Massillon is located in the northeastern portion of Ohio, Stark County, on the Tuscarawas River. Being in the center of the manufacturing heart of America, it is situated 54 miles south of Cleveland, 100 miles west of Pittsburgh, 375 miles east of Chicago, and 450 miles west of New York.

The Tuscarawas River served as a boundary line among the Indians as early as 1650. Later it was a boundary line between the French and the English, the English and the Indians, and finally, the states and the Indians. The Fort McIntosh Treaty of 1785 established the Tuscarawas River as the boundary between the Indians and the Territory of the United States. A boulder north of Massillon overlooking the river commemorates this treaty. Ten years later, the Greenville Treaty reconfirmed this line. Massum Metcalf was the first white settler to come here in 1810, staying but a few years.

Kendal, now a part of the northeast section of Massillon, was founded in 1812 by Thomas Rotch of Hartford, Connecticut, formerly of Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Thomas Rotch brought with him a flock of Spanish Merino sheep and erected a woolen mill in town.