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President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, created a national tragedy, and the nation mourned as his body was transported by rail from Washington, D.C. back to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried. As the nine-car Lincoln Funeral Train passed through Champaign County, U.S. military forces secured curves, bridges, and railroad crossings along the route and spiked switches closed to insure the train’s safety. The Funeral Train passed through the Village of Cable at 10:13 p.m. 150 feet southeast of here. As a large crowd assembled around several large bonfires, a lone soldier stood alone in the rain in the center of the crowd holding an American flag. Many residents stood silently along the tracks, hillsides, and valley fields, soaked in their wet clothes waiting to pay their respects to the fallen president. After Cable, the Funeral Train continued west and downhill toward Urbana, Westville, and St. Paris.
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St. Mary Church was dedicated in 1868 in response to the spiritual needs of the growing German-Catholic population of Columbus’ South Side. The original schoolhouse, which stands behind the church, was erected in 1865 under the direction of Rev. Francis X. Specht, St. Mary’s first pastor. It served as a temporary house of worship until the Gothic-style church was completed. St. Mary’s distinctive spire – soaring 197 feet into the Columbus sky – was added in 1893. By 1865, Columbus’ population was one-third German, and the South Side had become a thriving working-class community. The new immigrants built homes and churches and established schools. Local German businesses, organizations, and newspapers prospered. German Village is one of the premier historic restorations in the world, and is the largest privately funded historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. More than 1,600 buildings have been restored since 1960.
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The German Reformed Church was organized on Kelleys Island in 1865. The congregation built this church from island stone in 1866 on 1/2 acre of land purchased from Alfred S. and Hannah Kelley. By 1871, the congregation, one of five on the island, heard services in German and had 25 families as members, including those of Baumler, Beatty, Becker, Boker, Burger, Cattenach, Dodge, Elfers, Fischer, Gerlach, Hess, Huber, Jordon, Keifer, Lange, Nowalk, Pringnitz, Renter, Schaedler, Scheele, Smith, Stoll, Suhr, and Trieschman. Rev. A. William Von Kaske was the congregation’s last resident minister, leaving in 1915. The church’s final service, a funeral for William Burger, was held in 1942. The church’s Ladies Aid Society was able to maintain the building until 1957, after which it was left vacant. The Kelleys Island Historical Association leased the church in 1981 and was granted the deed in 1986.
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Colonel William Henry Morgan was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania, to parents Thomas Rees Morgan and Elizabeth Nicholas Morgan. The family relocated to Alliance in 1871. Educated in the Alliance Public Schools, Morgan completed his grade 12 exams and began working for his father’s engineering firm. Possessed of an inventive electrical and engineering mind, Morgan and his father patented the overhead traveling crane that revolutionized the steel industry. Upon his father’s death in 1897, Morgan became president of Morgan Engineering Company. He was appointed an honorary “Colonel” when Ohio Governor George K. Nash (1900-1904) made him an aide-de-camp on his staff.
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In 1847, eight persons formed a mission parish of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Sandusky Circuit). Reverend Henry J. Young, the minister, had come to Toledo through the Underground Railroad, as had some of his congregation. Richard Mott and Congressman James Mitchell Ashley helped the mission to rent a frame building on the southwest corner of Adams and Summit streets. The mission later became the Toledo Circuit of the A.M.E. Church.
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Licking County was established in 1808. Construction of the current Licking County Courthouse began in 1876. In 1879, a fire destroyed upper portions of this building, which was replaced in 1880. Architect Henry E. Myer of Cleveland designed the building in the Second Empire Style, which originated in France. The building contains significant works of art, including paintings, sculptures, and stained glass in the west courtroom on the second floor. The statues over the original entrances to the courthouse represent the ideal of impartial justice. (Continued on/from other side)
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Construction of the Columbus, Piqua, and Indiana Central Railroad started in 1850 and was finished in 1854. Later referred to as the “Panhandle Railroad,” it ran from Columbus to Bradford. During the Civil War, the line carried supplies and troops and it was extended from Bradford to Richmond, Indiana. President Lincoln’s funeral train traveled the route on April 29, 1865. Eventually, three railway lines crossed Urbana: the Big Four, the Pennsylvania, and the Erie. “Corn brooms,” woolen cloth, horse carriages, and tinware were shipped by railroad to national markets and regular passenger service carried residents to destinations across the country, including Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Washington, D.C. (Continued on other side)
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In 1827, noted evangelist Walter Scott came to Canfield and visited with a number of area Baptist families living on Palmyra Road and in the vicinity of Dean Hill. A follower of Alexander Campbell, Scott delivered powerful sermons that persuaded some to establish a new church congregation in the Disciple faith. After meeting in congregation members’ homes, a framed meeting house was erected circa 1830 on land purchased from William and Orsemus Dean. This church stood across from William Dean’s brick residence. A burial ground was provided at the site with existing grave markers dating to 1837. Veterans from all the wars of this nation are buried here, including Benjamin Dean of the 105th Ohio Infantry Regiment who died from wounds suffered in the 1863 Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee. (continued on other side)