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In May 1800, Congress passed an act dividing the Northwest Territory, with the western division becoming Indiana Territory and the eastern called the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River. Two years later, thirty-five delegates from the nine counties of the latter division convened in Chillicothe to draw up the constitution for the new state of Ohio, which became a state in 1803. Israel Donalson was the last survivor of the convention dying in 1860 at the age of 93. This frontiersman served Manchester as a surveyor, schoolteacher, postmaster, and judge in the first court. In 1791, one month after his arrival here at Massie’s Station, Donalson was captured by Native Americans. His memoir is a colorful account of his capture and escape. Donalson served as an Elder for the first Presbyterian church in Adams County, which stood on these grounds.
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The Attica-Venice Joint Cemetery is the final resting place of Clara Edith (Work) Ayres, who died in the line of duty soon after the United States entered World War I in April 1917. Mrs. Ayres was born in Venice Township on September 16, 1880. She graduated from Attica High School in 1899 and in 1903 married local merchant Wayland Ayres, who died in 1906. Later, she moved to Chicago and graduated from the Illinois Training School for Nurses. (Continued on other side)
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Zachariah Price DeWitt was born of a Dutch family in New Jersey in 1768. With brothers Jacob and Peter, he migrated to Kentucky where, in 1790, he married Elizabeth Teets, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1774. By 1805 all three brothers had settled in Ohio near Four Mile (Talawanda) Creek. Here Zachariah and Elizabeth raised corn, hogs, and eventually, nine children. Zachariah became a prominent community leader, operating a sawmill, building houses in Oxford, serving as Masonic Lodge secretary, and commanding a rifle company during the War of 1812. Tradition has it that Elizabeth wore a black sunbonnet to cover a scar from having been scalped as a child in Kentucky. Elizabeth died in 1843, followed by Zachariah in 1851. Both are buried in Darrtown Cemetery.
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Entrepreneur and philanthropist Joseph (Jose) de Rivera was born in Barcelona, Spain, and built an import business in New York City. In 1854, he bought six Lake Erie Islands and had South Bass Island surveyed and subdivided into ten-acre lots. De Rivera traveled between New York and South Bass Island, initially turning Put-in-Bay into a sheep farm. He encouraged settlement on the island and its wine industry by helping German immigrants purchase land to plant vineyards. He donated five acres for this waterfront park, the site for the first school, and the land for the first church. To promote travel to the island, de Rivera opened the island’s largest cave as a tourist attraction. He is buried in the island’s cemetery, which is on land he donated for that purpose.
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Company E of the 30th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was the only full infantry company formed in Jerome Township. Capt. Elijah Warner organized the unit in the village of Jerome and it was mustered into the Union Army at Camp Chase in Columbus on August 29, 1861. A total of 102 men from the township fought in the regiment throughout the war, while approximately 25% of the total population of the Jerome Township served. Company E performed outstanding service, participating in the Antietam, Vicksburg, and Atlanta Campaigns, Sherman’s March to the Sea and the March through the Carolinas, and the in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. Of the 102 Jerome Township men in Company E, 32 perished during the war. The regiment was mustered out of service August 13, 1865.
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On March 20, 1868, The Ohio General Assembly passed a revision to the Ohio Revised Code allowing for a municipality and a township to join together in purchasing land for a shared cemetery. On April 24, 1868, the Washington Township Trustees passed a resolution creating Forest Hill Union Cemetery. This cemetery was to be shared with the City of Piqua and became the first mutual cemetery between a municipality and a township in Ohio.
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Settlers from Connecticut were the first to come to Canfield Township in the late 1700s, and they were followed by a second wave of immigrants, Swiss-German pioneers who began arriving from Berks and Leigh counties in Pennsylvania in 1804. In 1810, these “Pennsylvania Dutch” established The Zion Lutheran and Reformed Church and built a log church and cemetery on this site. The church was destroyed by fire in 1845 and a new church served the congregation well until it too was destroyed by fire in 1894. The cemetery, known as The Old Dutch and German Burying Ground, German Cemetery, and Lynn Cemetery and now Old North Cemetery, is all that remains. Among the dozens of old stone markers, some in German, are markers for veterans of the American Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, and other wars.
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Welton Cemetery was known as Roselawn Cemetery until the early 1900s. Early settlers to the Burton area donated the land. Welton Cemetery is the burial place for veterans of the nation’s wars and for several state officials. Judge Peter Hitchcock (1781-1853) served in the War of 1812. From 1810-1852, he was elected to both houses of Ohio’s General Assembly and one term in the U.S. House of Representatives and served on the state’s Supreme Court. He was Chief Justice from 1831-1833 and 1849-1851. In 1850, he was a member of Ohio’s constitutional convention. (Continued on other side)
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