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Descendants of Lemuel Garrison Sr., a Revolutionary War soldier, were among the first Europeans to own and settle land at Garrison Corner (intersection of State Route 123 and Shawnee Trace) . Garrison Cemetery burials took place from ca. 1837 to 1936. The cemetery has 327 lots. Eighty-six burials are documented including veterans John J. Garrsion, Benjamin Garritson, James Knicely, Nicodemus Rude, and William Rude. (continued on other side)
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In 1787, the construction of Fort Steuben was completed by Captain John Francis Hamtramck and soldiers of the 1st American Regiment, who were sent to the frontier by the United States government to remove illegal squatters and protect government surveyors from American Indian raids. The surveyors were platting the First Seven Ranges of the Northwest Territory. The surveyed land was sold for settlement or offered to soldiers as payment for military service during the Revolutionary War. Consequently, the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin were formed from the settlement of the Northwest Territory. Fort Steuben was named after Baron Frederich Wilhelm Augustus Steuben, who had served in the Revolutionary War and from which the town derived its name. Captain Hamtramck abandoned the fort in 1787 by order of Colonel Josiah Harmar, and by 1790 the remains of the fort had disappeared. Fort Steuben has been reconstructed on its original location.
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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.
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Robert Caldwell and his family, from Chester County, Pennsylvania, moved to the Northwest Territory in 1795. In 1809, they bought and cleared land along Duck Creek in what became Olive Township, Morgan County (in 1819). In 1832 Robert’s son, Samuel and his wife Sarah Brownrigg Caldwell built the “Ball-Caldwell” house. Samuel Caldwell advocated for the formation of Noble County, established in 1851. In the contest to determine the site of the county seat, Caldwell promised a donation of land if it would be used for that purpose, which is was in 1857. In gratitute, the commissioners named the county seat “Caldwell.”
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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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The Walnut Grove Cemetery is the burial place of members of the Zane and Martin families. Their graves lie within the brick enclosure. The cemetery is also the resting-place of many early Martins Ferry residents, including veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. The Zane and Martin families were significant in the pioneer history of the region. Betty Zane’s legendary heroism at Fort Henry (now Wheeling, West Virginia) helped settlers resist an attack by the British and their Native American allies in September 1782. (Continued on other side)
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Oil became a valuable resource in Ohio when significant quantities were discovered in Lima in 1885. The discovery brought an economic boom to Lima and northwest Ohio. News of the Lima oil field spread, attracting the attention of John D. Rockefeller, co-founder of Standard Oil. Against the advice of his board, Rockefeller invested heavily in Lima crude, despite its high sulfur content and foul odor. Storage tanks and pipelines for the crude sprung up rapidly. Having great faith in the ingenuity of his engineers and scientists, Rockefeller stockpiled the crude and sent Standard’s chief refining specialist, J.W. Van Dyke, to Lima to construct and manage the new Solar Refinery. Together with Herman Frasch, a German chemist, the two men perfected the technique to desulphurize the crude and turn it into quality kerosene and fuel oil.
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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.