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Port William is the birthplace of Gilbert Van Zandt, quite possibly the youngest enlistee in the Union Army during the Civil War. Born on December 20, 1851, “Little Gib” joined the ranks of Company D, 79th Ohio Volunteer Infantry at the age of ten years, seven months, and sixteen days. Barely four feet tall, Van Zandt served initially as the company’s drummer boy, and later as a courier for the regiment. Distinguished for his bravery under fire, young Gilbert saw action in the battles for Atlanta, Sherman’s March to the Sea, and the Carolina Campaign. He was discharged from service on June 9, 1865, already a seasoned veteran at thirteen. Van Zandt died in Kansas City, Missouri on October 4, 1944 at the age of ninety-two.
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The Walnut Grove Cemetery is the burial place of members of the Zane and Martin families. Their graves lie within the brick enclosure. The cemetery is also the resting-place of many early Martins Ferry residents, including veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. The Zane and Martin families were significant in the pioneer history of the region. Betty Zane’s legendary heroism at Fort Henry (now Wheeling, West Virginia) helped settlers resist an attack by the British and their Native American allies in September 1782. (Continued on other side)
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Dudley Nichols was born in Wapakoneta in 1895, the son of Dr. Grant and Mary Mean Nichols. He spent his childhood in a home on this site and graduated from Blume High School before leaving Ohio. After working as a journalist in New York City, he relocated to Hollywood to become a screenwriter for such films as Stagecoach, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Bells of St. Marys. In 1936 Nichols won an Oscar in the category Best Adapted Screenplay. He refused recognition for his work on The Informer because of strained relations with the Hollywood establishment. Nichols was the first person to ever refuse the prestigious award saying, “As one of the founders of the Screen Writers’ Guild, which was conceived in revolt against the Academy, and born out of disappointment with the way it functioned against employed talent-I deeply regret I am unable to accept the award.”
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On July 4, 1796, Moses Cleaveland and his survey party landed at the mouth of Conneaut Creek on the southern shore of Lake Erie in what is today Conneaut, Ohio. The Connecticut Land Company, a private land speculation enterprise, had hired General Cleaveland as its agent to survey the Connecticut Western Reserve lands and to found a settlement along the Cuyahoga River, later named Cleveland. Group members pitched tents and erected a crude shelter to protect the provisions and survey equipment before celebrating the independence of the new country with toasts and salutes. The next day they organized into field groups to begin the historic survey of measuring the townships and ranges of the Western Reserve.
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A pioneer in automotive innovation, Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958) was born three miles north of Loudonville. He attended local schools and graduated from Ohio State University in 1904. He organized the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco) in 1909, which later became a part of General Motors (GM). “Boss Ket” served as vice-president of research for GM until 1920 and held over 140 patents (including four-wheel brakes, safety glass, and “ethyl” gasoline), achieving his greatest fame for an all-electric starting, lighting, and ignition system. The electric starter debuted on the 1912 Cadillac and was soon available on all cars, helping to popularize them with women. In 1945 he helped establish the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Institute in New York.
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Conceived by leaders of the automobile industry to encourage the building of “good roads,” the Lincoln Highway was established in 1913 as the first transcontinental automobile route in the United States. It traversed twelve states and 3,389 miles from New York to San Francisco. The first route across Ohio connected Van Wert, Delphos, Lima, Ada, Upper Sandusky, Bucyrus, Galion, Mansfield, Ashland, Wooster, Massillon, Canton, Minerva, Lisbon, and East Liverpool. By the 1930s much of the original route had become part of the Federal Highway System and U.S. Route 30–many miles of which have, in turn, been bypassed by modern four-lane highways.
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Here, on September 6, 1918, Bryan’s Air Mail Field began operations as one of Ohio’s first official airfields with the arrival of a survey flight to establish air mail service between New York and Chicago. Scheduled service began on July 1, 1919, and stretched west to San Francisco on September 8, 1920, completing the 2,666 mile U.S transcontinental air mail route. Flying the Curtiss JN-4H “Jenny,” R-4, Standard JR-1B, and later, the De Havilland DH-4, aviators pioneered cross continental flight in open cockpit biplanes without radios or electronic navigational aids and reduced coast to coast mail delivery from 87 hours by rail to 33 hours by air.
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One of the most effective political orators of his era, Tom Corwin (nicknamed “the Wagon Boy” for his War of 1812 service) resided here from 1839 until his death. A Whig stump speaker known for his wit and eloquence, he was elected governor of Ohio in 1840 and campaigned for William Henry Harrison in his presidential victory that year. Corwin served six terms in Congress and one in the Senate, where he spoke out against the Mexican War in 1847. He also served as secretary of the treasury in the Fillmore administration and as President Lincoln’s minister to Mexico. Built and first occupied by Corwin’s brother-in-law Phineas Ross in 1818, the Corwin House is representative of Federal-style architecture of this period.
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