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Archibald Worthington (1818-1895) was a freed slave from Virginia, a Civil War veteran, and prominent landowner in Highland Township. Census records indicate he was manumitted prior to 1850, and by 1860 owned land in northwest Ohio. Worthington also farmed, boarded freed slaves, and owned apple orchards and livestock. April 1866 township records show that he supported the local school for Black families. He and his wife Elizabeth raised three children: Henry, Mathilda, and James. Henry enlisted in the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer infantry, one of the first Black regiments formed in the Civil War. He died January 8, 1865, in a prison camp and is buried in North Carolina’s Salisbury National Cemetery. Mathilda and James both met partners and married, had children, and left the area. Archibald Worthington died in 1895 and is buried in Wilmington’s Sugar Grove Cemetery.
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Originally belonging to the William Henry Harrison family, this cemetery was known as “The Pasture Graveyard” until the Civil War era. It became the final resting place of many members of the Harrison and Symmes families as well as other early settlers to the North Bend area. It was in use until 1884 when Maple Grove Cemetery opened as the official township cemetery.
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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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This cemetery stands as evidence of a once thriving African American farming community established in the 1820s. With the aid of community leader, Alexander “Sandy” Harper (c.1804-1889), Captina, originally called Guinea, became a stop on the Underground Railroad, a national network, shrouded in secrecy, of volunteers who directed slaves northward. Harper is buried in this cemetery, along with Benjamin Oliver McMichael (1865-1941), an educator who taught for twelve years in Captina/ Flatrock at a segregated schoolhouse. There are 113 known burials in the cemetery, including nine Civil War veterans. At this site in 1825, an African Methodist Episcopal Church was established to serve the community. Many of its members left Captina to work in cities, but the church continued services until 1962. The building then fell into disrepair and collapsed during a windstorm in 1978.
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Around 1900, the newly formed Litchfield Cemetery and Park Association needed a band to lead processions to and from the town cemetery on Memorial Day. The Litchfield Town Band was born. Urial Crow served as its first director, so the group was sometimes known as “The Crow Band”. Although there were periods when the band was inactive, it has been a community institution for more than a century. The group plays a broad repertoire of standards and marches by John Philip Sousa at Memorial Day and other commemorations, ice cream socials, and various community events. Directors have included Urial Crow, Loren Hayes (c. 1915), Floyd Koons (mid-1920s), Raymond Bradley (1935-1939), Hal Leach (1939-1945), Kenneth Bradley (1946-2011) and Cynthia Bennett (since 2012).
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The Friends Burying Grounds, once located here on Lot 17 in the Village of Damascus, is the oldest cemetery in Butler Township, Columbiana County. Expansion of the Friends Church necessitated the re-location of the Friends Burying Grounds. No markers were found to identify the graves of the 118 persons exhumed here. The exhumed remains were re-interred in the Damascus Cemetery on Valley Road, one block east of this location. The exhumation (2001-2002) was directed by Prof. Dr. John White of Youngstown State University, assisted by staff, students, and volunteers.
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Settlement came to Round Bottom in early 1795 following the end of the Indians Wars in what would become Ohio (1791-1795). Pioneers Allen Devol, David Wilson, Nathaniel Cushing, Peter Shaw, and Andrew Story came down the Muskingum River to this rich and extensive alluvion shoreline where agriculture became a way of life for them and later settlers. They built the Round Bottom Schoolhouse in the fall of 1795 from bricks fired in nearby fields. The school is one of the oldest one-room brick schoolhouses in the state.
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The Good Hope Cemetery is the final resting place for veterans of many of America’s wars, including David Jones. Jones earned the Medal of Honor as a member of Company I of the 54th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Union Army. During Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign, Jones volunteered for a mission known as the “Forlorn Hope.” It was the lead assault of a major attack and meant certain death or wounding for soldiers in the attacking party. Jones’ Forlorn Hope was part of Grant’s attempt on May 22, 1863 to storm Vicksburg’s defenses and take the city, avoiding a siege. The attack did not succeed. Of the 150 soldiers who volunteered for the assault, many were killed or wounded, including Jones. After a 47 day siege, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863—the same day as the Union’s victory at Gettysburg.