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Site of the first Findlay Field Office for what was to become a world-wide oil company, formerly locally owned and operated. 1887: The Ohio Oil Company was incorporated by five independent oil producers in the Lima field. 1901: J.C. Donnell elected President of the Ohio Oil Company. Company’s ‘big well,’ the “Hugh McMurray,” comes in. 1929: Construction begins on new office building at South Main Street and Hardin Streets. 1962: Name changed to Marathon Oil Company to reflect international operations.
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Major buildings dating from 1832 to 1898 surround the village green, the geographic center of Gustavus Township. Built in 1832 on the northwest quadrant, the George Hezlep House features Federal-Greek Revival architecture and has a closet reputedly used on the Underground Railroad. Built in 1840, the Farmers’ Exchange Store was originally a double entrance Greek Revival structure. The Storekeeper’s House, also a Greek Revival structure, was built next to the exchange store in 1840. South of this house is the Fraternal Hall, built in 1870. There were once four churches in Gustavus including the Methodist Church, built in 1856 with a temple front and a belfry, and the Congregational Church, built east of the center in 1854. The eclectic Town Hall was built in 1890 and fronts the southeast quadrant. The Gustavus Centralized School, reported as the first centralized school in the United States, was built in 1898 and was replaced by the current building in 1928.
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St. Joseph Catholic Church has been located here since the parish’s formation in 1845. Tiffin was established by Josiah Hedges in 1822, and shortly after, many German Catholic families began to settle in the area. They formed part of St. Mary’s parish until 1845, when they obtained permission from Bishop John Purcell of the Diocese of Cincinnati to organize as the separate congregation of St. Joseph. In May 1845, parishioners bought two acres of land at the conjunction of Melmore and South Washington Streets. Within the month, they laid the cornerstone for a 40-foot by 66-foot brick church that would be completed by August of that year. As the congregation grew, Rev. Joseph Bihn, pastor from 1856 to 1873, saw the need for a new church. (Continued on other side)
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Officially opening on August 4, 1840, the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal followed the route of present railroad tracks through Munroe Falls approximately one thousand feet south of this marker. This 82-mile long "feeder canal" connected the Beaver Valley canal system at New Castle, Pennsylvania with the Ohio and Erie Canal in Akron, thereby linking Pittsburgh with Cleveland and the western Great Lakes. Many communities along the canal’s path became linked to national and world commerce through their establishment as canal ports. New England investor Edmund Munroe purchased property and water rights along the canal’s proposed route, and in 1837 established the Munroe Falls Manufacturing Company. The village of Munroe Falls grew around the manufacturing company site and was incorporated on October 26, 1838. When this section of the canal closed in 1869, the waterway through Munroe Falls was filled and railroad tracks were laid over its path. A portion of the canal bed is still visible east of State Route 91.
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Labeled “Union Square” on the first village maps, block 12 of the City of Bellaire was formed by joining portions of the Harris and Rodefer Farms in 1857. Used for tent shows, circuses, political meetings, and playing baseball, the land during the Civil War was used as a canteen for feeding Union recruits from nearby Camp Jefferson. Stonemasons cut sandstone blocks here that make up “Great Stone Viaduct” railroad bridge. A steam derrick and stable for horses that helped to move the sandstone to the bridge’s construction site were also placed temporarily on this land. In 1882, a monument was erected to honor Civil War veterans as “Union Square” became a city park. Former President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech here to the citizens of Bellaire in 1912.
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Meadowbrook Park began as a Tiffin, Fostoria & Eastern Electric Railway plan to draw weekend riders. Laura Stephenson Sneath, wife of a major company stakeholder, led the park development. Originally north of Wolf Creek, Meadowbrook included a baseball diamond and a 1902 dance pavilion. In 1923, William Richards purchased the buildings and leased the land from Henry Matthews of Matthews Boat Company. The pavilion was destroyed by fire under suspicious circumstances on October 12, 1925, but no one was charged. James Garfield Haugh, president of the Gem Manufacturing Company, purchased the land in 1925. (Continued on other side)
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In December 1772, Brother David Zeisberger and his followers began the construction of Schoenbrunn schoolhouse. The school was built in the Tuscarawas Valley on land given to Zeisberger in the spring of 1771 by the Delaware Native Americans as a Moravian mission to the Delaware. With the land, Zeisberger laid out the town of Schoenbrunn or “Beautiful Spring.” The school served Delaware Indian children, who were taught from special textbooks prepared in the Delaware and German languages by Zeisberger. John Heckewelder, who taught at the school, is recognized as the first schoolteacher in Tuscarawas County. The present reconstructed schoolhouse was dedicated on July 29, 1928 on the 155th anniversary of the completion of the school’s construction. The village can be seen just a few hundred yards south of this marker.
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Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, the lone religious property within the Mt. Vernon Downtown Historic District, served what became only the second African American congregation in the city. The cornerstone for 13 South Mulberry Street was laid October 17, 1915, and a dedication service was celebrated in March 1916. Mt. Calvary grew out of the Black Baptist traditions brought by Southern refugees during the Great Migration. Although dwindling membership and resources closed the building, it provided Mt. Vernon’s African American community with a vital space of worship, communion, mutual assistance, asylum, social support, and community celebration for almost a century.
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