Norton S. Townshend, a progressive farmer, physician, and legislator, lived in Avon from 1830 until his death. He introduced field drainage tile, significantly increasing the productivity of Avon farmland. A well-educated country doctor, he served this district as a U.S. congressman from 1851 to 1853 and later as an Ohio state senator. As a legislator and a member of the antislavery Free Soil Party, he espoused civil rights for women and free blacks. He later played an instrumental role in founding the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College in Columbus, serving on its first board and as its first professor of agriculture. In 1878, that land-grant college became Ohio State University, where Townshend Hall stands in honor of his founding role. He is interred in Avon's mound cemetery.