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Salt was an important commodity to early settlers because of its use in daily living. In 1814 Silas Thorla and Robert McKee dug a well in search of salt brine. They discovered salt and, by accident, discovered oil. Oil’s value was known to them so they had to separate the oil from the salt water by soaking the oil up from the surface with blankets. The oil was wrung from the blankets, bottled as “Seneca Oil,” and sold as a “cure all.” The remaining brine was boiled down to extract the salt.
, OH
On a stormy autumn morning in 1925, the giant Navy airship, christened Shenandoah, crashed near this site. Initially, the Shenandoah was commissioned to perform scouting missions for the Navy; however, she would soon be flying promotional missions. The Shenandoah had recently begun a six-day publicity tour across the Midwest when she crashed. The turbulent weather of late summer created strong winds, which ripped the 680-feet long Shenandoah in two and tore the control car from the keel. A majority of the 14 crewmen who died in the crash, including the captain, Lt. Commander Zachary Lansdowne of Greenville, Ohio, were killed when the control car plummeted to the ground. The stern section fell in a valley near Ava and the bow was carried southwest nearly twelve miles before landing near Sharon, Ohio. The Ohio National Guard was called in to control the crowds of spectators who traveled to the crash sites.
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Robert Caldwell and his family, from Chester County, Pennsylvania, moved to the Northwest Territory in 1795. In 1809, they bought and cleared land along Duck Creek in what became Olive Township, Morgan County (in 1819). In 1832 Robert’s son, Samuel and his wife Sarah Brownrigg Caldwell built the “Ball-Caldwell” house. Samuel Caldwell advocated for the formation of Noble County, established in 1851. In the contest to determine the site of the county seat, Caldwell promised a donation of land if it would be used for that purpose, which is was in 1857. In gratitute, the commissioners named the county seat “Caldwell.”
, OH
The Caldwell Downtown Historic District is the historic commercial and governmental core of the Village of Caldwell, which was founded in 1857 on farmland owned by Joseph and Samuel Caldwell. Caldwell serves as the county seat of Noble County, the last of Ohio’s 88 counties to be organized. The agricultural community prospered and by 1873 was the second-largest producer of tobacco in Ohio. The Pennsylvania Railroad arrived in 1872, and the development of salt, oil, coal, and natural gas extraction companies followed during the 1880s. Two separate fires in 1897 devastated portions of the north and south quadrants of the district. As a result, Caldwell formed a volunteer fire department and the Village Council introduced legislation prohibiting construction of wood buildings within a block of the public square. (Continued on other side)
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