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For centuries this area was used by Indian tribes as a hunting ground. Vast swamp forests of elm, ash, beech, pin oak, and maple lay on all sides. To the east, a large cranberry bog was covered by water most of the year. Indian hunting camps on the headwaters of Sycamore Creek were the scene of plentiful harvests both of game and cranberries. These wetlands produced abundant game after most sections of the country were settled and farmed. Today, extensive drainage has changed the area into productive farmland.
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Col. William Crawford and Dr. John Knight, separated from the American troops following the Battle of Upper Sandusky, June 4-5, were captured by Indians on June 7 at a site about five miles southeast of this marker. Taken first to Chief Wingenund’s camp north of Crestline, they were then taken, on a trail passing near this marker, to a bluff near Tymochtee Creek northwest of Upper Sandusky. Crawford was tortured and burned at the stake on June 11. Knight later escaped. For years afterward, Crawford’s fate inflamed frontier sentiment against the Indians.
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Col. William Crawford’s army of 480 Pennsylvania volunteers passed near this site on June 3 to attack the Indians near Upper Sandusky. On June 4-5 they encountered a combined force of Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, and, unexpectedly, Butler’s Rangers, a British unit from Detroit. The expedition was a disaster; about 300 Americans escaped. On June 6, about six miles west of this marker, the opposing forces met again at the “Battle of Olentangy.” With minor losses, the Americans continued their retreat, reaching the Ohio River on June 13. Crawford was captured, and burned at the stake on June 11.
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On the banks of the Olentangy River, at the bend where the stream turns southwest, is the legendary site of Seccaium. This 17th century village was located on the portage to the Sandusky River, and was recognized by the Indians as a neutral ground for tribal councils where claims to hunting territories could be peacefully settled and goods could be traded. In the early 20th century, the site was an amusement park on the interurban electric railway.
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The Plains lay south and west of the Sandusky River, bounded by the Olentangy River on the east and Tymochtee Creek on the west. The local black prairie soils mark the extent of the grasslands, which were uncommon in the dense eastern forests. Bur Oak trees, from the period of the Wyandot Indians, have survived because their thick bark protected them from the common prairie grass fires. This remnant of wilderness–Bur Oak Grove and Tall Grass Prairie–is protected from cultivation, which would destroy most of the native plant species.
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Long known to the Indians for the mineral spring water, this land was purchased in 1819 by Samuel Knisley. After 1880 it was developed as a resort area by Dr. Jerome Bland, who also established a cattle and horse breeding farm. In 1930 the land became part of PICKWICK FARMS which in 1976 was the largest standardbred breeding farm in Ohio and known throughout the United States and Canada.
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Nicknamed “Dutchtown” for the many German families that settled in this area, New Washington was platted in 1833 by George Washington Meyers, who arrived in Cranberry Township in 1826. Prominent Austrian romantic poet Nicholas Lenau (1802-1850), author of “Faust” and “Don Juan,” owned property here in the 1830s. The village incorporated in 1874, shortly following the arrival of the Mansfield, Coldwater & Lake Erie Railroad. New Washington is a pioneer in the commercial poultry hatchery industry and initiated the shipment of baby chicks by rail in 1900.
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This Depot, dedicated on December 27, 1900, served as division headquarters for the Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis railroad, commonly called the Big Four. Peak passenger usage occurred during and after World War I when 32 trains stopped here daily. Railway Express serviced as many as 20 trains a day into the 1950s, and Galion became a “whistle stop” for presidential campaigns with speeches from the train platform from such candidates as Al Smith in 1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, and Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon in 1952. In 1929 the New York Central acquired the Big Four, which moved the division headquarters west to Bellefontaine in Logan County. The ticket office remained opened until 1964, but all railroad offices closed in 1969. The Depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
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