, OH
The comingling of faiths in an area settled predominantly by Quakers helps explain the origins of Jonah’s Run Baptist Church. Ministered to by a Baptist preacher, the children and neighbors of Daniel Collett (1752-1835), an Episcopalian and private in the Revolutionary War, and his wife Mary Haines Collett (1753-1826), a Quaker from Virginia, became Baptists and started the church in 1838. Levi Lukens (1767-1860), a Quaker from Pennsylvania by way of Virginia, purchased the land where the church stands in 1812 and sold it in 1839 to a founder of the congregation. Like local Quaker meetinghouses, the church had separate entrances for men and women and a partition between the two that divided the sanctuary. The congregation’s sons and daughters lived their faith. Howard McCune (1852-1923) was the Clinton Baptist Association’s moderator and president of the Ohio Baptist Convention’s state board. Anne Cossum (1894-1977) was a missionary in China from 1920-1927.
, OH
Huron and Erie County are rich in Native American history. During the construction of the nearby Ohio Route 2 bypass, archeologists in 1976-77 uncovered three Native villages and burial sites. The Anderson site, overlooking the Old Woman Creek estuary, contains artifacts dating to the fifteenth century A.D. The site was once a permanent village, with remains of bowls, fire pits, and even traces of food found among its artifacts. The Jenkins site, also near the estuary, was a winter camp for Indians. Excavators there found several pieces of pottery carbon-dated to 1470 A.D. The final dig, the Enderle site — located west of the Huron River — was strictly a burial site. The discovery of European objects in its graves suggests its creation by a more recent people, such as the Delaware or Wyandot Indians. In 1805, Native Americans in the Firelands signed a land cession treaty at Fort Industry (modern Toledo), and in succeeding years were compelled to leave the region.
, OH
Constructed in 1873, the Bigelow Bridge spans approximately 100 feet across Little Darby Creek. Reuben Partridge built the superstructure at a cost of $12.50 per linear foot ($1,500). Bercupile & Snell built the masonry foundation at a cost of $7.00 per perch (a perch is approximately 25 cubic feet). Partridge built bridges throughout Union County and the surrounding area from 1866 until his death in 1900. The covered bridge is named for Eliphas Bigelow, an early resident of Union County, who built the nearby Bigelow House on the south side of Post Road (SR 161) in 1846. Union County Engineer employees rehabilitated the bridge from 1989 to 1991 by installing a new support system. The Partridge trusses currently carry only the weight of the original bridge. The rehabilitation project received the 1992 Engineered Timber Bridge Award from the National Forest Products Association.
, OH
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Joseph (Jose) de Rivera was born in Barcelona, Spain, and built an import business in New York City. In 1854, he bought six Lake Erie Islands and had South Bass Island surveyed and subdivided into ten-acre lots. De Rivera traveled between New York and South Bass Island, initially turning Put-in-Bay into a sheep farm. He encouraged settlement on the island and its wine industry by helping German immigrants purchase land to plant vineyards. He donated five acres for this waterfront park, the site for the first school, and the land for the first church. To promote travel to the island, de Rivera opened the island’s largest cave as a tourist attraction. He is buried in the island’s cemetery, which is on land he donated for that purpose.
, OH
Sandusky Street (U.S. Highway 20) is the former Maumee and Western Reserve Turnpike. Native American tribes northwest of the Ohio River ceded the right of way for this 46-mile road to the federal government in the Treaty of Brownstown in 1808. This narrow strip ran in a nearly straight line from the lower Maumee River rapids through the Black Swamp to the boundary of the Western Reserve, and included one mile of land on either side of the 120-foot wide road. In 1823 Congress gave the land to the state of Ohio, and a crude roadway was cleared by 1827. Land sales financed roadbuilding and maintenance. Notoriously impassible during the wet seasons, the “Mud Pike” was surfaced with gravel in 1838.
, OH
John Anderson Ward had this Federal style house constructed from 1823-1825 on land inherited from his father, Urbana’s founder Colonel William Ward. The Colonel’s will stipulated that a local mason use 26,500 bricks to build the house and be paid $80.00. The original house is thought to have had four rooms, two rooms each on the first and second floors and both divided by central hallways. John and his wife Eleanor Ward reared seven children in the house, two of whom became nationally recognized artists, John Quincy Adams Ward and Edgar Melville Ward. The farmstead, consisting of 172 acres, was also the site of a huge feast held in honor of General William Henry Harrison’s visit to Champaign County during his 1840 presidential campaign. Twelve 300 foot-long tables were spread across the lawn where thousands of people from the surrounding countryside dined on barbecued beef and lamb and drank barrels of cider.
, OH
Called the “Cradle of Equal Suffrage” and “Free Speech Chapel,” Union Chapel was to be “…open and free for all denominations, but to be monopolized by no one or to the exclusion of anyone.” Built in 1858 or 1859 on land donated by Anson Matthews, the chapel reputedly exists in response to incident triggered by James A. Garfield, then principal of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College) and later president of the United States. He was scheduled to speak at the Congregationists’ “Brick Church” in December 1857. Because of the supposed controversial nature of Garfield’s speech, however, the invitation was withdrawn. (Continued on other side)
, OH
Alexander Sutherland (1767-1845) and his wife Sarah (1768-1836) were the first settlers in Newton Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. Coming from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, the Sutherlands acquired 205 acres of land along Duck Creek southward from this site. Alexander was an influential person in the area after the settlement was made at Duck Creek. He was the second Recorder and the first elected Surveyor for Trumbull County. He was an early Mason with Old Erie Lodge, Warren schoolteacher, postmaster at Newton, Newton Township Trustee and Clerk, and Justice of the Peace. Sutherland, along with Ezekiel Hover, marked the first path from this Duck Creek settlement to Youngstown to reach the nearest mill.
614.297.2300
Contact Us
