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Simon Kenton who is buried here. During the Revolutionary War he frequently served as scout under George Rogers Clark and later praised Clark for his role in saving the Kentucky settlements. Kenton’s Indian captivity of 1778-79 acquainted him with the Mad River Country where he subsequently provided leadership in its development. Though a legendary frontier scout and rifleman, Kenton was never biased against the Indians.
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The Sharp family homes and their locations on N. State Street and Africa Road mark an important route through Westerville on the Underground Railroad. The family patriarch, Garrit Sharp, was an original settler of Sharp’s Settlement, now Westerville, and donated land for and helped organize the first Methodist church. He is also associated with the founding of Blendon Young Men’s Seminary, which was acquired by Otterbein College, an institution with enrollment open to African Americans and women from its inception in 1847. He and his sons were all noted abolitionists who, along with Bishop William Hanby and Otterbein president Lewis Davis, assisted southern slaves on their road to freedom. From the Sharp homes, slaves would have proceeded north to the house of Samuel Patterson on Africa Road and along Alum Creek to the Quaker settlement near Marengo in Morrow County.
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A pioneer in automotive innovation, Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958) was born three miles north of Loudonville. He attended local schools and graduated from Ohio State University in 1904. He organized the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco) in 1909, which later became a part of General Motors (GM). “Boss Ket” served as vice-president of research for GM until 1920 and held over 140 patents (including four-wheel brakes, safety glass, and “ethyl” gasoline), achieving his greatest fame for an all-electric starting, lighting, and ignition system. The electric starter debuted on the 1912 Cadillac and was soon available on all cars, helping to popularize them with women. In 1945 he helped establish the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Institute in New York.
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The museum of the Mercer County Historical Society, the Riley Home represents six generations of the Riley family in the county. The first Riley to arrive here was Captain James Riley, who surveyed the area in 1819, after it was opened to American settlement following the Treaty of Saint Marys in 1818. Captain Riley was elected to the Ohio General Assembly in 1823. Captain Riley’s son, James Watson Riley platted Celina in 1834, was Mercer County’s Clerk of Courts, and then represented the area in the Ohio General Assembly beginning in 1843. (Continued on other side.)
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With 229 victories, Woodsfield’s Samuel Pond Jones, or Sad Sam Jones, was one of professional baseball’s top pitchers in the early 1900s. He started his 22-year career with the Cleveland Indians in 1914 and later played for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators, and Chicago White Sox. He posted a career-high 23 victories for Boston in 1921 and won 21 for New York in 1923. Jones appeared in four World Series, but the pinnacle of his career came September 4, 1923, when he threw a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Athletics.
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Ohio’s first female county sheriff, Maude Charles Collins (1893-1972) of Vinton County was appointed to finish her husband Fletcher’s term after he was killed in the line of duty in October 1925. In 1926, she ran for the office in her own right on the Democratic ticket and handily beat males in both the primary and general elections. “Sheriff Maude” investigated crimes, answered calls, patrolled roads, and performed the duties of her office, all while raising five children. She gained national attention for solving an intriguing double murder case in 1926, later featured in Master Detective and Startling Detective magazines. In 1927 she was the first woman to deliver inmates to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. Collins, a pioneering woman in law enforcement, was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000. She is buried in Hamden Cemetery.
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Burial Site of Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Private First Class Joe R. Hastings, U.S. Army, World War II Hastings, the squad leader of a light machinegun section in Company C, 386th Infantry, 97th Infantry Division, displayed conspicuous initiative in battle at Drabenderhohe, Germany, on April 12, 1945, allowing his battered unit to evacuate its wounded and reorganize. Pfc. Hastings, by his intrepidity, outstanding leadership, and unrelenting determination to wipe out the formidable German opposition, cleared the path for his company’s advance. He was killed in action four days later while again supporting his unit. President Truman posthumously awarded Hastings the Congressional Medal of Honor on November 8, 1945.
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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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