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General William Henry Harrison ordered the construction of Fort Winchester at the beginning of October 1812 and it was completed October 15. The fort served as a forward observation post and supply depot for the American army during the War of 1812. Until Fort Meigs was completed in 1813, Fort Winchester was the front line against the British and their Indian allies. During the siege of Fort Meigs, Fort Winchester was a rendezvous point for the troops of General Green Clay and those of Colonel William Dudley. Fort Winchester outlined the shape of a parallelogram, measuring 600 by 300 feet in size. Blockhouses anchored the four corners of the fort and within its stockade were storehouses and a hospital.
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Mariah Storts Allen was Ohio’s last surviving first generation daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier. She was born August 4, 1842 in Bearfield Township and died May 2, 1933 in New Lexington. Her father, John Jacob Storts, volunteered to fight for American independence at age 13 and camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Allen was a descendant of Ohio’s First Families and an Honorary Member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The DAR refers to first generation daughters as “Real Daughters.”
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On this site, the Miami and Erie Canal, that came north from Cincinnati and the Ohio River, intersected with the Wabash and Erie Canal that came from Fort Wayne and Evansville, Indiana. From this point, which became the town of Junction, the canals proceeded as one to Defiance, Toledo, and Lake Erie. From the 1830s to the 1870s, the canals played a key role in the settling of Paulding County, an area that was once a part of the Great Black Swamp. They held the promise of easier and quicker passenger transportation and commodity shipping and Junction became a landmark for fugitive slaves escaping to Canada. Once a thriving and growing community, the village of Junction became a forgotten historical note with the passing of the canal era and the coming of the railroads. Today, the Buckeye Trail and North County Trail follow the canal path through Paulding County.
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African-American history began in Piqua with the settlement of Arthur Davis in 1818 and expanded with the settlement of the freed Randolph slaves of Virginia in 1846. African-American religious heritage in Piqua began with the Cyrene African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1853 and the Second Baptist Church (Park Avenue) in 1857. Segregated education started in 1854 at the Cyrene Church and ended in 1885 at the Boone Street School. Several Piqua African-American men circumvented Ohio’s early ban against Civil War military service by joining the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments. Following the Civil War an African-American Co-operative Trade Association established Piqua’s first African-American retail store. Continued on/from other side)
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The Caldwell Downtown Historic District is the historic commercial and governmental core of the Village of Caldwell, which was founded in 1857 on farmland owned by Joseph and Samuel Caldwell. Caldwell serves as the county seat of Noble County, the last of Ohio’s 88 counties to be organized. The agricultural community prospered and by 1873 was the second-largest producer of tobacco in Ohio. The Pennsylvania Railroad arrived in 1872, and the development of salt, oil, coal, and natural gas extraction companies followed during the 1880s. Two separate fires in 1897 devastated portions of the north and south quadrants of the district. As a result, Caldwell formed a volunteer fire department and the Village Council introduced legislation prohibiting construction of wood buildings within a block of the public square. (Continued on other side)
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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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David Snively built the Federal-style Pennsylvania House in 1839 along the newly constructed National Road. This tavern and inn was an important stopover for livestock drovers and pioneers traveling by foot, on horseback, or in Conestoga wagons during the westward expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century. Dr. Isaac K. Funk, of Funk & Wagnalls fame, lived in the house in the 1840s while his father served as its tavern keeper. Closed as an inn after the Civil War, it then served as a doctor’s clinic, boarding house, and secondhand shop before falling into total disrepair. The Lagonda Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution saved it from demolition and has owned and operated it as a museum since 1941. The Pennsylvania House was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
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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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