Historical Society

Originally called Westfield Township, Samuel Fowler purchased this area in 1798 from the Connecticut Land Company for $12,903.23 while living in Westfield, Massachusetts. His brother Abner arrived the following year to survey the land and separate it into smaller plots that could be sold to people wanting to settle here. A Revolutionary War veteran, Abner was the first to arrive here and also the first recorded death in 1806, the same year that his son Abner Fowler II married the first school teacher in Fowler Ester Jennings.

In 1817, Samuel Fowler gave five acres of land to Fowler Center to be used as a park or "common" with the provision that no permanent building ever be built on it. At about the same time, the township name was changed to Fowler to honor its founding family. Agriculture was and remains the main occupation in the Fowler area.

The house on the northeast corner of the intersection of State Routes 305 and 193 was built as a hotel in the late 1840s by A.J. Smith. On the southeast corner is the 1852 brick home built by David Butts as a farm house that now houses two local government offices and the township museum.

The 1850 one-room town hall stands on the southwest corner. North of that is a private home that was an early drug store.

The post office is located in what was once a buggy repair shop and north of that is the 1864 general store that is still in operation. It was built by Darius Baldwin who also built the large house on the northwest corner, originally used as a hotel in 1865.

A veterans memorial that includes named crosses representing every war related fatality from Fowler since the War of 1812 is also located on the northwest corner.