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Born in Steubenville in 1814, Edwin McMasters Stanton studied at Kenyon College and opened his law practice in Cadiz in 1836. The grandson of North Carolina slaveholders, Stanton opposed slavery. A successful railroad attorney and War Democrat at the beginning of the Civil War, he accepted the challenge of reorganizing President Abraham Lincoln’s War Department. Stanton enforced unpopular draft laws, fought draft, restricted the press, and nationalized the railroads. An effective planner and logistician, Stanton moved 20,000 soldiers more than 1,200 miles in a week by railroad to relieve the siege of Chattanooga in 1863. Following Lincoln’s assassination, Stanton clashed with President Andrew Johnson and provoked the act that led to Johnson’s impeachment. He died four days after President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1869.
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The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. Largely through the efforts of Chillicothe attorney John Poland, the War Department selected Chillicothe as the site of an army training camp for inductees from Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. Construction began at Camp Sherman, named for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, in June 1917. When the first recruits arrived in September, more than fourteen thousand workers had erected two thousand buildings on the 1,700-acre site. The rapid influx of soldiers increased Chillicothe’s population from 16,000 to 60,000.
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During the Second World War, the U.S. Army constructed a 131-building hospital on level farmland a quarter mile northwest of this marker. The army built the facility as a 1,520-bed hospital in the winter and spring of 1942-’43. It was later expanded to 168 buildings with a 2,000-bed capacity, including a German POW camp for 234 prisoners engaged in hospital work. Between June 1943 and March 1946, when the facility closed, 17,608 veterans were treated here, most having returned with injuries received in the European or Pacific theaters of war. Convalescence and rehabilitation were the hospital’s primary missions. Most patients returned to active duty when they recovered. After the war, the facility became the Cambridge State Hospital, which treated mentally ill and developmentally disabled Ohioans until 2008. Thereafter, the facility became the privately-operated Cambridge Behavioral Hospital and the state-operated Cambridge Developmental Center.
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After World War II, colleges across the country struggled to house students following surges in enrollments made possible by the G.I. Bill. Wilmington College was no exception. The College’s enrollment doubled compared to pre-war levels. On April 13, 1948, the president of Wilmington College, Samuel Marble, called a student rally and unveiled a plan to build a much needed men’s dormitory entirely with volunteer labor and materials. Ground was broken that very day. In the months that followed, there was a great outpouring of public support and donations as faculty, students, and community members worked together to build the dormitory. The building was dedicated in honor of President Marble’s leadership on October 27, 1950.
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On this site are re-interred 118 exhumed remains from Lot 17, Friends Burying Grounds, adjacent to Damascus Friends Church on Walnut Street. Among those re-interred here are: Catlit Jones, a scout with Quaker Daniel Boone in Kentucky, a captain in the Revolutionary War, and a recorded Friends minister; and Samuel Coppock Jr., father of Edwin Coppock, who was hanged in 1859 for his part in abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The exhumation (2001-2002) was directed by Prof. Dr. John White of Youngstown State University, assisted by staff, students, and volunteers.
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After completing Fort Winchester, Brigadier General James Winchester ordered his troops to cross to the north side of the Maumee River. The troops occupied the new site, Camp #2, from November 3-10, 1812. An earthen fortification was built for protection. Militia soldier Elias Darnell recorded on November 4th that “The weather is very rainy, which makes our situation extremely unpleasant…. Four of this army have gone to the silent tomb to-day never more to visit their friends in Kentucky; the fever is very prevalent in camp; nearly every day there is one or more buried.” Winchester referred to a burial place for the encampment in his General Orders for November 5th. Camp #2 proved to be too wet and marshy, Winchester ordered his army to move to six miles down river to a site called Camp #3.
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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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Hugh Mosher was the fifer portrayed in Archibald Willard’s “Spirit of ’76”, one of America”s most famous patriotic paintings. Mosher was born on January 29, 1819 in Perry, Lake County (then part of Geauga County), Ohio. He served as Fifer Major in the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. After the conflict, Mosher was considered the finest fifer in the state, and performed at veterans’ reunions and other celebrations. Always popular and noted for his generosity, Mosher died on August 15, 1896 and is buried in Brighton (Lorain County), Ohio.