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The Wyandot called the Grand Reserve home nearly a century before Ohio statehood. They built houses, cultivated the land, and grew bountiful groves of fruit trees. They governed from the nearby Wyandot Council House and operated a productive saw and grist mill. Many sent their children to school and worshiped at the limestone church, built in 1824, and recognized as the first Methodist mission in the country. But Ohioans set their sights on Wyandot lands in the fertile Sandusky River Valley. State and federal governments were unwilling to allow the Wyandot to remain on their chosen homelands, despite their participation in American society and friendly relations with neighboring settlers. Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Wyandot were the last tribe removed from the State of Ohio in 1843.
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In 1870, African American men in Circleville attempted to vote in municipal elections. Despite the recent ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, pollsters refused their votes on the basis that state law forbade them from receiving the ballots. The Second Baptist Church was the site of a meeting of 147 African American men seeking redress. Together with Republican leaders these men produced petitions that were sent to the United States Senate and House of Representatives. These petitions gave the Republican Party the grounds to introduce bills to enforce the Fifteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The passage of the Enforcement Act of 1870 imposed criminal penalties for interference with the right to vote and also helped to shift power and authority from the individual state legislatures to the centralized Federal government.
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On September 17, 1920, representatives from ten professional football teams met in Canton and formed the American Professional Football Association, which in 1922 became the National Football League (NFL). Pro football evolved from club football in the 1890s, and by the early 1900s had begun to spread across the country, concentrating in the Midwest. Jim Thorpe, the first nationally prominent pro, started with the Canton Bulldogs-an early pro football power-in 1915. In 1959, Canton citizens launched a well-organized and ultimately successful effort to have their city, “the cradle of professional football,” designated as the site of a monument to the sport’s historic stars. The Professional Football Hall of Fame opened on September 7, 1963, inducting seventeen charter members. The Hall of Fame interprets and promotes the study of the role of professional football in American culture.
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The first African-American to achieve prominence as a poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar was born and raised in Dayton, the son of former slaves. Working as an elevator operator while he established himself as a writer, Dunbar published his first book of poems, Oak and Ivy, in 1893. His third collection, Lyrics of a Lowly Life (1896) with an introduction by another Ohio-born author William Dean Howells, gained Dunbar widespread critical acclaim and popular recognition. Widely published in contemporary journals and literary magazines, Dunbar employed both turn-of-the-century African-American dialect and standard English verse to give a voice to the themes of everyday discrimination and struggles for racial equality. Tuberculosis cut his life short at age 33. Dunbar’s body of work includes twelve volumes of poetry, four books of short stories, a play, and five novels.
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Memorial Park hosted the famous Kansas City Monarchs during a barnstorming tour on August 4, 1961. The home team was the Lima Metro League’s Cairo Merchants. Legendary pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige (1906-1982) appeared on the mound for the Monarchs. The first African American to pitch a World Series, Paige was famous for helping the Cleveland Indians win their 1948 championship. After the Cairo exhibition game, he thrilled fans by signing autographs. Although the score of the 1961 game is forgotten, the impact of meeting Paige and other Kansas City players is remembered. During an era of racial tension and national change, a baseball game between an all-Black and all-White team taught many in attendance that they had much in common, including a love of the game.
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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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Augustus West, an African American, was born in Madison County, Virginia on March 20, 1814, and moved to Ohio in 1837. Legend has it that West was a runaway slave and worked as a farm laborer before designing a scheme to purchase his own farm. West, with abolitionist Alexander Beatty, traveled into slave territory no fewer than three times where the pair would sell West, help him escape, and split the profits. After splitting the profits, West used his portion of the money to purchase 177 acres of land in Fayette County where he built his “mansion.” To remain inconspicuous and secure, West built the “mansion” as far from the main road as possible. (continued on other side)
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Approximately 1000 feet east of this marker lies the graves of sixteen American soldiers from Fort McArthur who gave their lives during the War of 1812. The fort, a one-half acre timber stockade containing huts, was built in the summer of 1812 to guard the Scioto River crossing of Gen. William Hull’s “Trace” to Detroit. Construction of the fort was under the command of a future Ohio governor, Col. Duncan McArthur.