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Envisioned as a rural cemetery with careful attention to landscaping design and symmetrical lots, the Riverview Cemetery was established in 1883 on forty acres of land. The chapel was a gift to Riverview from the Grand Army of the Republic, mostly Civil War veterans, and was dedicated on Memorial Day 1899. Plaques inside the chapel list 702 men from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia who served in the Civil War, including 311 who are memorialized or buried at Riverview. There are also plaques listing soldiers killed in World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. The rich history of East Liverpool and Columbiana County is documented in the burials at Riverview Cemetery.
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At this location, during the American Civil War (1861-1865), a U.S. Army General Hospital was constructed on 29 acres of land overlooking Camp Carrington, a site used to recruit and train soldiers for the Union Army. Built in the spring of 1862, this hospital consisted of several wooden, ridge-ventilated buildings in which both Union and Confederate soldiers were treated for combat wounds and illnesses. Captain C.M. Moulton, U.S. Quartermaster at Gallipolis, upon instructions from Headquarters of the Union Army’s Mountain Department, contracted for the first building to be constructed in April 1862. (continued on other side)
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Aurora’s first church was established on December 31, 1809 under the guidance of the Connecticut Missionary Society. The congregation called the Rev. John Seward of Granby, Massachusetts to be the first minister in 1812. Built on land donated by Samuel Forward and dedicated in 1824, the original brick church was replaced by a wood-frame building in 1872. The First Congregational Church and the Aurora Disciples of Christ formed an association called the Federated Church in Aurora in 1913. These three entities merged to form The Church in Aurora in 1933, serving the community as more than a landmark.
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The First Presbyterian Church of West Union, built in 1810, is known as the “Church of the Governors.” Although the date is uncertain, the congregation was organized circa 1800 on Thomas Kirker’s land on Eagle Creek, about three miles from West Union. Kirker, Ohio’s second governor, was influential in organizing the congregation and raising funds for the construction of the building. Stonemason, Thomas Metcalfe, Kentucky governor from 1828-1832, was awarded the contract to build the walls for $250.00; the total construction cost was $500.00. The first three regular ministers – William Williamson, Dyer Burgess, and John P. Van Dyke – all held strong anti-slavery sentiment that was felt throughout the congregation. During the Civil War, soldiers of the 70th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment of recruits from Adams County and eastern Brown County, were said to have been temporarily quartered in the church before leaving West Union in 1861.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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