When the state of Ohio was chartered, it mandated that every township set aside land for schools. The result was the classic one room schoolhouses that were built in the mid to last half of the eighteenth century and became the educational foundation of the state. Perry Township had 10 such schools within its boundaries. The contributions of these schools, as well as the people who taught and learned within their walls, helped lift the township, the state, and the nation. The foresight and commitment of the founding fathers and mothers to education molded the township's greatest resource, its people. Through the hard work and dedicated service of educated citizens, the township developed from the Black Swamp that it once was into the agriculturally rich land that it is today.