Stephen W. St. John came to Northwest Ohio in September of 1843. Born in 1817 in Cayuga, NY, his life had already been characterized by the hardships of colonial living: his father was dead by the time he was a teenager. Arriving in Ohio with his mother, he settled on a parcel of land south of what is now Sand Ridge Rd. He also owned property across Sand Ridge Rd. to the North; this property would, much later, become the Bordner Meadow and St. John’s Woods portions of Wintergarden Nature Preserve. Stephen married a girl named Harriet Jane Husted, and together they had a total of 7 children, 4 of whom would die before S.W. himself did.

St. John was considered one of the county’s finest citizens during his lifetime. He was a very community-minded gentleman. He served on the County Board of Health, was the 1st President of the Wood County Agricultural Society, and sat on the Board of the Wood County Train Co., a small, strap-metal railroad from Bowling Green to Tontogany. He served as Township Clerk, Township Trustee, County Commissioner, and most notably, for 21 years as Justice of the Peace. He was considered a reliable source of levelheaded wisdom during the decade-long battle between Bowling Green and Perrysburg for the County Seat for Wood County.

At one time, while County Commissioner, St. John was to present a petition for the placement of what was then called Mt. Pleasant Ridge Rd. at the County Seat in Perrysburg. Braving the Black Swamp in winter, he could not get his horse through all of the standing water and ice. So, he dismounted and traveled on foot the next day to be sure that the petition was presented.

St. John lived on and worked on his land for his entire life. After his death in 1893, the Sentinel Tribune placed his obituary on the front page and in it, are the following words, “A half a century spans his life here, and no man can say aught against his private or public life. Strong in his convictions, rugged in his insistence for right, he leaves behind him a record that should be a pattern from which to make good American citizens.