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The first permanent settlement in the Marysville area, was founded in 1817 by Revolutionary War veteran Abraham Amrine (1761-1849) and his sons. The Amrines emigrated from Switzerland to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s and, after living in Belmont County, Ohio for 16 years, Abraham purchased 1000 acres here along Mill Creek circa 1817, paying $2 an acre. When Paris Township was organized in 1821, the township officers were elected in Amrine’s home on Newton Pike (now Raymond Road). All seven of his sons, John, Andrew, Moses, Frederick, Jeremiah, Abraham, Jr., and Henry, settled here. Andrew was a Justice of the Peace and leader in the church. Near this site, Henry built a sawmill in 1822 and a gristmill in 1825, which were operated by the family for more than 50 years.
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After American militia troops forcibly ended the 1812 siege of Fort Wayne, General James Winchester’s Army of the Northwest marched down the north side of the Miami [Maumee] River to stop or retard advancing British troops sent to aid in the siege of Fort Wayne. After three days of difficult march, Ensign James Liggett of the 17th Regiment, volunteered to lead a group of four spies or scouts to the site of the old Fort Defiance. Liggett’s small force was surprised and killed on or about September 25 near here. The Americans tried twice to recover the bodies, but met with ambush from hostile Native Americans sympathetic to the British. Their bodies were finally recovered and buried in a common grave. Besides Liggett, they included Wyatt Stepp, Guy Hinton, William Bevis, and Nathaniel Mitchell of Woodford County, Kentucky, all of Captain McCracken’s Company, 1st Rifle Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer Militia.
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Here in 1887, frustrated locals destroyed the Six Mile Reservoir when legal efforts to close it failed. Years after any boat ran on the Wabash & Erie Canal, its water source, the 2,000-acre reservoir, became a stagnant, uncultivable breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitos. Legislative attempts to abandon the canal and reservoir failed because manufacturers in Defiance used the waterway to float logs downstream. On the night of April 25, 1887, 200 men calling themselves “The Dynamiters” carried a banner that read, “No Compromise! The Reservoir Must Go!” and converged here, overpowered citizen guards, gouged the banks of the reservoir, dynamited the bulkhead and lock, and burned down the lockkeeper’s house. The next day, Governor Joseph B. Foraker denounced the acts of the “mob of lawless and rioting men.” (Continued on other side)
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Built in 1816 by General Reasin Beall and his wife Rebecca Johnston Beall, the homestead is recognized as the oldest existing residence in the City of Wooster. Born in 1769 in Maryland, Reasin Beall came to Ohio in 1801. In the War of 1812, he was promoted to brigadier general of the Ohio militia. After the war, Beall served one term as a Republican to the Thirteenth Congress and ten years as a register of the land offices at Canton and Wooster. After Beall died in 1843, his daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law Joseph Stibbs II received his house.
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John Chapman (1774 – 1845) leased these three acres to the north and west from William Botts Hedges on April 29, 1828. He paid Hedges by cultivating 1,000 apple trees on the site over the next ten years. Apples provided an important food source. Cut and dried for sauces in the winter, they could be pressed into cider or “apple jack” at a time when water often carried disease. The Hedges Nursery profited the Shanesville area by shipping apples to the major trading posts at Piqua and Ft. Wayne. During his lifetime, Chapman proved an able businessman who established profitable orchards in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. In 2009, American Forests, the Johnny Appleseed Foundation, the Museum at Urbana University, and the Village of Rockford planted two “Rambo” apple trees at the Hedges Nursery site.
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Camp No. 3 was located about six miles below Fort Winchester on the north side of the Maumee River. Militiamen from Kentucky, part of the forces led by War of 1812 Brig. Gen. James Winchester, occupied the camp from November 1812 until December 30, 1812. They had marched off to war in summer wearing their linen clothing; unaware they would end up in the heart of the Black Swamp in mid-winter. The suffering they endured was intense. Camp No. 3, thought to cover an area of about 40 acres, had picketed walls and an earthen bastion at each corner. The soldiers built small huts for shelter. In his diary, Pvt. Elias Darnell of Lewis’ Regiment of Kentucky volunteers referred to Camp No. 3 as “Fort Starvation.”
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Settlers and soldiers moving west brought with them familiar institutions such as the Masonic Lodge. Here at Camp Meigs, military officers were authorized by Ohio Militia Captain Henry Brush, Ohio Masonic Grand Master, to establish the first lodge in Northwest Ohio on September 13, 1813. Colonel William Anderson was Master, Lt. Col. William McMillan, Senior Warden, and Capt. Charles Gratiot, Junior Warden. Built under the command of Gen. William Henry Harrison, the fort was named for Ohio Governor, Return Jonathan Meigs.
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After completing Fort Winchester, Brigadier General James Winchester ordered his troops to cross to the north side of the Maumee River. The troops occupied the new site, Camp #2, from November 3-10, 1812. An earthen fortification was built for protection. Militia soldier Elias Darnell recorded on November 4th that “The weather is very rainy, which makes our situation extremely unpleasant…. Four of this army have gone to the silent tomb to-day never more to visit their friends in Kentucky; the fever is very prevalent in camp; nearly every day there is one or more buried.” Winchester referred to a burial place for the encampment in his General Orders for November 5th. Camp #2 proved to be too wet and marshy, Winchester ordered his army to move to six miles down river to a site called Camp #3.
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