Long before settlers arrived, the land now known as Crane Township was home to the Ottawa and neighboring Native tribes, who for generations lived along the Maumee River in rhythm with the land and seasons, growing corn, beans, and squash, hunting deer and small game, and fishing the river. Near what is now New Rochester Park, the Charloe Trail crossed the Maumee and wound through Crane Township, with seasonal encampments and homesteads along it, including Oquanoxa's Reservation about four miles west. Oquanoxa, a known Ottawa leader, held land recognized in early treaties such as the Treaty of Detroit (1807) and the Treaty at the Maumee Rapids (1817), but by the 1830s those lands were lost to government policy and families like his were forced westward. Settlers in the early 1800s remembered Native families including To-rah and his wife Ne-bash near trail crossings and Wah-baun-see, an elder often seen walking the riverside path with a long staff. In a letter published in the Antwerp Gazette in 1884, Wm. R. Banks, who grew up along the river in the 1830s, recalled seeing the Pantaway tribe and the Taways gather two or three times a year to choose hunting grounds and make their laws, gathering in early summer along the river to swim, play, and wear deer's hooves strung on cords around their legs, and he remembered playing with the young Indians and using their bows and arrows. Life along the river was filled with activity, tradition, and joy, as seasonal gatherings brought families together to prepare for winter, make clothes, trade goods, share stories, and travel ancient river paths in birch-bark canoes.