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Among the earliest settlers to Rush Township were members of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, who emigrated from the eastern states, mostly Pennsylvania and North Carolina. At first religious services were held in the homes of devout Quakers who in turn built a small-framed meeting house on this site in 1842. The present Friends Church replaced the original structure in the 1870s at a cost of $4,245. Although not a stop on the Underground Railroad, the church supported local ardent Abolitionists who helped runaway slaves reach freedom in Canada. An epidemic during the winter of 1850-1851 reduced the Friends’ membership and led to several Quaker families relocating to Iowa. The final religious service was held here on October 26, 1997, after which the church was donated to the village of North Lewisburg.
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The Triangle, one of the most historic places in Berea, has been the center of the city’s civic life since the mid-19th century. Just beneath lie the solid layers of the famous Berea Sandstone that brought prosperity to Berea during its early years. Quarry owner and Berea Seminary founder John Baldwin obtained much of what is now Berea from Gideon Granger, Postmaster General under President Thomas Jefferson and original owner of Township 6, Range 14 (later Middleburg Township) of the Western Reserve. When the seminary trustees transferred the Triangle tract to the people of Berea in 1847, they designated it by deed as a public promenade. This farsighted stipulation preserved it from commercial development during the 20th century. (continued on other side)
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The Euclid Avenue United Brethren Church, later the Mount Enon Missionary Baptist Church, was erected at Third & Euclid Street in Dayton. Milton Wright, a bishop of the church, was present at the laying of the cornerstone on May 28, 1911. Bishop and Mrs. Susan (Koerner) Wright were the parents of Orville and Wilbur Wright and their siblings Reuchlin, Lorin and Katherine. The church’s congregation included Orville and Katherine Wright and other notable Daytonians such as local historian and former pastor Dr. Augustus W. Drury, food distributor and potato chip maker Daniel Mikesell and Prof. Josiah P. Landis of the Bonebrake Theological Seminary. The church playedd a role in offering aid during the disasterous flood of 1913.
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Hiram House was Ohio’s first settlement house and among the earliest in the nation, opening in October 1896 in Cleveland’s Whiskey Island neighborhood. Representing the ideals of a late-1800s urban progressive movement, settlement houses provided–through “service, not charity” –health, recreational, and self-development opportunities that were not widely available in this era. Founded by Hiram College divinity graduate George A. Bellamy (1872-1960), Hiram House administered a wide range of social services for people of different ethnic and economic backgrounds. Bellamy established the “Fresh Air Camp” circa 1900; Cleveland industrialist Samuel Mather donated this tract of land in 1903. In continuous operation since its founding, Hiram House has provided outdoor experiences and educational programs for thousands of Ohio children.
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Kirtland in the 1830s became an early gathering place and headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had been organized under divine inspiration by Joseph Smith in western New York in 1830. Here the Mormons, as they are known outside the faith, created a religious community and introduced doctrinal concepts, organizational programs, and social practices that have been central to the religion ever since. The Kirtland Temple, dedicated in 1836, was the spiritual center of the faith. Internal dissension and external persecution arose largely from the distinctive features of the religion and weakened the Mormon community in Kirtland. In 1838, the majority of the Mormons here followed Smith westward to Missouri, Illinois, and eventually Utah.
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From its founding in 1865, Dennison was a railroad town and became the second largest rail center for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Rail presence was so strong that the industry dictated social and economic development throughout the community. For example, the Railway Chapel, the historic name for the First Presbyterian Church of Dennison was built because W.W. Card, Pennsylvania Railroad Superintendent, saw a spiritual need in the community. As the first church built in Dennison, Card contacted the Presbytery of Steubenville to start the church, arranged for donation of land, provided for financing from railway officials, and arranged for labor and material from the railroad. Railroad workers constructed the furnishing for the church with walnut pews built by the Dennison Car Shops. The pews have reversible backs, designed after ones in passenger cars. The church was dedicated in April 1871 and listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 2009.
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Frances Dana (Barker) Gage was born on October 12, 1908, in Marietta. She married James L. Gage in 1829 and they raised eight children, including four sons who served with Union forces during the Civil War. Throughout much of her life, Frances was deeply involved with the Temperance and Anti-Slavery movements and Women’s Rights issues. Presiding over the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron in 1851, she invited Sojourner Truth to give her famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech. The Gage family moved in 1853 to St. Louis, the western extension of the Mason-Dixon Line, where her life was threatened whenever she spoke out against slavery. During the Civil War, she traveled south to aid Union soldiers and teach freed slaves. Though crippled and permanently disabled by a stroke, she continued to lecture on social issues until 1867. Frances Dana Gage died on November 10, 1884, in Greenwich, Connecticut.
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Field Musician Richard W. Thompson. Tunes played on fife and drum regulated a soldier’s life in camp and his actions on the battlefield. Heard over the roar of battle and through the haze of smoke, fifes and drums – field music – communicated orders to massed troops quickly. Richard Willoughby Thompson (c. 1742-1837), buried in Fancher Cemetery, was a field musician during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. According to his grandson Henry’s recollections from the 1920s, Thompson was born in Dublin, Ireland, and enlisted in the British army, where his service culminated in his capture while picking blackberries. He switched allegiances, joined the colonials, and was sent to Virginia. Thompson was appointed the Fife Major of the 5th Virginia Regiment and remained a Fife Major as Virginia units organized during the war. (Continued on other side)
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