, OH
Congregations of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), called “meetings”, worshiped in plain meeting houses. On this site stood the last Richland Friends Meeting House, built in 1872. Ninety-four Friends established the meeting in 1826 and it endured for 147 years. The cemetery is where many generations of members of this meeting are buried. The faith, based on pacifism and simplicity, blossomed in the region during the first half of the 19th century. (Continued on other side)
, OH
The first home of the oldest Episcopal parish in the Connecticut Western Reserve, the St. James Episcopal Church was built between 1827 and 1828. Philander Chase, first Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio, consecrated it in 1829. The belfry and steeple were added in 1881. It was moved to this site from its original Market Street location in 1972 after the parish built a new church. Renamed the St. James Meeting House, it is the anchor of a community of historic buildings that includes the Beardsley-Walter-Diehm House (circa 1828), the Oswald Detchon House (circa 1840), and the Schiller-Chuey Summer Kitchen. The oldest known structure in Boardman, the St. James Meeting House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
, OH
This is Marion County’s fourth courthouse and the second at this site. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1884. Costing $115, 00, it was completed in 1885 by contractors Leffler and Bland. In 1973 the courthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1975 the interior was remodeled at a cost of over $900,000.
, OH
Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School. One-room schools were commonly named for people who furnished land for the building. Michael Bridenbaugh (1820-1895), who settled in Riley Township in 1835, and wife Jemima (1834-1903) sold a half-acre of land to the Riley Township school board in 1873. The first school on the site was a wooden structure, built in 1878. It was replaced by a brick building in 1889. The school operated until 1927, after which the district was consolidated. Students attended classes in nearby Pandora. (Continued on the other side)
, OH
This site, at the head of the Great Rapids of the Maumee, has been a major river crossing for centuries. The village was platted in 1833 as Gilead but was overshadowed by rival Providence during the canal era. In 1868 the name Grand Rapids was adopted, and the town prospered with the arrival of the railroad in 1877. Fires ravished the village in the late 1890s and spring floods have remained a threat. Restoration of the Victorian architecture began in 1975 and has helped revitalize this village along the historic Maumee.
, OH
Betsey Mix Cowles dedicated her life to fighting slavery and improving the status of women. Her desire for a formal education led her to Oberlin College, where she completed two years of study in 1840. An advocate of immediate abolition, Cowles lectured on the moral depravity of slavery, opened her home, at this site, to fugitive slaves. Opposed to expansion of slavery into the West, Cowles protested the Mexican War. Cowles served as president of Ohio’s first women’s rights convention (in Salem) in 1850, and the following year wrote a treatise on equal pay for working urban women. She served as the first dean of women at Grand River Institute, and later became one of the first women public school superintendents in Ohio.
, OH
On this site, the evening of December 29, 1866, a group of men gathered in the First Baptist Church for a prayer meeting which resulted in the founding of the Painesville Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Two years later the YMCA outgrew its headquarters at the Baptist Church and moved to upstairs rooms at 71 Main Street. In 1905 it purchased the former Steele mansion on Painesville’s Park Place and relocated once again. The Painesville YMCA and the county YMCA merged in 1922 to become the Lake County YMCA, the second oldest YMCA in continuous existence in Ohio.
, OH
In 1849, the city of Ironton was founded by local ironmasters, railroaders, and financiers associated with the Ohio Iron and Coal Company. They saw the city as a manufacturing and shipping point for their products. As a young industrial city, Ironton prospered when river transportation facilitated the development and export of Lawrence County’s natural resources and manufactured items. The Iron Railroad Company was also established to transport pig iron and manufactured goods from nearby towns to Ironton, to awaiting steamboats on the Ohio River. Steamboats, in the form of towboats, packet boats, and showboats, traveled the river providing the city with goods, services, and entertainment. The Ironton wharf and boat landing once served the community as a gathering place to greet incoming passengers, receive mail, and hear the latest news.
614.297.2300
Contact Us
