, OH
The Pike County Courthouse was at Piketon from 1815-1861 when county residents voted to move the county seat to Waverly. The Waverly Public Square was donated to the county by the Meschech Downing family in September, 1861. A committee was appointed to oversee the courthouse construction and the completed structure was deeded to the county in December 1866 for $5. An addition was added to the front in 1909. Inside, the common pleas courtroom houses busts of entrepreneur-businessman and first millionaire of Pike County, James Emmitt, and his wife, Louisa, and a mural of “Blind Justice” painted by late local lawyer, W. T. Reed.
, OH
The village of Albany was established in 1838 as a market center for the surrounding agricultural area, which saw its first white settlement in the early years of the nineteenth century. Education was always a major concern of Albany’s citizens. Since public schooling was minimal, private academies provided the community various levels of education from the 1840s to the 1880s. Anti-slavery sentiment also was strong in Albany, and many of its citizens participated in the “Underground Railroad.” Because of educational opportunities and sympathetic white neighbors, free African-Americans came to Albany, but most had moved away by the 1930s. After World War Two, the village lost its status as a center for commerce and business.
, OH
In 1912, the president of the Public Library Association in Paulding requested funding from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to build a library in Paulding. At first the Carnegie Corporation of New York refused, stating that it only provided funding to communities with larger populations, but when the Library Association said it would serve the entire county, which had a larger population, the request was granted. As a result Paulding became the site for the first “county” Carnegie library in the United States, built for a total cost of $40,000. Carnegie provided funding for 2,811 libraries, of which 1,946 were built in the United States. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the Paulding County Carnegie Library continues to service the needs of all citizens of Paulding County.
, OH
As a member of the Connecticut Land Company, Judge Samuel Hinckley of North Hampton, Massachusetts purchased township 4N Range 13W of the Western Reserve in 1795 for a sum equivalent to 23 cents an acre. The township remained unsettled until Abraham Freeze was commissioned by Judge Hinckley in 1819 to survey the township into 100 plots of 160 acres each. In return for having the township, founded in 1825, named “Hinckley,” the judge gave land for two burying grounds and one-half acre for a public square. In 1919, upon the 101st anniversary of the “Great Hinckley Hunt,” where men from surrounding counties gathered on Christmas Eve to rid the township of wild animals, Judge Amos Webber spoke for the deceased Judge Hinckley: “When I last saw this country, it was a howling wilderness – by industry and frugality you and your ancestors have made these ever lasting hills and pleasant valleys blossom as the rose.”
, OH
Described as a Columbus “institution” when he died in 1969, Emerson C. Burkhart was born on a farm in Union Township, Putnam County in 1905. The son of Albert and Nora Burkhart, Emerson graduated from Kalida High School in 1924 and from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1927. After studying art in Provincetown, Massachusetts and in New York City, he settled in Columbus and, in 1937, married Mary Ann Martin, an artists’ model who devoted herself to his career. Burkhart was a prolific painter and completed an estimated 3,000 pictures during his 40-year career, including street scenes, rural landscapes, and more than 250 self-portraits, once noting his face was “cheaper than a model’s and always there.”
, OH
This block of Main Street overlooks the Geauga County Courthouse, which was built in 1869. The courthouse and the Main Street buildings, together which compose a district that has been entered on the National Register of Historic Places, are excellent examples of the High Victorian Italianate architectural style. Going north from Court Street, the first two buildings were erected in 1873. The Opera House dates from 1875. The jail was constructed in 1868 just after the fire, followed by the new jail of 1874, and the sheriff’s house of 1909. Memorial Hall (now the Courthouse Annex) dates from 1875. Last on the block is the Victorian Gothic Church built in 1882.
, OH
The founder of Ravenna Township in 1799, Benjamin Tappan Jr. led a distinguished life of public service. An aggressive force in local politics, he served in the Ohio Senate from 1803 to 1805, as judge of the fifth circuit court of common pleas from 1816 to 1823, and as federal district judge from 1826 to 1833. Tappan served as aide-de-camp to Major General Elijah Wadsworth following the surrender of Detroit in the War of 1812, provisioning and arming local militia units defending the northwestern frontier against a possible British invasion. (continued on other side)
, OH
Ross County’s first courthouse was Ohio’s first statehouse. The courthouse was erected on the Public Square in 1801. Thomas Worthington, one of the building’s superintendents, laid out the foundation. Chillicothe was the last capital of the Northwest Territory, and the final session of the territorial legislature met in the courthouse in 1801. Ohio’s first constitution was written here in 1802. On March 1, 1803, Ohio’s first General Assembly convened in the building, making it the statehouse. During a time of strained relations between Native Americans and settlers in Ohio, the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh delivered a speech here in 1807 to reassure citizens that the Indians would remain peaceful. The courthouse served as the statehouse from 1803 to 1810 and from 1812 to 1816. The building was razed in 1852 to make way for the present courthouse.
614.297.2300
Contact Us
