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Lucasville Cemetery was originally established as the Lucas Family burying ground, with Susannah Lucas as the first recorded burial on May 4, 1809. Susannah’s husband, Captain William Lucas, a Revolutionary War veteran, is interred here along with the first wife of Governor Robert Lucas, Eliza “Betsy” Brown Lucas. By 1816, the cemetery was used as a public burying ground. Hand carved monuments inscribed with poetry can be found in the old section. Recognized as one of the oldest cemeteries in southern Ohio, Lucasville Cemetery has interred veterans of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam.
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The Lincoln School, which stood on this site from 1869 to 1956, was a segregated elementary school intended for the city’s African American students, grades one through eight. Hillsboro was the site of the first Northern desegregation suit following the May 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a decision that abolished the nation’s long standing “separate but equal” doctrine. (Continued on other side)
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Irish railroad workers founded the Catholic community in Washington Court House in the 1850s, with the first Mass being held in a local shanty in 1852. In 1871, Father John B. O’Donoghue purchased three and 5/8 acres of land adjoining Washington cemetery on the outskirts of Washington Court House to build the St. Colman Church and adjacent cemetery. In 1885, much of Washington Court House, including St. Colman Church, was destroyed by a tornado. To mark the site of the church, a stone monument was erected on June 19, 1916. Over thirty-five veterans from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War I are buried in St. Colman Cemetery, and at least sixteen of these veterans were Irish immigrants. The cemetery’s highest decorated veteran, James Aloysius Ducey, served in World War I and World War II, earning numerous awards, including the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre.
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Major John James (1772-1854) established James Cemetery in 1828 on and around a Native American mound that is the only significant ancient mound remaining in the city of Jackson. The mound is about 70 feet in diameter and nearly six feet tall. In the late 1800s, this mound comprised one point of three ancient mound groups forming a triangular configuration along East Broadway Street, formerly known as James Street. One group was a few hundred feet northeast of here on the Watson farm and a second was just to the northwest on the Warnicke farm. These mounds were built by the Hopewell Culture, prominent in southern Ohio from about 100 BC to 400 AD. Major James, his wife, and several immediate family members are buried on the mound including Jackson County pioneers Andrew Long, Daniel Hoffman, and David Mitchell.
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This village was founded in 1830 on the banks of the Blanchard River by Asa M. Lake, son of Asa Lake, veteran of the Revolution and War of 1812 and first settler of Delaware Township. The town and river are named for an early French pioneer, Jean Jacques Blanchard, who resided among area Shawnee Indians during the period 1770 to 1802. The Methodist Episcopal Church, first religious organization in Hancock Co., was founded in Delaware Twp. in 1828.
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The Lima Chapter of the American Women’s Voluntary Services Organization established a community-based, free canteen during World War II for troops traveling on the Pennsylvania Railroad and adjacent Baltimore & Ohio-Nickel Plate Railroads. Meeting as many as forty trains a day, the ladies served 2.5 million troops between 1942-1945. Food, coffee, and other items were donated to the canteen from a twelve county area. The “AWVS” disbanded in 1945, but succeeding volunteers continued to provide service throughout the Korean Conflict and Viet Nam War. Lima’s “Servicemen’s Free Canteen” was the longest, continuously operated service canteen in the United States. An estimated four million soldiers, sailors, and marines were served between 1942-1970.
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Campbell Hill is named for Charles D. Campbell of Bellefontaine, who owned this land from 1898 to 1937. A marble stone marker atop the hill, set in 1900 by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, marks it as the highest point in Ohio at an elevation of 1549.09 feet. In 1951, the federal government established the 664th Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W) Squadron here as part of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). Its military and civilian operators used sophisticated radar and computer equipment to locate and identify aircraft as friendly or suspicious, and relayed information to a central site in Battle Creek, Michigan. This Cold War site operated until 1969. It was converted to civilian use as a vocational education center in 1974.
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John Chapman (1774 – 1845) leased these three acres to the north and west from William Botts Hedges on April 29, 1828. He paid Hedges by cultivating 1,000 apple trees on the site over the next ten years. Apples provided an important food source. Cut and dried for sauces in the winter, they could be pressed into cider or “apple jack” at a time when water often carried disease. The Hedges Nursery profited the Shanesville area by shipping apples to the major trading posts at Piqua and Ft. Wayne. During his lifetime, Chapman proved an able businessman who established profitable orchards in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. In 2009, American Forests, the Johnny Appleseed Foundation, the Museum at Urbana University, and the Village of Rockford planted two “Rambo” apple trees at the Hedges Nursery site.