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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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The village was laid out on August 18, 1847, by Benjamin Todd, and consisted of 18 lots in Section 26 of Pleasant Township. Originally named Pleasantville, it was incorporated in 1858 and the name was changed in honor of Maj. Gen. Alexander Macomb, famous for defending Plattsburgh, N.Y., during the War of 1812 and later Commander of the U.S. Army. William Chapman was the first mayor.
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Originally belonging to the William Henry Harrison family, this cemetery was known as “The Pasture Graveyard” until the Civil War era. It became the final resting place of many members of the Harrison and Symmes families as well as other early settlers to the North Bend area. It was in use until 1884 when Maple Grove Cemetery opened as the official township cemetery.
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In the early 1800s, William and Eleanor Kendall owned this land, known for its natural springs, beauty, and farmland. In 1850, Elias Drake, lawyer and former speaker in the Ohio General Assembly, purchased the property and named it Tawana or Xenia Springs. He developed a health resort hotel surrounded by summer cottages, all of which were completed the following year. “Tawana” is believed to be Shawnee for “clear or gold water,” alluding to the clear, mineral-rich springs. From its beginnings, the resort did not fare well as it was popular among southern planters who, much to the consternation of nearby antislavery sentiment, brought slave entourages whenever they came. In October 1855, negotiations for its sale opened with the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which purchased Tawana Springs, including 54 acres and the hotel and cottages, for $13,000 to establish a university for African Americans. (Continued on other side)
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Colonel Ebenezer Zane played a major role in the development of Ohio, a role that helped place it on the path to statehood. A veteran of the Revolutionary War and experienced road builder, he received permission from Congress in 1796 to build a road into the Northwest Territory, which would be called Zane’s Trace. In exchange for his work, Zane received land grants where the trace would cross the Muskingum, Hocking, and Scioto rivers. The trace began in Wheeling, West Virginia (then Virginia) and ended at Limestone, Kentucky (present-day Maysville) on the Ohio River. Opening in 1797, it brought settlement into Ohio, including Lancaster. Its route crossed the playground area of East Elementary from the northeast corner of today’s playground to the southwest corner, lot #18, East Addition, as recorded on an 1897 map of Lancaster.
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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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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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The Mount Zion Chapel of the Christian Church was built in 1872 on this hill adjacent to the members’ cemetery outside of Clermontville. The site was part of a two-acre parcel that had been secured from the farm of William R. Clark, Sr. for church and cemetery purposes. The Mount Zion Chapel replaced the Boat Run Christian Church that was organized in 1842 by a sect called the Christians, or the New Lights. Their first meeting house in Clermontville was dedicated on June 4, 1843 and damaged by floods in 1871. Worship was first held in the new frame church with the new name on October 6, 1872 and the church remains active today.