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The first road to traverse Sandusky County through the Black Swamp was little more than a muddy path connecting Lower Sandusky (Fremont( and Perrysburg with Woodville. The arduous task of clearing the 120-foot-wide road through the swampy forest was completed within four years. By 1842, the work of stoning the road and draining adjacent lands was completed. Tolls were collected to maintain the road, and it became known as the Maumee and Western Reserve Turnpike. After 1888 it became a toll-free road and today is State Route 20.
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First Lady Lucy Ware Webb Hayes was born in this four-room Federal Vernacular house in 1831. Well educated for her time, she attended local schools, took classes in the preparatory department of Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, and graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati in 1850. She married lawyer and future U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1852. They raised five children to adulthood. As a colonel’s wife during the Civil War, “Mother Lucy” boosted morale for the soldiers of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment. In 1870, during Hayes’ first term as governor of Ohio, Lucy helped establish the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home as a state institution. (continued on other side)
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The Hopewell Associate Reformed Church and Cemetery, now known as Historic Hopewell, was founded in 1808 in a log building that was replaced in 1826 with the present building. It was built by the area’s first settlers, mainly Scotch-Irish who left Kentucky and South Carolina because of their opposition to slavery. The church encouraged worship by African Americans and played an important role in the Underground Railroad. It became the parent church for four “Daughter” Presbyterian congregations: Fairhaven in 1835, Oxford in 1837, College Corner in 1849, and Morning Sun in 1876. Reverend Alexander Porter, the first pastor, was committed to education and constructed a school near the Hopewell Spring that still produces clear water. “Old Hopewell” was completely refurbished in 1880, but by 1915 the membership declined and regular services discontinued. Today Hopewell holds Sunday services in the summer and is maintained by a generous and devoted group of volunteers.
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In 1809 the citizens of Zanesville erected a building on this site which served as the capitol of Ohio from October 1, 1810, until May 1, 1812. The 9th and 10th sessions of the Ohio General Assembly met here before returning to Chillicothe in May 1812. The building was then used as the Muskingum County Courthouse until the present courthouse was built in 1874. The 1809 date stone from the old building was incorporated into the new building and may be seen over the front steps.
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Built by William Stedman in 1816 of local stone, this building served as the Bank of the Alexandrian Society, which printed its own currency. The bank failed in 1817 and 1837. This building has also been used as a store, post office, and interurban railway depot. It was enlarged and opened as a museum during Granville’s Sesquicentennial Celebration in 1955, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Granville Historic District in 1980.
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Fowlers Mill (originally Fowler’s Mills) developed around a group of mills built in the 1830s on the Chagrin River. Opportunities from these mills led to Fowlers Mill becoming the commercial center of Munson Township. From the 1830s into the twentieth century, the community expanded with construction of churches, a post office, township hall, stores, hotel, blacksmith shop, schools, and houses built in such styles as Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne. This type of community center was common in rural, nineteenth century America, but rarely survives with so much original fabric intact. On Mayfield Road, the Disciple Church was built in 1842. East of the church, the brick central school built in 1913 replaced earlier one-room schoolhouses. The gristmill is the only mill standing in Geauga County. The cemetery contains burials dating from the 1830s. The Fowler’s Mills Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
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In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the general public believed that the insane and paupers could be rehabilitated into productive citizens, the Ohio Legislature gave authorization to county commissioners to establish county “poor houses.” The Athens County Home, formerly known as the Athens County Infirmary, opened on this site in 1857 to provide care for indigent citizens of Athens County. When fire destroyed the original building in 1903, a new building was constructed from 1904-1905, designed with the capacity to house up to one hundred people. When it was built, it was considered to be one of the finest and most modern charitable institutions of its time. The facility continued to provide housing for indigent and elderly residents until 1997 when the County Commissioners closed the home and it became a primary location for the delivery of social services in Athens County. (continued on the other side)
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The oldest known structure standing in Franklin, the Old Log Post Office is a reminder of the links the community’s earliest members maintained to the rest of the young state of Ohio and to the United States during the early nineteenth century. John Noble Cumming Schenck, older brother of one of the founders of Franklin, William C. Schenck, established a store here in 1802. In 1805 President Thomas Jefferson appointed John Schenck postmaster of Franklin, a position he held until 1829. Schenck’s store is considered Franklin’s first post office and was one of the first four in Warren County. This building first stood at 310 South River Street and over the years was completely covered by additions and clapboards. They were removed in October 1974 and the house was moved to this location on December 6 of that year. In 1976 the structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.