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Col. William Crawford’s army of 480 Pennsylvania volunteers passed near this site on June 3 to attack the Indians near Upper Sandusky. On June 4-5 they encountered a combined force of Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, and, unexpectedly, Butler’s Rangers, a British unit from Detroit. The expedition was a disaster; about 300 Americans escaped. On June 6, about six miles west of this marker, the opposing forces met again at the “Battle of Olentangy.” With minor losses, the Americans continued their retreat, reaching the Ohio River on June 13. Crawford was captured, and burned at the stake on June 11.
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In 1804, a group of Scotch-Irish Covenanters from Rockbridge County, Virginia, erected a log church on this location. In 1805, they organized the Cherry Fork Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Two brick churches were also built on this location, in 1832 and 1854. The present (1976) Cherry Fork United Presbyterian Church is the oldest congregation of Covenanter origin in Ohio.
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The Ottawa, or “Tawa” Indians had inhabited the Maumee Valley since the middle of the 1700s. By the 1790s, Ottawa settlements included villages along the Blanchard River at the present-day Village of Ottawa. During the War of 1812, Colonel James Findlay destroyed these villages because the Ottawa aided British forces. In 1817, the United States government established a reserve for the Ottawa in exchange for their lands in Northwest Ohio. The reserve encompassed a five-mile square area; its center was the intersection of the Blanchard River and an Indian trace near what is now Old State Route 65. (Continued on other side)
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When David Knisely, the founder of New Philadelphia, first arrived in the Tuscarawas Valley on August 27, 1803, he found a sparsely populated, pristine wilderness. Five years later the state legislature approved a bill organizing Tuscarawas County effective March 15, 1808. Shortly thereafter, New Philadelphia was chosen as the county seat, and on April 16, 1808, the first commissioners met at Leininger’s tavern. By August, the tavern proved to be an inappropriate location for the county’s official business, and the commissioners approved the construction of a two-story, combination jail and county office building on land donated by John Knisely on the northeast corner of the square. By 1818 a new, larger brick courthouse was authorized by the commissioners. This building was occupied in 1825 and served as the courthouse until 1882 when the present structure was approved. Occupied in 1888, the building continues to be the center of the county’s business. The beautiful, state-of-the-art annex was dedicated on October 27, 1990.
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Established as the county seat of Pickaway County in 1810, Circleville derives its name from the circular portion of a large Hopewell-era earthwork upon which it was built. The Circleville earthworks, described in 1772 by Rev. David Jones for a Boston magazine, comprised an 1,100 foot diameter circle connected to a 900 foot square. Town director Daniel Dreisbach platted the town directly atop the earthworks, integrating the town plan into the prehistoric landscape. An octagonal courthouse stood directly in the center.
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Robert Sprague Beightler was born in 1892 in Marysville. A graduate of Marysville High School, he began his career as a soldier in 1911, when he enlisted as a private in Marysville’s guard unit, Company E, Fourth Ohio Infantry Regiment. He served in Mexico from 1916-1917, World War I from 1917-1919, and World War II from 1940-1945. From his stint with the Ohio Infantry, he rose in rank to command the famous 37th Ohio National Guard Buckeye Division as Major General during WWII. Beightler was one of the most successful National Guard Generals and the only National Guard General to lead his troops through both training and combat in WWII. He was with his troops through 700 days of fighting in the South Pacific Theater. Fighting occurred on Bougainville Island and in the islands of New Georgia and the Philippines. (Continued on other side)
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Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargeant, and Benjamin Tupper of the Ohio Company conceived Ohio University, which was encouraged by the Ordinance of 1787 and the Northwest Territorial Legislature in 1799, incorporated as the American Western University in 1802, and chartered by the Ohio State Legislature on February 18, 1804. The university is the first institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory, second west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the first in the United States to be endowed with land by the government with proceeds used to pay for its operations-revenue from two townships was set aside to support the university. Opened on June 1, 1809, as an academy with three students, Ohio University awarded its first undergraduate degrees in 1815.
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Judge William H. West of Bellefontaine led a distinguished career in law, public service, and politics. In 1854 West helped found the Republican party in Ohio and six years later he participated in Abraham Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency. West served consecutive terms in both houses of Ohio’s General Assembly from 1857 to 1865 and was elected the state’s attorney general at the end of the Civil War. He became an Ohio Supreme Court justice in 1871 and in 1877 was his party’s nominee for governor. After losing his sight, Judge West retired from the court but continued to practice law. At the Republican party’s convention in 1884, the “Blind Man Eloquent” nominated James G. Blaine as the G.O.P.’s presidential candidate. Defining Republicans as a party for “union, freedom, humanity, and progress,” the judge’s nomination speech sparked a celebration that historian David McCullough described as “one of the most memorable events in the whole history of national political conventions.”
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