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The village of Gates Mills derives its name from its founder, Holsey Gates, and from the importance of mills in the agricultural community. In 1826, the year of Gates Mills’ founding, a sawmill was constructed to increase the lumber supply and attract new settlers. In the following year, a rake factory was established, and by 1829 a gristmill was in operation. The Chagrin River was dammed to create a millrace that regulated the flow of water to the wheels that powered the mills. Shops and houses encircled the mills, which were the center of industry in Gates Mills.
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Prior to the Civil War, Ohio was a leading state for enslaved Americans of African decent traveling the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada. For these fugitives, their final stop in Ohio was a Lake Erie port community in the north. One such port was at the mouth of the Black River in Lorain that came to be identified as Lorain Station 100, named because it was thought to be one of the last stops or stations before the fugitive slaves reached freedom in Canada. Many arrived here in a wagon driven by Robbins Burrell who owned a farm five miles up the Black River. Concealed by vegetables, grains, or hay, the slaves were smuggled into schooners, some of which belonged to Burrell’s cousin Captain Aaron Root. From Lorain Station 100, the determined travelers were transported across Lake Erie, completing the final leg of their long journey to freedom.
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In 1942, Charity Adams Earley (1918-2002) became the first African American woman to receive a commission in what became the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). She rose through the ranks to command the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in Europe, the only unit of African American women to serve overseas in World War II. Upon leaving the service in 1946, she was the WAC’s highest-ranking African American officer, a lieutenant colonel. Raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Earley moved to Ohio to attend Wilberforce University and later The Ohio State University. She married Stanley Earley, Jr., M.D. in 1949 and they later moved to Dayton. She became active in civic affairs, including serving on the Sinclair Community College Board of Trustees.
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Nimisilla Park was established in 1894. Prior to its founding, the site was the location of the county fair from 1859 to 1893. Throughout its history, Nimisilla Park hosted horse races, live music, soldier reunions, and a zoo, among other events. Prominent political figures, such as Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and Eugene V. Debs, made speeches at the park. In 1918, Debs delivered a famous anti-war speech for which he was arrested and jailed. As of 2016, the park continues to serve as a gathering place for the community.
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Just three weeks after reaching Granville, pioneer villagers decided on December 9, 1805 to build a log cabin where eighty children would attend school. By 1820, public school classes were being held in a three-story brick building. When rail lines and the National Road bypassed the village, dreams of becoming an industrial and commercial center were dashed. Educational institutions, however, thrived and by the Civil War Granville’s citizens had organized the following: the Granville Literary and Theological Institution, later called Granville College and then renamed Denison University; the Granville Female Seminary, the Granville Episcopal Female Seminary, the Young Ladies’ Institute, the Granville Female Academy, and the Granville Male Academy. As Granville enters its third century, educational excellence continues to attract students to the community’s schools.
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After the outbreak of the Civil War in the spring of 1861, the U.S. War Department commissioned Ohio Senator B.F. Wade of Jefferson and local Congressman John Hutchins of Warren to supervise the Union Army’s recruiting service in Northeastern Ohio. Recruitment rolls were to be filled in summer so training could be conducted during the fall. The Oak Grove Fairgrounds in Warren, home of the Trumbull County Agricultural Society, was one of the sites selected for the training. This camp was named Camp Hutchins in Congressman Hutchins’ honor. John Hutchins, an attorney by profession, had served as Trumbull County Clerk of Courts and had been assocaited with future Ohio governors David Tod (1862-1864) and Jacob Cox (1866-1868), in their law firms. An ardent anti-slavery man and Underground Railroad agent, Hutchins served in the U.S. Congress from 1859 to 1863.
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Elizabeth Township was founded in 1807. The Elizabeth Township House was built about 1870, serving as the community’s assembly hall. The building is similar to the seven remaining one-room, brick schoolhouses, built throughout the township between 1868 and 1873. In 1997, the township was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Ohio’s first rural historic district. The district includes all of Elizabeth Township and parts of Staunton and Bethel townships. This marker erected to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the township’s founding.
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St. Augustine Episcopal Chapel was founded by Lenora Evans Berry, an African American woman, in 1907. A lifelong Baptist, her mission was the development of the Episcopal Church for African Americans in Youngstown. Mrs. Berry’s husband, bricklayer Thomas D. Berry, the son of master builder P. Ross Berry, became the church’s first senior warden and treasurer. The congregation met in St. John’s Parish until they were able to obtain property on Parmalee Avenue. In 1912, Reverend John Ogburn was officially called to vicar. In 1920, work began on plans for a new church. The structure was designed by Charles F. Owsley and construction began after more than six hundred individuals from the community attended the laying of the church’s corner stone on September 11, 1921. St. Augustine Chapel is the oldest African American church and congregation in Youngstown still in its original location and structure.
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