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Born in Ashland County in 1819, Lorin Andrews studied at Kenyon College (1838-41) and achieved renown as an Ohio school superintendent and advocate for public elementary and secondary education. As Kenyon’s president beginning in 1854, the charismatic Andrews enlarged the college and enhanced its reputation. Sensing war’s inevitability even before the April 1861 attack on Fort Sumter, Andrews offered his soldiering services to Governor Dennison and organized Company A of the Fourth Ohio Volunteers; Kenyon alumnus Henry Banning raised Company B. Many Kenyon students, including Charles McCook of the “Fighting McCooks,” followed their example. Andrews contracted typhoid fever during the Western Virginia Campaign and returned to Gambier, where he died on September 18, 1861. His remains are interred in the Kenyon cemetery.
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A prominent early 20th century illustrator and artist, Howard Chandler Christy was born on a farm in Morgan Township. He first gained notice as an illustrator during the Spanish-American War, but achieved lasting fame for his trademark “Christy Girls,” dream girls who idealized feminine beauty during this era. Between 1908 and 1915, he worked from a studio perched above the Muskingum River near Duncan Falls. In the 1920s Christy began to paint portraits and historical scenes. The Signing of the Constitution of the United States, displayed in the Capitol, is his most famous work. The Signing of the Treaty of Green Ville hangs in the Ohio Statehouse.
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Named for General Zebulon Pike, killed in the War of 1812, Pike County was organized in February 1815. Commissioners were charged with establishing a county seat and on May 12, 1815 accepted a conveyance of 40 acres from Elisha Fitch. The new seat was named “Piketon.” In 1816, the commissioners let a contract for the construction of a courthouse and jail. A fine two story courthouse with brick laid in Flemish bond was finished in 1819. A fire destroyed some country courthouse offices on October 9, 1844. The repaired courthouse was the seat of county government until 1861 and is part of the Piketon Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Limestone headers above the windows have the names of the county government offices.
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Pulaski and Pulaski Township in Williams County are named for Casimir Pulaski, a Polish cavalry officer who died to win America’s independence from Great Britain during the Revolutionary War. Charged with attempting to kidnap the king of Poland, Pulaski (1747-1779) fled to Paris and then to America in 1777, met General George Washington, and joined the colonies’ struggle. At the Battle of Brandywine, Pulaski covered the American retreat with a daring charge at pursuing British forces. After Brandywine, the Continental Congress commissioned Pulaski a Brigadier General of Cavalry. Pulaski later resigned his command and petitioned Washington to organize what came to be known in March 1778 as Pulaski’s Legion.
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Approximately 1000 feet east of this marker lies the graves of sixteen American soldiers from Fort McArthur who gave their lives during the War of 1812. The fort, a one-half acre timber stockade containing huts, was built in the summer of 1812 to guard the Scioto River crossing of Gen. William Hull’s “Trace” to Detroit. Construction of the fort was under the command of a future Ohio governor, Col. Duncan McArthur.
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Before and during World War II, the aviation industry was vulnerable to adverse weather conditions, particularly thunderstorms. In 1945, Congress mandated the nation’s first large-scale, scientific study of thunderstorms. The Thunderstorm Project was a cooperative undertaking of the U.S. Weather Bureau, Army Air Force, Navy, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (predecessor of NASA). The first phase of the project was conducted in Florida in 1946 and the second phase in Clinton County in 1947, partly because weather fronts frequently pass through this area. Pilots from the Clinton County Army Air Force Base made many flights through storms of varying intensities and all stages of development. (Continued on other side)
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A part of the Virginia Military District, Ripley was founded in 1812 by Colonel James Poage, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Originally named Staunton, after Poage’s hometown in Virginia, the village comprised 1,000 acres along the Ohio River. With its riverside location and deep water landing area, Ripley became a thriving community. Large quantities of flour, pork, and other goods were shipped from Ripley via flatboats down the Ohio. This continued as steamboats took over river trade and cargos came to include tobacco and other goods. Some of the goods leaving the area were shipped on vessels built in Ripley’s two boatyards. During the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century, the yards produced scores of flatboats and, during the peak years of 1826-1836, several steamboats. The boatyards were located on Ripley’s riverbank and lumber for boats came from surrounding forests. Red Oak Creek, running into the Ohio, was an especially favorable location for area mills and slaughterhouses.
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Nicknamed “Dutchtown” for the many German families that settled in this area, New Washington was platted in 1833 by George Washington Meyers, who arrived in Cranberry Township in 1826. Prominent Austrian romantic poet Nicholas Lenau (1802-1850), author of “Faust” and “Don Juan,” owned property here in the 1830s. The village incorporated in 1874, shortly following the arrival of the Mansfield, Coldwater & Lake Erie Railroad. New Washington is a pioneer in the commercial poultry hatchery industry and initiated the shipment of baby chicks by rail in 1900.
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