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Like many nineteenth century communities in Ohio, Stryker owes its birth and early growth to the railroad industry. Stryker, named for Rome, New York, attorney and railroad executive John Stryker, was surveyed on September 19, 1853, beside the proposed Northern Indiana Railroad. For more than fifty years, “track pans” at Stryker allowed steam locomotives to take on 5,000 gallons of water while traveling at forty to fifty miles per hour, saving valuable time, “the principal enemy of railroad schedules.” On July 23, 1966, the U.S. rail speed record of 183.85 miles per hour was set through Williams County, including through Stryker. The Stryker depot was constructed in 1900 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 7, 1989. (continued on other side)
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Urbana University was established by the Swedenborgian Church in 1850. Bailey Hall (1853), named after Francis Bailey (1735-1815), was designed by W. Russell West, architect of the Statehouse of Ohio. Bailey was an American Revolutionary War hero, official printer of the Continental Congress and printer of The Freeman’s Journal or the North American Intelligencer. He also printed The True Christian Religion papers. John (Johnny Appleseed) Chapman (1774-1845) distributed The True Christian Religion papers along with his famous apple trees throughout Ohio as a missionary for the Swedenborgian Church. Barclay Hall (1883) was named after Hester Barclay, a ward of Francis Bailey. It was Hester Barclay’s brother-in-law, John Young, who converted Chapman to the Swedenborg faith. Francis Bailey and Hester Barclay were the first male and female Swedenborgian converts in North America. Both Bailey and Barclay halls appear on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Built in the 1840s by William and Catharine Hubbard and known as “Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard” or “The Great Emporium” by fugitive slaves, the Hubbard House was an important terminus on the fabled Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War. The Hubbard House sheltered escaped slaves who had risked life and limb after crossing the Ohio River into the North. From the Hubbard home, slaves walked one-quarter mile to the Hubbard and Company warehouse on the Ashtabula River, where friendly boat captains awaited to ferry their passengers to Canada and freedom. The U.S. Department of the Interior listed the Hubbard House on its National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
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Construction of Waverly’s third church, built with locally produced brick, began in 1859 and was completed in 1860. The original deed, recorded on October 31, 1859, listed the value of the lot as $180. With the merger of the Evangelical Synod of North America with the Reformed Church in 1934, the name changed to Evangelical and Reformed Church. A merger in 1957 with the Congregational Christian Church changed the name to First United Church of Christ. In 1987 it became known as Waverly United Church of Christ, until its dissolution in 1992, when the building was given to Pike Heritage Foundation Museum. Original records and services were in German. In 1890 some English was introduced in services, and by the early 1900s was used on alternate Sundays. The church was remodeled and enlarged in 1869, but retains much of its original appearance. An annex was added to the church in 1959.
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Two Deputy U.S. General Land Office Surveyors traversed Goll Woods: Benjamin Hough in 1815 and Captain James Riley in 1821. Hough (1772-1819) established the Michigan Meridian in 1815 and was county and state office holder in Ohio. Riley’s life was more tumultuous. Riley (1777-1840) captained the merchant ship Commerce, which wrecked off the Saharan coast in 1815. Riley and crew were enslaved for four months until ransomed by British diplomat William Willshire. In 1817, Riley published a famous account of his time in North Africa, and, in 1819, was appointed a surveyor by Surveyor General Edward Tiffin. Moving to Northwest Ohio, Riley named the village he founded in 1822, Willshire, for his deliverer. Riley returned to New York in 1826 and to the sea, where he died. Riley’s book went through more than twenty editions by 1860 and Abraham Lincoln credited the account as one that influenced him deeply.
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Miami & Erie Canal and Napoleon’s First Cemetery. The Miami & Erie Canal stretched approximately 250 miles from Cincinnati to Toledo. Napoleon and other towns on the Maumee River’s banks were on a slackwater section of the canal. Between 1825 and 1845, laborers constructed the canal using shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, and horse and mule-drawn carts. In Henry County, Napoleon, and elsewhere, German and Irish immigrants and area farmers did the work and were paid around 30 cents a day. As the canal brought more people and business to the area, villages such as Florida, Damascus, and Texas flourished and the county seat of Napoleon boomed. The canal and consequent growth took their tolls, however. Sickness and disease such as “ague” (malaria) and cholera spread and carried off many. Napoleon’s first cemetery was located in the vicinity of 500 East Clinton Street, near the route of the canal.
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General John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky led a force of Confederate calvarymen into Meigs County during a forty-six day raid north of the Ohio River. The advance forces burned Benjamin Knight’s carding mill and sawmill, the Shade River Bridge, and pillaged local businesses in Chester on July 18, 1863, while waiting for the rest of the column to catch up. This two-hour halt delayed General Morgan’s arrival at the ford at Buffington Island until after dark, allowing Union troops to arrive before he could make his escape. General Morgan surrendered eight days later near West Point in Columbiana County, the northernmost point ever reached by Confederate forces during the Civil War.
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Evansport is named after brothers Amos and Albert G. Evans who, with Jacob Coy, had the village surveyed next to the Tiffin River on December 14, 1835. The “port” suffix in Evansport’s name reflects the river’s significance as a transportation thoroughfare. Evansport’s early growth was spurred by its mills powered by the Tiffin River. The mills provided settlers with lumber for buildings and supplied flour and cornmeal for sustenance and commerce. Settlers who poured into Williams County’s northern townships in the 1830s agitated debate about moving the county seat to a more centralized location. Evansport was platted as a possible site for the county seat. The Williams County seat was moved to Bryan in 1840 and in 1845 Defiance County was created, leaving Evansport on the Williams-Defiance county line.
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