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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, the span is the oldest in Clark County a traveler can cross. It is also one of the oldest stone bridges in use in Ohio. Stone mason Samuel S. Taylor (1837-1930) built the culvert from locally quarried limestone in 1871, his first public works project. A Civil War veteran, Taylor worked on several projects, including the Mill Run underground sewer (1877), Champion’s East Street shops (1883), and the foundation for Springfield’s city hall (1890).
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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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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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A prominent early 20th century illustrator and artist, Howard Chandler Christy was born on a farm in Morgan Township. He first gained notice as an illustrator during the Spanish-American War, but achieved lasting fame for his trademark “Christy Girls,” dream girls who idealized feminine beauty during this era. Between 1908 and 1915, he worked from a studio perched above the Muskingum River near Duncan Falls. In the 1920s Christy began to paint portraits and historical scenes. The Signing of the Constitution of the United States, displayed in the Capitol, is his most famous work. The Signing of the Treaty of Green Ville hangs in the Ohio Statehouse.
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Just after 5:00 P.M on June 28, 1924, a tornado swept off Lake Erie directly into downtown Lorain. Within five minutes, seventy-eight people lost their lives. Fifteen died in the old State Theatre that stood upon this site, as an audience of two hundred watched a Saturday afternoon musical performance. More than one thousand suffered injuries. The tornado did extensive damage to the business district, destroyed 500 homes, and damaged a thousand more. The city’s largest industry, the American Shipbuilding yards, was severely damaged. The tornado, which had hit Sandusky before striking Lorain, continued along the shoreline and struck Sheffield and Avon minutes later. Contemporary accounts listed eighty-two deaths resulting from the deadliest tornado in Ohio’s history.
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Colonel Ebenezer Zane played a major role in the development of Ohio, a role that helped place it on the path to statehood. A veteran of the Revolutionary War and experienced road builder, he received permission from Congress in 1796 to build a road into the Northwest Territory, which would be called Zane’s Trace. In exchange for his work, Zane received land grants where the trace would cross the Muskingum, Hocking, and Scioto rivers. The trace began in Wheeling, West Virginia (then Virginia) and ended at Limestone, Kentucky (present-day Maysville) on the Ohio River. Opening in 1797, it brought settlement into Ohio, including Lancaster. Its route crossed the playground area of East Elementary from the northeast corner of today’s playground to the southwest corner, lot #18, East Addition, as recorded on an 1897 map of Lancaster.
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A part of the Virginia Military District, Ripley was founded in 1812 by Colonel James Poage, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Originally named Staunton, after Poage’s hometown in Virginia, the village comprised 1,000 acres along the Ohio River. With its riverside location and deep water landing area, Ripley became a thriving community. Large quantities of flour, pork, and other goods were shipped from Ripley via flatboats down the Ohio. This continued as steamboats took over river trade and cargos came to include tobacco and other goods. Some of the goods leaving the area were shipped on vessels built in Ripley’s two boatyards. During the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century, the yards produced scores of flatboats and, during the peak years of 1826-1836, several steamboats. The boatyards were located on Ripley’s riverbank and lumber for boats came from surrounding forests. Red Oak Creek, running into the Ohio, was an especially favorable location for area mills and slaughterhouses.
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The advancing and retreating mile-high glacial sheet of ice and snow shaped the countryside around this area. As the last of the ice masses melted, a great swamp developed, punctuated by towering white pines, bogs, and wetlands, fed by the Shenango and Beaver rivers. Abundant wildlife drew prehistoric and later historic Native Americans into the area where they lived and hunted for thousands of years. Indian legend has it that the name Pymatuning means “The Crooked-Mouthed Man’s Dwelling Place,” referring to a Native American chief who once resided in the area. European trappers came to these swamp lands in the 1700s in search of beaver and other fur-bearing animals. Pioneer farmers and lumbermen came to the area after 1800, but settlement in the swamp was slow and difficult. Eventually much of the area was cultivated in onions and other root crops. (continued on other side)
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