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Ripley was incorporated as the village of Staunton in 1812. Its name was changed in 1816 to honor General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley, a hero of the War of 1812. In the years before railroads, Ripley was a principal Ohio River shipping center. Also important were its extensive boat-building, tobacco, pork, and timber industries. Ripley too was the home of saw and planing mills, iron foundries, and a piano factory. Such varied commerce enabled Ripley to remain vibrant throughout the nineteenth century. Although noted as a port, Ripley is best remembered as an abolitionist stronghold. Many of its citizens, including Rev. John Rankin and John P. Parker, served as conductors on the famed “Underground Railroad.” The notoriety of Ripley’s anti-slavery network perhaps eclipsed that of nearby Cincinnati, earning the town a reputation as the “Black Hole of Abolitionism.” (Continued on side two)
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Frederick Rice was born on September 29, 1753, near Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania and moved to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania around 1766. During the American Revolution he served under George Washington at Valley Forge and fought in the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, in which American forces surprised and captured 1,000 Hessian mercenaries. He served for two more years as a spy working against Native American tribes in western Pennsylvania. After his service he married Catherine Lauffer, and they raised eleven children to adulthood. Rice chose this 320-acre site, transferred to him in a deed signed by President James Monroe on May 21, 1821, because it offered excellent springs. He assigned the west half to son Simon and the east half to son Barnhart in 1822. Ownership remained in the Rice family until acquired for the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station in 1891, renamed the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in 1965.
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Heritage Farm is a typical mid-19th century farm of the Ohio Western Reserve and has been restored and preserved. The original parcel of land consisted of 325 acres, which was purchased by David Berdan in 1818. The farmstead has been home to Abram and Sarah Berdan, William and Rachel Pitkin, George and Julia Tibbitts, and Peter and Mary Groening. The Heritage Farm Museum site consists of 4 acres with a house, privy, carriage house, corncrib, granary, equipment shed, barn, milk house, and chicken house, and was open to the public on July 1, 2000.
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Youngstown’s earliest automobile suburb, Forest Glen Estates was developed in the 1920s during a period of change in urban transportation patterns and rapid expansion in the regional steel economy. A composite of design work by leading northeastern Ohio landscape and residential architects, the park-like suburb integrates period revival architecture into the natural landscape and blends gracefully with adjacent Mill Creek Park. Gently curving streets with low curbs and landscaped islands were a novel departure from traditional grid patterns. Attached garages and walkways that connect to driveways rather than the street reflect the influence of the personal automobile in the suburban landscape during this era. In 1998, the Forest Glen Estates Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Originally known as Hocking Furnace, Haydenville was founded by and named for Columbus industrialist Peter Hayden (1806-1888), who energetically developed the coal, iron, sandstone, and fire clay deposits found in abundance in this area. Here he operated an iron furnace, coal mines and sandstone quarries, shipping products on the Hocking Canal and, later, the Hocking Valley Railroad he helped build. The incorporation of the Haydenville Mining and Manufacturing Company in 1882 initiated the manufacture of brick and ceramic tile from fire clay. Business boomed in the late 19th century as cities paved their streets with brick and fireproof construction became popular in the wake of widely publicized and tragic fires.
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Mary Leonore Jobe was born on January 29, 1878, near Tappan, Harrison County, Ohio. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Scio College and master’s degree from Columbia University. While studying, she began a life-long career of exploration and natural history investigation. She first explored areas of British Columbia, Canada in 1905 and in 1916 started Camp Mystic, a summer camp in Connecticut for girls. She married explorer Carl E. Akeley in 1924 and completed an expedition to Africa when Carl died in the Belgian Congo in 1926. Honors include the naming of Mount Jobe in Canada to recognize her achievements and Belgium awarding her the Cross of the Knight, Order of the Crown, for her work in the Belgian Congo. She is known for her books and contributions to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. She died on July 19, 1966, and is buried in Deersville.
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Early in the War of 1812, Gen. Wm. Hull, commander of Ohio troops, ordered Col. James Findlay to open a road from Ft. McArthur on the Scioto River to Blanchard’s Fork. Under Findlay, a stockade 50 yards square, with a blockhouse at each corner, was erected here and named in his honor. The fort was used as a supply depot.
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Francis McCormick (1764-1836), who fought under Lafayette at the siege of Yorktown, founded Methodism in the Northwest Territory. His evangelical and pioneer spirit led him from his Virginia birthplace to establish churches in the wilderness, first at Milford, Ohio, then here, at his village of Salem. He rests with his family and followers in the nearby churchyard.