The Tale of 3 Granvilles

The way communities are named is always an intriguing subject. Two of these towns, Granville Ma and Granville OH have a history. This history involved a disagreement between the citizens of the town, which resulted in a mass emigration. The emigrants of Granville MA created Granville OH. Using epodunk.com, I was able to find population and demographic information.

Granville, MA is a community of 1,521 people whose main ancestry is Irish, English, Polish and German. However, a picture speaks a thousand words.

Granville, MA is a very small rural town with a couple of major arteries running through it. It definitely doesn't appear as successful as the Granville created in Ohio by its former residents.
The Granville in Ohio appears to be doing very well and is easily 2 or 3 times larger than the one in Massachusetts. This community has over 3,000 citizens. Of these citizens, 22% are German, 18% English, and 16% Irish. This ancestry seems to have little correlation with the Granville in Massachusetts, which is slightly odd considering that the origins of the Granville in Ohio is comprised of citizens from the Granville in Massachusetts. The citizens of Granville Ohio are also more prosperous than those in Granville Massachusetts, with median household incomes of $67,000 in Iowa and $53,000 in Massachusetts.

The Granville in Iowa has no history with either of the other two. With only 325 citizens, it also doesn't compare on an economic and prosperity level. In fact, Granville, Iowa has the lowest median income of $33,000. However, an interesting similarity between the Iowan Granville and the Ohioan Granville is the German ancestry. The Ohio Granville has a German ancestry of 22% and the Iowa Granville has a major German ancestry of 51%! Granville, Iowa is obviously a farming community and is probably the occupation of most of the citizens.

The three communities do share some similarities; they are all relatively low population, are mostly rural, and are fairly isolated. Research into the history and formation of these three communities may prove fruitful and may uncover the reason why 2 communities with a history and 1 disparate community have the same name. Here is a good map showing the location of all three in the United States.