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The Universalist Church of Westfield Center, a Greek Revival building on the village green, dedicated 1849.
The Universalist Church of Westfield Center, dedicated June 16, 1849. It has faced the village green for more than 175 years, standing witness to the founding of Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance a few doors down in 1848 and every day since. Photo: Nyttend via Wikimedia Commons. Released into the public domain.

Local History · From Westfield Center Village

The farmers who built their own insurance company over the general store

In 1848, seven Westfield Center farmers pooled their premiums above Ben Austin's store. The company they founded is still on the same village green almost 180 years later.

Published 2026-08-05 · 3 min read

In the fall of 1847, a traveling lecturer named Andrew W. Young walked into Ben Austin's general store on the Westfield Center green. He was from Batavia, New York, representing a group called Western Farmers Mutual. He had come to talk to Ohio farmers about a new idea.

The idea was simple. Eastern fire-insurance companies had been refusing to cover rural farm buildings. So farmers should pool their own premiums and cover each other. If your neighbor's barn burned, you helped pay for the rebuild. When yours burned, they helped you.

The farmers agreed. On February 8, 1848, the Ohio Legislature chartered the Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Medina County.1 The first board was seven local men: surveyor George Collier as president, plus Jonathan Simmons, Asa Farnum, Isaiah Phillips, Isaac Rogers, Isaac Jones, and Calvin Chapin. Their secretary was D.B. Austin, almost certainly a relative of Ben Austin the store owner. Their first hired agent was a Baptist minister named Thomas E. Inman.2

They set up their first office in a rented room above Austin's store on the village green.

The company waited to sell any policies until it had enough applications on hand to cover a first year of losses. In June 1848, they issued their first policy. It went to Jonathan Simmons, one of the founding board members.3 Within about 18 months they had 2,101 policies covering more than $1.6 million in property.4

They moved out of Austin's store in 1858 into a dedicated brick building on the same square. In 1879 they adopted a trademark image called the Old Man on the Fence, a bearded farmer leaning on a rail fence. That image lasted almost a century.5

The company renamed itself Westfield Companies in 1971, retiring the Old Man on the Fence and taking the village's own name as its brand. Today Westfield Insurance writes multi-billion-dollar annual premium. Its headquarters is still on the same village green where the seven original directors walked out of their first meeting in 1847.

The Universalist Church across the green was dedicated a year later, on June 16, 1849. It is still standing at 6765 Park Circle. If you park at the green today, you can see the two buildings from the same spot.

Footnotes

  1. February 8, 1848 charter. Date documented on the Westfield Insurance official history page and reproduced in the Encyclopedia.com Westfield Group entry, both of which trace back to Ohio Legislature records.
  2. The seven founding board members. Full names and roles are recorded on the Westfield Township timeline. D.B. Austin as first secretary and Thomas E. Inman as first hired agent both appear in FundingUniverse's company history.
  3. First policy to Jonathan Simmons. The threshold of pending applications required before the first policy could be issued is given as $50,000 in Westfield Insurance's own history and as $25,000 in two independent historical accounts. We say “enough applications on hand” because the sources disagree. The recipient being co-founder Simmons is agreed across sources.
  4. 2,101 policies / $1.6 million in property. Figure from FundingUniverse and Encyclopedia.com's Westfield Group entry; both trace to company annual records from September 1849.
  5. The Old Man on the Fence trademark. Adopted 1879, retired 1971 at the time of the Westfield Companies rebrand. Documented on the Westfield Insurance history page and in SBN Online's coverage of the 1971 rebrand.

Sources

Every named person, date, and dollar figure comes from the sources listed. The founding board list is drawn from the Westfield Township timeline, which is the most detailed source on that specific point.

Medina Homes Guide · Verified 2026-08-05