, OH
In 1942 Cedar Bog became the first nature preserve in Ohio purchased with state funds. Efforts to set this wetland aside began in the 1920s through the efforts of Florence Murdock and her daughter. Efforts intensified in the mid 1930s with help from Walter Brigham Evens, Jr., and finally came to fruition in 1941 due to the interests of Champaign County Common Pleas Judge Owens, Governor John Bicker, and Dr. Edward S. Thomas of the Ohio Historical Society. This relatively small parcel is an outstanding example of a prairie/fen complex known as Cedar Swamp that once covered 7,000 acres of the Mad River Valley. Approximately one quarter of the plant species in Ohio are found here. Cedar Bog also has a large number of rare species, two of which, the Small Yellow Lady’s Slipper Orchid and Prairie Valerian, occur in Ohio only at Cedar Bog or one other site.
, OH
This hamlet, located one mile southwest from here, was never platted, but was named after William Woods, president of the three-story brick Woodsdale paper mill constructed in 1867. Flanking the mill were the company office and store and several workers’ houses. Previous to this, the area flourished from the presence of two grist mills on the Great Miami River and from the Miami & Erie Canal. Additional enterprises such as a stone quarry, ice cutting company, and grain elevator operated here during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Woodsdale was also known for the Woodsdale Island Amusement Park and the LC&D Railroad depot. The park, established on an island between the Miami & Erie Canal and the Great Miami River in 1891, was the site of picnics, political rallies, a large dance hall, and amusement rides–including a beautiful swan boat. The great flood of 1913 completely destroyed the park.
, OH
Clear Fork Gorge was formed when glacial meltwater cut through the sandstone bedrock that forms its steep walls fourteen to twenty-four thousand years ago. The gorge is one thousand feet wide and over three hundred feet deep. Its seclusion has preserved a rare forest community that includes native white pine and towering eastern hemlock. A National Natural Landmark, the gorge displays a wide variety of other tree species more common throughout the state, with sycamore on the bottomlands, beech, ash, and tulip farther up the slopes, and oak and maple on the ridges above. The gorge has changed little since pioneer legend Johnny Appleseed tended his apple orchards nearby.
, OH
This is the gravesite of Robert Nesbitt, an immigrant from Convoy, Ireland who named Convoy, Ohio after his home town. In 2010, the Convoy Community Foundation, Convoy Lions Club, Convoy Business Association, and Convoy Community Days, Inc. raised the funds to restore Nesbitt’s tombstone. A representative from Convoy, Ireland – Ray Bonar – attended the rededication ceremony on July 4, 2010. The Van Wert County Historical Society took over the care of the grave site, which is in the Sugar Ridge Cemetery. The cemetery has been under the care of the Tully Township Trustees since its foundation.
, OH
William McKinley served the nation as president, the people of Ohio as governor, and the citizens of his congressional district as a representative. McKinley was shot by an assassin in Buffalo, New York, in September 1901 and died several days later. The McKinley National Memorial, funded by children’s donations, was dedicated in 1907. It is the burial site of the 25th President, First Lady Ida Saxton McKinley, and two daughters. Designed by architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle, the pink Milford granite structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975.
, OH
Lutheran congregations formed in Perry County beginning in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. The Mother Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania, sent missionary pastors to Ohio to preach to the growing number of Lutherans moving into the state. St. Paul congregation was formed in 1812 under the leadership of William Forester. On September 14, 1818, the Joint Synod of Ohio, the first synodical organization of Lutherans west of the Appalachian Mountains and one of the earliest predecessors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was founded in Somerset at the original log church on this site. St. Paul’s current church on W. Main was constructed in 1844.
, OH
The Sistersville Ferry is the longest continuously working mode of transportation in Monroe County, operating from 1815 to 2003. It crosses the Ohio River between Fly, Ohio, and Sistersville, West Virginia, which is the apex of the longest straight stretch on the Ohio River. This section of the river is called the “Long Reach,” which runs about twenty miles in length. At the “Long Reach,” one can see Beavertown seven and a half miles to the south, and in the other direction Sardis can be spotted five miles north. The Sistersville Ferry is located near the site George Washington encamped during a survey trip to the west on October 25, 1770.
, OH
Moncure Daniel Conway was born on March 17, 1832 in Stafford County, Virginia, the son of Walker Peyton and Margaret Daniel Conway. His father was a wealthy slaveholder and prominent state legislator and county court justice official while his mother, who opposed slavery, introduced her son to abolitionism. Conway graduated from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania in 1849 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1854. Despite his southern aristocratic background, Conway, influenced by his mentor and friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, strongly opposed slavery and eventually religious orthodoxy. Much of Conway’s career was spent abroad, where he became a writer and scholar, writing such notable biographies as Emerson at Home and Abroad (1882), Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1890), and Life of Thomas Paine (1892).
614.297.2300
Contact Us
