Trumbull County, Ohio

No Native American settlements have ever formally been identified in Trumbull County. Early settlers did believe they noted an ancient village site in Kinsman Township, a more contemporary site in Hartford Township, and several strange stone constructions were noted in the Black Ash Swamp by early Bristol residents, now known as the Grand River Preserve. Many presumably different groups of Native Americans were still frequenting camps in the vicinity of Newton Falls and near the Champion Township–Warren Township border when U.S. settlers first began to settle there. Several of the names of specific Native persons are echoed across most of these early residents' histories, namely Cadashaway, Paqua and Kiogg. A memorial stone piles believed to have been Native in origin was situated on the west bank of the Mahoning River, but was later removed for construction purposes.^[5]

Before 1600, the area was ambiguously between the territories of the Erie people to the east and the Whittlesey culture to the west. It is unknown precisely where one tribe's territory ended and the other began. After the Beaver Wars, the area was frequented by traveling Lenape, Wyandot, Ottawa, Shawnee and Seneca, who all had settlements nearby for a time and shared the valley's animal, food and medicinal resources. They also regularly panned for salt in the marshes. The Natives collectively used this area as a shared hunting ground, but had to give up ownership of the region for settlement as punishment for participating in the Northwest Indian War.^[6]

In the early years of the European discovery and exploration of the New World, the land that became Trumbull County was originally claimed by French explorers as part of colonial New France. Their settlements had some fur traders who interacted with Native American tribes in this area. After losing the Seven Years' War to Great Britain, France ceded the territory in 1763, which became the Province of Quebec.

Following the United States' victory in the American Revolutionary War, the British ceded the land including modern Trumbull County. It was part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a region claimed by the Connecticut Colony and later state of Connecticut. As first organized, Trumbull County consisted of the entire area of the Connecticut Western Reserve before population increased, and it was divided into smaller counties. The county's largest city, Warren, was originally founded as the capitol of the Western Reserve territory.^[7] Connecticut relinquished its claim to some of the lands in 1786, but retained ownership of the eastern portion south of Lake Erie. It sold much of the Western Reserve in 1795 to a group of speculators who operated as the Connecticut Land Company; they sold it in portions for development by new settlers.^[8][9]

Early residents reported that Native Americans still frequented the area until roughly 1811. Some of the final Native residents were camped along the Grand River in Mespotamia Township during the war, leading to an upsetting altercation in which the locals found and ransacked their camp and, as a warning to leave, carved an image of a Native man into a tree and shot it. The Natives responded by carving a white man into a tree without a mark on it, but seem to have later felt it was unsafe to stay and left. Only a handful of Native individuals were left throughout all of Northeast Ohio and historically recorded following this.^[10]

The county is named for Jonathan Trumbull, the governor of Connecticut during the American Revolution, who once owned the land in this region.^[11] Early settlements were made along the Mahoning River and other waterways, which provided transportation access and water power to the industries that developed later in the 19th century.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 637 square miles (1,650 km²), of which 618 square miles (1,600 km²) is land and 18 square miles (47 km²) (2.9%) is water.^[12] It is approximately a square with sides of 25.24 miles; it is the only square county in Ohio.^[13]

Ohio law defines a structure for county government. Trumbull County has three-member board of county commissioners,^[35] a sheriff,^[36] coroner,^[37] auditor,^[38] treasurer,^[39] clerk of the court of common pleas^[40] prosecutor,^[41] engineer,^[42] and recorder.^[43] Trumbull County is represented as part of Ohio's 64th and 65th state house districts, and Ohio's 32nd senatorial district. It is also included in the Ohio Eleventh District Court of Appeals. Federally, it is part of Ohio's 14th congressional district.

Trumbull County was historically a Democratic stronghold; in 2016, however, Donald Trump won the county by a reasonably comfortable margin of 6.22%, being the first Republican to win the county since Richard Nixon in 1972.^[44] Trump expanded his margin in the county to 10.6 points in 2020 and to 16.8 in 2024.^[45] Trump's 2024 performance was the highest of any Republican presidential candidate since 1928.

• Kent State University Trumbull is a regional campus of Kent State University, offering several associate degrees and a few bachelor's degrees.^[48]
• Trumbull Career and Technical Center is a vocational school, offering different learning and career advancement opportunities for both high school and adult learners.^[49]

School districts include:^[50]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Trumbull County, Ohio