lewis Hammond and Isaiah Fowler had tipped over Eleazer’s sled as a practical joke. Eleazer was small in stature and not well liked. The first constable, Eleazer Rice, was also involved in the first case of assault in the township. Partial records have shown that Jonathan Hale and Jason Hammond were early trustees, but the exact dates of their terms of office are not known. The first constable, who was appointed by the trustees, was Eleazer Rice. Henry Hutson, who served as the first Justice of the Peace. The early township records have been lost, but only one of these first officials has been positively identified, this is Dr. Three trustees, a clerk, and a justice of the peace served as the elected officials. The township government was patterned after the local form of government with which the settlers had been familiar in Connecticut and the other New England states. Finally Jonathan Hale, another early settler, rose and exclaimed, “O, call it Jerusalem, Jericho, Bath, or anything but Hammondsburgh!” The motion was quickly passed and the township adopted the name of Bath, which, if nothing else, placed it first in the alphabetical listing of the county townships. The question of a new name then came up at one of the town meetings but discussion dragged on and was seemingly endless. The area had originally been known as simply Number 3, Range 12, of the Western Reserve, but this was superceded by Wheatfield, and then Hammondsburgh, after one of the early settlers. This history behind the township’s name is an interesting story in itself. The first permanent settlers, Jonathan Hale and Jason Hammond came five years later, and eight years after that, in 1818, the township was officially organized. The region, which is now known as Bath, wasn’t officially owned by the government until the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805. There are 13,040 township governments in the United States.
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