Designed in the likeness of a public building that stood in Hartford, Connecticut, the Franklin Township Hall was built in 1837. It was used as an office for the Franklin Silk Company; after the company failed, the Franklin Township Trustees completed the Franklin Township Hall in 1840. The site of the Township government since that time, the building also housed the first school of higher learning in 1842. Later, the completion of the new union school was delayed, so this hall was used as the first high school in Kent from 1868-69.

After the turn of the century, the hall served as a summer school for the public school system. The Davey Institute of Tree Surgery trained some of its personnel there. At the beginning of World War II, C.L. Gougler Machine Company took over the building and renovated it. The Kent Board of Education used the hall for their offices from 1954 to 1978.

James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States, was nominated in the Franklin Township Hall on August 23,1859, for joint senator representing Portage and Summit Counties. This was the beginning of his political career.