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Built with the funds and labor of residents of Weymouth, this structure was home to the Weymouth School from 1925 to 1956. It was designed in the Colonial Revival style by Cleveland architect Paul T. Cahill (1888-1954). Two classrooms accommodated students from grades one through eight and an auditorium served both the children and the community. In 1953, a school for disabled children was established in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina by their friends and families. It moved into the vacant Weymouth School building in 1956. In 1960, Medina County citizens passed a levy to operate it as the first county-supported school for disabled students in the state. Later known as the Achievement Center, it continued at this site until 1992.
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Utopia was founded in 1844 by followers of French philosopher Charles Fourier (1772-1837). Fourierism, based on utopian socialism and the idea of equal sharing of investments in money and labor, reached peak popularity in the United States about 1824 until 1846. The experimental community of Utopia dissolved in 1846 due to lack of financial success and disenchantment with Fourierism. John O. Wattles, leader of a society of spiritualists, purchased the land and brought his followers to Utopia in 1847. The spiritualists, who sought secluded areas to practice their religion, built a two-story brick house on the shore of the Ohio River. A flash flood on December 13, 1847, killed most of Wattles’ people. The majority of the few survivors left the area. Thus, the idea of the perfect society, or utopia, died. Henry Jernegan of Amelia, laid out the present village in 1847.
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The Putnam County Pioneer Association was organized September 6, 1873, at a meeting in Kalida, Ohio. Its stated purpose was to “perpetuate the early history of our county.” Members gathered oral histories from early residents and published two volumes of Pioneer Reminiscences in 1878 and 1887. The all-day annual meeting, held every year in September, grew into a larger festival. In 1970, the Kalida Lions Club, with funds generated from the event, purchased the former Kalida Methodist Church at 201 E. Main Street and “sold” it for $10 to the Pioneer Association for use as a museum. The Pioneer Association adopted a revised constitution and changed its name to The Putnam County Historical Society in 1971. It continues to hold its annual meeting during the “Pioneer Days” weekend.
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The history of New Knoxville provides one of the best examples of chain migration to America. After the Shawnee were removed from what would become Auglaize County, James Knox Lytle, cousin to James Knox Polk, purchased land in Washington Township. Lytle platted a village of 102 lots in 1836, calling it Knoxville to honor his mother’s family. Meanwhile, newly married Wilhelm and Elisabeth Fledderjohann Kuckhermann (later Kuck) immigrated from Ladbergen in northwest Germany. Having missed their boat to St. Louis, the couple lived briefly in Stallostown (Minster) and Bremen (New Bremen). They wrote home, encouraging others to emigrate; in the summer of 1835 the Fledderjohanns (Elisabeth’s family), Meckstroths, and Lutterbecks arrived. The families bought land near the site of Knoxville. (continued on other side)
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Saints Peter and Paul Church, Petersburg (1835), was the mother church for St. Joseph, Wapakoneta; St. John the Evangelist, Fryburg; St. Lawrence, Rhine; and Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Botkins. All were founded by German-Catholic immigrants to west-central Ohio. After the removal of the Wapakoneta Shawnee in 1832, the land became available for purchase. The 1830s and ’40s saw a wave of devout German settlers who wished to practice their faith in their new home, a desire served by missionary priests such as Father Wilhelm Horstman. Father Horstman first visited the settlement at Petersburg on May 8, 1835, presiding at Mass, baptizing, and blessing a marriage. In April 1836, immigrants John and Anna Mary Ruppert sold 40 acres of land in Pusheta Township to the trustees of the Catholic Church and a log church was built at the Petersburg site. (Continued on other side
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Zion (Ribel’s) Church was built on this site in 1808. The log structure was located in the Zion Ridge Cemetery, adjacent to the first school in Thorn Township. The congregation of Zion Reformed Church is the oldest in Perry County still in existence. The church was officially organized in 1806 when the German Reformed and Lutheran congregations joined together in building the first church in Perry County. They purchased this land on June 30, 1806, and shared the building, alternating Sundays, until 1911. In 1803, Reverend Johannes Christian Koenig (John King) became the first minister to settle in Perry County and became the founding minister for the German Reformed congregation. In 1805, Reverend Wilhelm Georg Forster (William Foster) was the first Lutheran minister to settle in Perry County and was the founding minister for the Lutherans. The present Zion Reformed Church was built across the street from the original church in 1910.
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The New California Church was organized in 1826 at a time when the congregation was called the Associate Congregation of Darby and represented Presbyterians whose ancestors came from the “Seceder” tradition of Scotland. Seceder Presbyterians were so named because they left or “seceded from” the mainstream Presbyterian Church when the English Crown claimed the right to name ministers. Their desire for religious freedom brought them to America where they were one of the earliest denominations to condemn slavery. The congregation met at members’ homes until building its first church in 1833, a log structure. The first minister to serve this congregation, the Reverend James Wallace, who served from 1832-1841, was an outspoken opponent of slavery, and this congregation maintained that anti-slavery stance under later ministers. The present church was built in 1904. (continued on other side)
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The Mount Zion Chapel of the Christian Church was built in 1872 on this hill adjacent to the members’ cemetery outside of Clermontville. The site was part of a two-acre parcel that had been secured from the farm of William R. Clark, Sr. for church and cemetery purposes. The Mount Zion Chapel replaced the Boat Run Christian Church that was organized in 1842 by a sect called the Christians, or the New Lights. Their first meeting house in Clermontville was dedicated on June 4, 1843 and damaged by floods in 1871. Worship was first held in the new frame church with the new name on October 6, 1872 and the church remains active today.
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