Huron was an early Indian village and French trading post in 1749, the site of the first white settlement in the Western Reserve when Jean Baptiste Flemmond settled there in 1790, and was surveyed by Almon Ruggles in 1806. It was the site of the first school in the Firelands area in 1810, with Alvin Coe and Jamar Ruggles as teachers. During the War of 1812 it served as the base of the Huron Rangers under Captain Joshua Cotton, and the Rangers fought a bloody battle on the Peninsula to repulse a Potawatami invasion of Johnson’s Island. Erie County, as part of the Firelands of Ohio, traced its origin to the Revolutionary War, when Connecticut towns were burned in the raids of Benedict Arnold and British General Tryon. In 1792 the Connecticut Assembly awarded 500,000 acres in the Western Reserve to compensate the fire-sufferers, and this land became known as the Firelands, consisting of what are now Huron and Erie Counties plus Ruggles and Danbury Townships. Originally part of Huron County, organized in 1811 with its first courthouse at Fort Avery, Erie County was formed in 1838.