Judge Samuel Hinckley of North Hampton, Massachusetts, a member of the Connecticut Land Company, purchased township 4N Range 13W of the Western Reserve in 1795 for a sum equivalent to 23 cents an acre. The township remained unsettled until 1819, when Abraham Freeze was commissioned by Hinckley to survey it into 100 plots of 160 acres each. In return for having the township, founded in 1825, named Hinckley, he gave land for two burying grounds and one-half acre for a public square. In 1919, on the 101st anniversary of the Great Hinckley Hunt, in which men from surrounding counties gathered on Christmas Eve to rid the township of wild animals, Judge Amos Webber spoke for the deceased Hinckley, recalling that what had once been a howling wilderness had been made to blossom by the industry and frugality of its people and their ancestors. John Brongers came to Hinckley in 1867 with a peddler’s pack and sold his wares door-to-door before making it his permanent home in 1870. Guided by the motto, “he profits most who serves best,” he operated a general store with William Behr until Behr withdrew, after which Brongers remained sole owner and ran the store for over sixty years. In his will, Brongers left his home and property to the Hinckley Township Trustees in recognition of the friendship and good will shown to him by the people of the township, and the land was later used for a park bearing his name, as well as a town hall, fire station, and police station.