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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.
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In the early 1770s, Chief White Eyes (Koquechagachton) of the Delaware tribe founded White Eyes Town approximately two miles southeast of this marker on a plain near present day West Lafayette. A friend of the Moravian leader David Zeisberger, White Eyes was an ardent supporter of Moravian missionary efforts and kept the Delawares neutral during the American Revolutionary War. White Eyes’s dream was to bring his people under the influence of Christianity. He also hoped to establish a fourteenth state for the Indian nations, which would join the other thirteen. White Eyes died at the height of his career in November 1778 near Pittsburgh. The cause of his death remains open to question.
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The Pittsburgh No. 8 coal seam, located 100 feet below river level at Powhatan Point, extends across much of eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia. The Cleveland and Western Coal Company, founded by Cleveland industrialist Frank E. Taplin, opened the Powhatan No. 1 mine here in 1922 to take advantage of both river and rail transportation. It became the largest deep mine in Ohio and was the first mine in the state to be completely mechanized. Reorganized as the North American Coal Corporation in 1925, the company operated seven shaft mines in this area during the twentieth century. Four of these mines closed between 1980 and 1984 as clean air standards made locally mined high-sulfur coal difficult to market.
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Built in 1822, this native limestone structure was the home of Benajah Wolcott, first keeper of the Marblehead Lighthouse (originally called the Sandusky Bay Light), and his second wife, Rachel Miller Wolcott. Benajah maintained the lighthouse from 1822 until his death ten years later. After Benajah’s passing the U.S. Government appointed Rachel as the keeper, making her the first female lighthouse keeper on the Great Lakes. The building is the oldest known residence still standing in Ottawa County and is a fine example of a “hall-and-parlor house,” an early American home design.
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In the mid-1700s, France found its influence waning among midwestern tribes as it contested for Native American trade and military alliances with Great Britain. Shortly after Miami chief Memeskia (also known as Old Britain or La Demoiselle) moved his village to Pickawillany, British traders were given permission to establish a small post in the village, which was deep in the territory claimed by France. When French demands to evacuate the post failed, Charles Langlade led a party of 250 Ottawa and Ojibwe warriors and French Canadians in a surprise attack on the Miami village on June 21, 1752. The trading post was destroyed, British traders were taken to Detroit as prisoners, and Memeskia was executed. Pickawillany was completely abandoned soon after. As a prelude to the French and Indian War, the Battle of Pickawillany fueled land claim and trading right conflicts between France and Britain.
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Following a wage reduction from 70 to 60 cents per ton after many Hocking Valley coal mines consolidated in 1883, the Ohio Miners’ Amalgamated Association struck on June 23, 1884. The operators responded by offering an even smaller tonnage rate and a requirement for returning miners to sign no-strike contracts. The strike idled three thousand miners in 46 mines at Nelsonville, Murray City, New Straitsville, Carbon Hill, Buchtel, Longstreth, and Shawnee. (Continued on other side)
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Born in Lancaster, Fairfield County, John Sherman moved to Mansfield to practice law and was elected to Congress in 1854 as one of the first Republicans. In 1861, Sherman was elected to the U.S. Senate. An authority on finance, Sherman was instrumental in shaping federal financial policy in the years following the Civil War, and President Rutherford Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Treasury in 1877. During the “Greenback” debate, he re-implemented the gold standard, stabilizing the currency during an inflationary period. Sherman returned to the Senate in 1881 and served until early 1897 when President McKinley appointed him Secretary of State; in declining health, he resigned in 1898. He died in Washington, D.C. and is interred in the Mansfield Cemetery.
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Thirteen African American families migrated to Pebble Township in Pike County in the early 1820s from Virginia. Some of the families were former slaves while others were freeborn people of color. Their farm knowledge and skill helped to make them prosperous, angering some of their white neighbors who began a campaign of harassment. Ten of the original African American settlers eventually moved away, but despite the difficulties with the white population, other African Americans continued to arrive to the settlement. They founded a church, later known as the Eden Baptist Church, built a meeting hall, and organized a school. Several of the families were also involved in the activity of the Underground Railroad. The PP Settlement thrived until the 1950s when, for economic reasons, residents moved to other communities.