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In 1873, Tiffin’s Cronise sisters became the first women admitted to the Ohio Bar. At that time, Ohio laws did not provide for the admission of women attorneys. On April 4th 1873, Nettie Cronise applied to the district court. Despite vigorous opposition, leading local attorneys, including William Harvey Gibson and George Seney, supported Nettie’s applications. Ironically, at the same time as Nettie’s admission, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Illinois’ denial of admission to the bar to another woman based upon gender. Regardless, Nettie opened the door for the admission of women to the bar of Ohio. Six months later, Florence, Nettie’s younger sister, was admitted. Florence was also the first female notary public in the state. Together the sisters opened the first female-owned law practice in Ohio, N. & F. Cronise. (Continued on other side)
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Born in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, William Lawrence moved to Bellefontaine shortly after graduating from Cincinnati Law School in 1840. Lawrence was prosecuting attorney for Logan County (1845); a member of the Ohio Legislature (1846, 1847, 1849-51, 1854); Judge of the Common Pleas and Third District Court (1857-1864); colonel, Eighty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Civil War; United States Congressman (1865-1871, 1873-1877); Founder and President of Bellefontaine National Bank (1871); First Comptroller of the United States Treasury (1880-1885); and original owner of Lawrence Woods State Nature Preserve, Hardin County. Judge Lawrence was instrumental in helping Clara Barton found the American Red Cross and served as its first vice president and chairman of the Executive Board.
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Union Baptist Church, established in 1819, is one of Ohio’s early Black churches. Its pastor and members were active on the Underground Railroad from that early date. Between the 1840s-1860s Black churches along the route to and from nearby Poke Patch assisted over 200 escaped slaves. Members met in their homes until able to obtain a log cabin (circa 1879) on a Blackfork farm. In 1919, a larger church was built on land given by The Cambria Clay Products Company. The adjacent cemetery has over fifty veterans from the Civil, Spanish American, both World, Korean, and Vietnam wars. Donald Russell Long, laid to rest in 1966, received a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor. Union Baptist Church, the historic foundation of the Poke Patch-Blackfork community, celebrates an annual Church Anniversary to honor its legacy.
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The most notable feature of Mantua Center is the “Village Green,” which harkens back to the New England heritage of Mantua Center’s early settlers. The Green sets upon land donated by Hezekiah Nooney Sr. and was important to both the social and commercial interests of the town. The businesses located here were a furniture and cabinet maker’s shop, harness shop, blacksmith shop, post office, tannery, ashery, dry goods store, and distillery. The Methodist Episcopal Church, now the Mantua Civic Center, stands at the southwest corner of the green. Eastlawn cemetery, with a burial that dates to 1816, sits along the south border. The cemetery serves as the final resting place for soldiers of several wars, including the American Revolution, as well as many other early citizens. In 1835 Horace Sizer constructed the stone wall around the cemetery adjacent to Mantua Center Road. [continued on other side]
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In 1918, Charles Young made a desperate attempt to convince the U.S. Army that he was fit for duty. The Army’s highest-ranking Black officer, he had been medically retired and not given a command during World War I. To demonstrate his fitness, he rode 497 miles from his home in Wilberforce, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. Leaving on June 6 he made the journey in 17 days, 16 on horseback and 1 resting. Averaging 31 miles each day, he rode 45 minutes and walked 15 minutes every hour. Upon his arrival, Young met with Secretary of War Newton Baker. Pressured by the Black press and the White House, Baker hedged. He recalled Young to active duty a year later and assigned him to Camp Grant, Illinois, just five days before the end of the war.
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James Sr. and Rebecca (Junkin) Galloway moved with their family to Greene County from Kentucky in 1798, constructing their first home, a small log cabin. Galloway built the present structure around 1799 near the bend in the Little Miami River near what is now Goes Station on U.S. 68. In 1936, the Greene County Historical Society moved the home to the corner of Second and Monroe streets and then to the present site in 1965. The 1974 Xenia Tornado caused serious damage to the building, which has been restored and maintained by the historical society. James Sr. served as a hunter during the American Revolution, procuring game for the army, and while in Ohio, was the first treasurer of Greene County. His son James Jr. served as the first County Surveyor.
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In recognition of its noteworthy representation of the history, culture, and architecture of the Western Reserve, Burton Village’s Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The Historic District, an area of approximately 20 acres surrounding the Village Green and along streets at the north end of the Green, includes 15 buildings of historical significance built between 1815 and 1891. Preserved within the District are commercial and public buildings and private dwellings that reflect the cultural and architectural development of a village of the Western Reserve of Ohio during the 19th century. Buildings in the predominant architectural styles of the 19th century are all represented in the Historic District, including Western Reserve, Greek Revival, Second Empire, Italianate, and Queen Anne. [Continued on other side]
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The first Blaine Hill Bridge was constructed in 1828 as part of the National Road, the nation’s first federally funded highway. This three-arch S-shaped structure, 345 feet in length, spans Wheeling Creek (a tributary of the Ohio River) and is the longest original “S” bridge in existence on the old National Road. At a gradient of approximately 6.3 percent from east to west, it significantly eased, for the first time, the arduous 500-foot western climb out of the valley. Crumbling and in poor condition, it was saved from demolition in 1999 and in 2001 was designated Ohio’s official Bicentennial Bridge. Now tucked between the 1933 U.S. 40 viaduct and Interstate 70, it illustrates the earliest of Ohio’s three eras in national highway transportation.
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