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Creator of some of America’s favorite cartoon characters, Milton Caniff was born in Hillsboro in 1907 and graduated from Ohio State University in 1930. He created his first comic strip in 1932 for the Associated Press Syndicate, and in 1934 introduced “Terry and the Pirates,” an innovative serial adventure featuring believable characters drawn with unprecedented realism. Enormously popular through the World War II years for both “Terry” and the comic strip “Male Call,” which he created for the U.S. military’s Camp Newspaper Service, Caniff subsequently introduced “Steve Canyon” in 1947. “Steve Canyon” ran for forty-one years until Caniff’s death in 1988. Credited with influencing generations of successful cartoonists, Caniff brought adventure, suspense, and sensuality to what had been largely a medium for humor and melodrama.
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Judge William H. West of Bellefontaine led a distinguished career in law, public service, and politics. In 1854 West helped found the Republican party in Ohio and six years later he participated in Abraham Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency. West served consecutive terms in both houses of Ohio’s General Assembly from 1857 to 1865 and was elected the state’s attorney general at the end of the Civil War. He became an Ohio Supreme Court justice in 1871 and in 1877 was his party’s nominee for governor. After losing his sight, Judge West retired from the court but continued to practice law. At the Republican party’s convention in 1884, the “Blind Man Eloquent” nominated James G. Blaine as the G.O.P.’s presidential candidate. Defining Republicans as a party for “union, freedom, humanity, and progress,” the judge’s nomination speech sparked a celebration that historian David McCullough described as “one of the most memorable events in the whole history of national political conventions.”
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Ransom E. Olds was born on this property on June 3, 1864. Olds co-founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, forerunner of the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors in Lansing, Michigan, on August 21, 1897. The curved dash model, built from 1900 to 1907, was the first car to carry the name Oldsmobile. With a 66-inch wheelbase, it weighed about 650 pounds, cost $650, and was powered by a one-cylinder, seven-horsepower engine capable of a speed of 20 miles per hour. It was the first commercially successful American-made automobile built using a progressive assemble system that led to modern mass-production methods.
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Republican congressman William M. McCulloch was one of the architects of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the first of three laws to recommit the nation to the cause of civil rights in the 1960s. “Bill” McCulloch was born near Holmesville to James H. and Ida McCulloch on November 24, 1901. Raised on the family farm, he attended local public schools, the College of Wooster, and, in 1925, earned his law degree from the Ohio State University. He married his childhood sweetheart Mabel Harris McCulloch (1904-1990) in 1927, after settling in Jacksonville to start his career during the Florida land-boom of the 1920s. It was in Jacksonville that the Deep South’s racial intolerance seared him. (Continued on other side)
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Presbyterian minister Hugh Stewart Fullerton asked his congregation in 1841: “Shall we endeavor to form an academy to provide better educational advantages to the young citizens of this remote community?” Predating the founding of the town of South Salem, the Salem Academy was built and opened in 1842, its stone coming from a quarry south of Greenfield. Its primary purpose was to prepare ministers and teachers for the West. Professor J.A. Lowes served as principal during the “golden age” of the academy from 1848 to 1858. (continued on other side)
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With 229 victories, Woodsfield’s Samuel Pond Jones, or Sad Sam Jones, was one of professional baseball’s top pitchers in the early 1900s. He started his 22-year career with the Cleveland Indians in 1914 and later played for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators, and Chicago White Sox. He posted a career-high 23 victories for Boston in 1921 and won 21 for New York in 1923. Jones appeared in four World Series, but the pinnacle of his career came September 4, 1923, when he threw a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Athletics.
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Frances Rappaport Horwich was born in Ottawa on July 16, 1907, the daughter of Sam Rappaport, an Austrian immigrant who operated a general store, and Rosa Gratz Rappaport, a Russian immigrant. The youngest of six children, she attended the Ottawa elementary school and graduated from Ottawa High School in 1924. After high school, she attended the University of Chicago where she earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and taught first grade for three years. “Miss Frances,” as she was called, then earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1933 and a Ph.D. in 1942 from Northwestern University. From 1942 to 1952, she was involved in teaching and education development. The basic education she received in the Ottawa schools enabled her to achieve great skills and abilities. [continued on other side]
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The Bloomingburg Presbyterian Church and cemetery were established in the northwest corner of the current cemetery grounds on March 7, 1818. Several years later it became a center for anti-slavery activity. The Reverend William Dickey, who presided over the church and other members, devoted their lives to the anti-slavery cause not only in voice but also in abolitionist activity. By the mid-1800s, their work, as well as the fact that Bloomingburg had become home to a vibrant African American community, led to the town becoming the area center for the Underground Railroad, which helped transport many fugitive slaves to freedom in the north. Six soldiers from the American Revolutionary War, nineteen from the War of 1812, and over 100 from the Civil War and Spanish-American War are buried in the Bloomingburg Cemetery, including Henry Casey, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor at Vicksburg.
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