Canfield, Ohio
Near Youngstown, Ohio
Canfield was the seat of Mahoning County until the legislature moved it to Youngstown in the eighteen seventies, and the town dates to seventeen ninety-eight under the Northwest Territory before Ohio even existed as a state. It was named for Judson Canfield, a Connecticut land speculator who owned rights to the Western Reserve tract on which it sits. The Western Reserve was Connecticut's claim on northeastern Ohio, territory the state held onto after the Revolution and parceled out to settlers and land companies.
Canfield grew as a farming community and county seat, with a classic New England-influenced green at its center. The Mahoning County Fair, held here since eighteen forty-six, is one of Ohio's longest-running county fairs and still draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to what is otherwise a quiet city of fewer than ten thousand.
