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Charles W. Follis was born on February 3, 1879, in Virginia. His family moved to Wooster where he attended Wooster High School and helped establish the school’s football team. In 1901, Follis enrolled and played baseball at the College of Wooster and played football for the Wooster Athletic Association where he earned the nickname “The Black Cyclone from Wooster.” In 1904, Follis signed a contract to play football with Shelby Athletic Club, making him the first African-American professional football player. Follis faced discrimination on and off the field leading to many injuries. After a career-ending injury in 1906, Follis played baseball for the Cuban Giants of Long Island. He died of pneumonia in 1910 at the age of 31 and is buried in Wooster Cemetery.
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The Wyandot called the Grand Reserve home nearly a century before Ohio statehood. They built houses, cultivated the land, and grew bountiful groves of fruit trees. They governed from the nearby Wyandot Council House and operated a productive saw and grist mill. Many sent their children to school and worshiped at the limestone church, built in 1824, and recognized as the first Methodist mission in the country. But Ohioans set their sights on Wyandot lands in the fertile Sandusky River Valley. State and federal governments were unwilling to allow the Wyandot to remain on their chosen homelands, despite their participation in American society and friendly relations with neighboring settlers. Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Wyandot were the last tribe removed from the State of Ohio in 1843.
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Augustus West, an African American, was born in Madison County, Virginia on March 20, 1814, and moved to Ohio in 1837. Legend has it that West was a runaway slave and worked as a farm laborer before designing a scheme to purchase his own farm. West, with abolitionist Alexander Beatty, traveled into slave territory no fewer than three times where the pair would sell West, help him escape, and split the profits. After splitting the profits, West used his portion of the money to purchase 177 acres of land in Fayette County where he built his “mansion.” To remain inconspicuous and secure, West built the “mansion” as far from the main road as possible. (continued on other side)
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Macedonia Cemetery (circa 1840) belongs to Macedonia Church, Ohio’s first Black Church. Those buried include settlers of the Macedonia Free Black Settlement, built by free people who assisted freedom seekers along the Underground Railroad. Also interred are soldiers of the Civil War’s United States Colored Troops (USCT), most of whom served in the 5th Regiment, Ohio’s first Black Regiment (1863). The Polley family also rest here. Emancipated slaves, the family continued their freedom struggle when their children were kidnapped from Ohio and unlawfully sold into slavery. Macedonia’s extant burial grounds include this sacred site and another 1/2 mile north.
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Daniel Arthur Rudd was born into slavery on August 7, 1854, in Bardstown, Kentucky. He became a newspaperman, lecturer, publicist, and tireless advocate for the Roman Catholic Church. After the Civil War Rudd moved to Springfield. Baptized and raised in Catholicism, he joined St. Raphael Parish, where the philosophy of racial equality offered by the church solidified his vision of justice. By 1885 he had established his own weekly newspaper, The Ohio State Tribune. He rebranded it The American Catholic Tribune (ACT) after moving to Cincinnati. Rudd claimed ACT was the only Catholic newspaper owned by an African American. At the height of its popularity in 1892, the publication had a circulation of 10,000. In 1893 Rudd was asked to chair the Afro-American Press Association, representing more than 200 black-owned newspapers.
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Adna R. Chaffee was born in Orwell on April 14, 1842, and grew up on the family farm. He left home in 1861 to pursue a career in the military, enlisting first in the 6th U.S. Cavalry for service in the Civil War. Distinguishing himself in many battles, including Gettysburg, Chaffee rose to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. He then fought in the Indian Wars of the West from 1867-1888, assisting in the capture of Geronimo and being promoted to the rank of Major. He also saw action in the Spanish American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China, and the Philippine Insurrection. On January 9, 1904, Chaffee was promoted to Lt. General and became Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, the first to achieve this office without attending West Point. He retired in 1906. He died in 1914 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with the highest military honors.
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Born in North Adams, Massachusetts on December 23, 1778, Caleb Atwater graduated from Williams College in 1804. He moved to Circleville in about 1814 where he organized the city’s first school board and served as postmaster and prosecuting attorney. His life and work as a teacher, minister, lawyer, legislator, and scholar greatly influenced early 19th-century Ohio. Upon arriving in Circleville, he became interested in local history and the nearby earthworks and in 1820 published his book Descriptions of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and Other Western States, the first compilation of prehistoric remains in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Elected to the Ohio State Legislature in 1821, Atwater fervently supported canal construction. He also chaired Ohio’s first board of school commissioners and was instrumental in passage of Ohio’s Public School Law. For this, he has been called the “Father of Ohio’s Common Schools.” (continued on other side)
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Giuseppe Moretti was born in Siena, Italy, and immigrated to the United States in 1888. For 40 years he sculpted monuments and heroic figures in the United States and Cuba, employing the Beaux-Arts technique, known for its neoclassical style that tended to be heroic and dramatic in nature. Mor etti, known for his eclectic personality and for always wearing a green tie, was a prolific artist with completion of 12 World War I memorials, 19 monumental works, six church sculptures, 24 memorial tablets, 14 cemetery memorials, 27 sculptures in marble, bronze, and aluminum, and 27 bronze statuettes. He created the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Toronto in 1919 as a tribute to the 300 local citizens who answered the call for service during World War I. His other Ohio works include the John Patterson Monument (1925) in Dayton and statue of Simon Perkins (1895) in Akron.