Tiffin is a city in and the county seat of Seneca County, Ohio, United States. Tiffin is about 55 miles southeast of Toledo. The population was 17,963 at the 2010 census. The National Arbor Day Foundation has designated Tiffin as a Tree City USA.It is the home of Heidelberg University and Tiffin University. At one time it was noted as a glass and porcelain manufacturing center. Tiffin is home to several elementary schools, Tiffin Middle School, Calvert Catholic Schools, and Columbian High School.HistoryThe history of Tiffin dates back to 1812. The familiar bronze statue of "The Indian Maiden" on Frost Parkway, near Miami Street, marks the site of Fort Ball, a military depot of the War of 1812. Fighting an engagement of that war, Eratus Bowe first sighted the location upon which Tiffin now stands. In 1817, he returned to the site and built his Pan Yan Tavern, which later became a stagecoach stop, on the North Sandusky River.Early homesteaders followed soon after Bowe, and the settlement of Oakley sprang up around the Pan Yan. The main traveled road of the area followed the path of the stagecoaches through Oakley, which was called Fort Ball after 1824.In 1821, Josiah Hedges purchased a piece of land on the south bank of the river opposite Oakley and founded another settlement. He named this village "Tiffin" in honor of Edward Tiffin, first governor of Ohio and later member of the United States Senate, and a man who had fought to finally win statehood for the Ohio Territory in 1803. Tiffin was incorporated by an act of the Ohio Legislature on March 7, 1835. These two communities, split by the Sandusky River, were rivals; however, in 1850, seeing that later their interests lay together, the villages merged to form Tiffin, with Fort Ball becoming a part of Tiffin in March of that year.
