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Company E of the 30th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was the only full infantry company formed in Jerome Township. Capt. Elijah Warner organized the unit in the village of Jerome and it was mustered into the Union Army at Camp Chase in Columbus on August 29, 1861. A total of 102 men from the township fought in the regiment throughout the war, while approximately 25% of the total population of the Jerome Township served. Company E performed outstanding service, participating in the Antietam, Vicksburg, and Atlanta Campaigns, Sherman’s March to the Sea and the March through the Carolinas, and the in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. Of the 102 Jerome Township men in Company E, 32 perished during the war. The regiment was mustered out of service August 13, 1865.
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Oscar D. Boggess (1832-1907) was born in Virginia, the son of a slave and her master. He and his family were granted freedom in the will of his father and master. The will was contested up to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld Boggess’ freedom. Boggess moved to Pennsylvania at age 20, and during the Civil War, joined the 43rd United States Colored Troops. He earned the Butler Medal of Honor for bravery at the Battle of the Crater near Petersburg, Virginia, in July 1864. Boggess moved to Youngstown after the war, and worked as a stonemason. He was a charter member of Tod Post 29, Grand Army of the Republic, in Youngstown, and a co-founder of the Oak Hill Avenue African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city’s first African American religious congregation. The Boggess home, formerly located near this site, hosted the church’s first meetings in 1870.
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The Randall Secondary rail line dates to the 1850s when the independent Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad (C&M) laid tracks through Aurora, Ohio. C&M, chartered in 1848, linked the Mahoning Valley coal and iron ore fields to the industries and lake port at Cleveland. For over a century, the Randall Secondary contributed to Aurora’s economic life ? fueling the region’s rapid growth during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In its heyday, the line was an important route for commuter transport and freight service along the 67 miles between Cleveland and Youngstown. Although passenger service into Aurora Train Station stopped in the 1960s, freight service continued into the 1990s. The last remaining track of the Randall Secondary in Aurora stands near the station it served.
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The intersection of Main and College streets has been the center of Oberlin since the town and college were founded in 1833. The first downtown buildings were made of wood and were destroyed by a series of spectacular fires. The first college building, Oberlin Hall, stood on the southwest corner of College and Main and included recitation rooms, a dining hall, chapel, offices, and lodging. In 1887, Akron architect Frank Weary designed the large brick building at numbers 5 to 13 West College. Number 23 West College (Gibson Block) once housed a silent movie theater on the second floor. East College Street’s historic buildings include the Apollo Theater, which showed Oberlin’s first talking movie on May 11, 1928. From 1897 to 1929, an interurban streetcar line connected Oberlin’s downtown to Cleveland. Oberlin’s downtown historic district was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
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The Champion Coated Paper Company began production April 15, 1894, with less than a dozen employees under the direction of Peter Gibson Thomson (December 16, 1851-July 10, 1931). A Cincinnati businessman, bookseller, and publisher, Thomson recognized that recent changes in half-tone printing would increase the demand for coated paper. In 1893, he acquired the patent rights to a card coating machine, incorporated his new company, and set-aside 45 acres along Seven Mile Pike (now North B Street) to build a plant that would coat paper produced by other mills in the Great Miami Valley. The Champion Hamilton Mill shipped its first coated paper order on May 4, 1894. Within a few years, Thomson had dramatically increased plant capacity and, by 1900, Champion was regarded as the largest coated paper mill in the country.
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Religious worship began on this site in 1820 as a Plan of the Union Sunday School with ministers recruited by the Connecticut Home Missionary Society. Its first stone church, officially known as the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, was built and dedicated on February 26, 1834, but as the congregation grew, a second stone church was constructed and finished on August 12, 1855. Built of Berea Sandstone, it stands now as the oldest building on Public Square. Ravaged by fires in 1857 and 1884, the church was rebuilt according to the original plans, and the 1884 interior restored by East Coast architect, Charles W. Schweinfurth. From 1965 to 1983, the chapel served as the worship center for the Cleveland Chinese Christian Church.
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At 2:30 p.m. on Friday, October 20, 1944, an above ground storage tank that held liquefied natural gas in the East Ohio Gas Company’s tank farm began to emit vapor from a seam on the side of the tank that dropped into nearby sewer lines. It mixed with air and sewer gas and ignited, resulting in explosions and fires that brought damage to nearly one square mile of Cleveland neighborhoods. With 79 homes and two factories destroyed, nearly 700 people were left homeless, 131 killed, and 225 injured. The East Ohio Gas Company took responsibility for this tragedy to aid those in need through direct financial assistance and by rebuilding the community. The disaster also led to a movement by public utilities and communities across America to store natural gas below ground without tanks.
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The Universalist religious movement spread across Ohio as the state was settled in the 1800s. Universalists proclaimed a loving God and universal salvation. Believers were sometimes scorned as “no-Hell-ers.” Olmsted’s First Universalist Society was founded in 1834. Early church members included Olmsted pioneers Asher Coe, David Stearns, Charles Olmsted, Elias Frost, and their families. Initially, services were held in the Union House of Worship, which Universalists shared with Methodists and Presbyterians. In 1847, the Olmsted Universalist congregation built this Greek Revival style church at the corner of Butternut and Coe Ridge (now Lorain) Roads. John Ames supervised the construction of the building, which cost $974. The church bell in use today was cast in Boston in 1851. The bell sounded the alarm for fires and tolled when community members died, as well as announcing worship services.