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The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College grew out of the Cannon Act of March 22, 1870. “But let it be started,” Governor Rutherford B. Hayes told the Legislature in 1873, “with the intention of making it a great State University.” The little college opened September 17, 1873 with a faculty of seven and twenty-four students. One academic building at first housed everything. The campus, remote from the city, was surrounded by some of the original forest. In May, 1878 the name was changed to The Ohio State University. It was after 1900 before it really began to realize its educational potential, and its major growth occurred after World War II. By 1970, the Centennial Year, the university had more then met the hopes of its founders. A leading university with great manpower and physical resources, it had earned high standing in many fields covering a wide range of educational and research activities.
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General John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky led a force of Confederate calvarymen into Meigs County during a forty-six day raid north of the Ohio River. The advance forces burned Benjamin Knight’s carding mill and sawmill, the Shade River Bridge, and pillaged local businesses in Chester on July 18, 1863, while waiting for the rest of the column to catch up. This two-hour halt delayed General Morgan’s arrival at the ford at Buffington Island until after dark, allowing Union troops to arrive before he could make his escape. General Morgan surrendered eight days later near West Point in Columbiana County, the northernmost point ever reached by Confederate forces during the Civil War.
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In the heyday of steamboating on the Muskingum, many people made their livelihood on the river. Jane McMillan, known as Old Jane, was one of the few women reported to have piloted boats on the river. In the 1840s she was co-owner of the “Zanesville Packet.” McMillan worked a variety of jobs, from cook to pilot. She was reported to know the twists and turns of the river so well that she could navigate safely at night, something many pilots refused to do. Isaac Newton Hook, a descendant of the earliest settlers in Zanesville, used skills he learned on the Muskingum River as a pilot on the Mississippi during the Civil War. He shipped supplies needed by the Union army. His tomb is in the Brick Church cemetery between Hooksburg and Stockport. He had the grave built out of concrete and above the level of the 1898 flood. The 1913 flood submerged the tomb, but it survived and can be viewed to this day.
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Desperately trying to protect their homeland, the Delaware Indian Nation who lived here in the Tuscarawas Valley, joined the French against the English during the French and Indian War, 1754-1763. After the French defeat, the Delawares, dissatisfied with the treaty terms, joined an Indian Confederacy to attack the English in early 1763. Known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, the uprising was lead by Ottawa chief Pontiac. In response, the English commander, General Jeffrey Amherst, ordered Colonel Henry Bouquet to mount a 1,500-man expedition to subdue the Confederacy in Ohio. The Army arrived at this location on October 13, 1764. The camp, known as Camp 14, was located in this valley between the two small streams on the side of the hill. Proceeding on to the Delaware town of modern-day Coshocton, Bouquet negotiated a surrender with the Delaware, Shawnee, and Wyandot who then relinquished over two hundred white prisoners.
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Lucasville Cemetery was originally established as the Lucas Family burying ground, with Susannah Lucas as the first recorded burial on May 4, 1809. Susannah’s husband, Captain William Lucas, a Revolutionary War veteran, is interred here along with the first wife of Governor Robert Lucas, Eliza “Betsy” Brown Lucas. By 1816, the cemetery was used as a public burying ground. Hand carved monuments inscribed with poetry can be found in the old section. Recognized as one of the oldest cemeteries in southern Ohio, Lucasville Cemetery has interred veterans of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam.
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Irish railroad workers founded the Catholic community in Washington Court House in the 1850s, with the first Mass being held in a local shanty in 1852. In 1871, Father John B. O’Donoghue purchased three and 5/8 acres of land adjoining Washington cemetery on the outskirts of Washington Court House to build the St. Colman Church and adjacent cemetery. In 1885, much of Washington Court House, including St. Colman Church, was destroyed by a tornado. To mark the site of the church, a stone monument was erected on June 19, 1916. Over thirty-five veterans from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War I are buried in St. Colman Cemetery, and at least sixteen of these veterans were Irish immigrants. The cemetery’s highest decorated veteran, James Aloysius Ducey, served in World War I and World War II, earning numerous awards, including the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre.
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Lancaster’s native son, Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, was a four-star military genius. He played a major role in the Union victory during the Civil War as a brilliant commander and grand strategist who revolutionized war by incorporating psychological and economic warfare into his military tactics, culminating with the famous “March to the Sea” through Georgia. In retrospect, he declared “War is Hell.” Honoring an allegiance to the United States Constitution, he fought to preserve the Union. His self-written epitaph was “Faithful and Honorable.”
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In the mid-1700s, France found its influence waning among midwestern tribes as it contested for Native American trade and military alliances with Great Britain. Shortly after Miami chief Memeskia (also known as Old Britain or La Demoiselle) moved his village to Pickawillany, British traders were given permission to establish a small post in the village, which was deep in the territory claimed by France. When French demands to evacuate the post failed, Charles Langlade led a party of 250 Ottawa and Ojibwe warriors and French Canadians in a surprise attack on the Miami village on June 21, 1752. The trading post was destroyed, British traders were taken to Detroit as prisoners, and Memeskia was executed. Pickawillany was completely abandoned soon after. As a prelude to the French and Indian War, the Battle of Pickawillany fueled land claim and trading right conflicts between France and Britain.
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