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Founded November 8, 1815 by General Joseph Darlington and named for his Virginia birthplace, Winchester was incorporated in 1864 and later became the eastern terminus of the Cincinnati and Eastern Railway (1877-1880). The first locomotive to enter Winchester, the “Dick Thomson,” was named after a local businessman who was largely responsible for building the railroad. Winchester was also the birthplace of Evelyn (Longman) Batchelder, first woman sculptor to become a full academician at the National Academy of Design in 1919.
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James Birdseye McPherson was born in Hamer’s Corners (now Clyde) on November 14, 1828. He left this house at age 13 to work in nearby Green Springs. He attended Norwalk Academy and West Point, where he graduated first in the class of 1853. Early in the Civil War, he was appointed by General Ulysses S. Grant to command the Army of the Tennessee. He received the rank of Major General with the United States Volunteers in October 1862 and was promoted to Brigadier General in the Regular Army in August 1863. He was killed in action during the battle of Atlanta, Georgia on July 22, 1864. General McPherson was the youngest and highest ranking Union officer killed in the Civil War. He is buried in the local McPherson Cemetery. This McPherson home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Constructed and first lit in 1897, the South Bass Island Light was in continuous operation until 1962 when the U. S. Coast Guard built an automated light tower to replace it. Significant for its contribution to transportation and commerce on Lake Erie, the South Bass Island Light was built to safely guide vessels through the crowded South Passage. Although many light stations were constructed with a dwelling as a separate structure, the keeper’s dwelling of the South Bass Light was attached to the 60-foot tower. The dwelling was designed in the Queen Anne style with red brick laid in Flemish bond. Outbuildings, a barn and oil house, were built in 1899. In 1967, The Ohio State University acquired the property for support of the F. T. Stone Laboratory programs for research, education, and outreach. South Bass Island Light was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
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During the early months of World War II, ordinary citizens as well as soldiers made enormous sacrifices for the war effort. In March 1942 the War Department announced plans to build a 13,000-acre munitions manufacturing complex northeast of Marion. Using the power of eminent domain, the U.S. Government purchased the homes and farms of 126 families in the Likens Chapel community. Given only two months to vacate their property, many displaced farmers found the government-appraised values for their land inadequate for buying similar farms elsewhere and the growing season too advanced to plant new crops. (continued on other side)
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Emmitt-Greenbaum Building, 200 North Market Street, was built around 1878 by businessman and politician James Emmitt (1806-1893) to replace his 1837 wooden warehouse. The brick three-story Italianate building featured five vertical cast iron belts of simulated stone, a projecting cornice, reeded pilasters, and a “fortress-like fourteen bay front.” A covered wooden stairway on the building’s south side originally projected over the canal. Charles Louis Greenbaum (1871-1935) purchased the building in 1912 and opened his department store advertising it as “The Store with The Goods!” Over 140 years, the Emmitt-Greenbaum building was occupied by Jas. Emmitt Dry Goods, Hoffman’s, Greenbaum’s, Armbruster and Armbruster, Waverly Drugs, and the Bee Hive Tavern. A structural collapse after decades of deterioration condemned the building and the southwestern half was razed in 2021.
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Giuseppe Moretti was born in Siena, Italy, and immigrated to the United States in 1888. For 40 years he sculpted monuments and heroic figures in the United States and Cuba, employing the Beaux-Arts technique, known for its neoclassical style that tended to be heroic and dramatic in nature. Mor etti, known for his eclectic personality and for always wearing a green tie, was a prolific artist with completion of 12 World War I memorials, 19 monumental works, six church sculptures, 24 memorial tablets, 14 cemetery memorials, 27 sculptures in marble, bronze, and aluminum, and 27 bronze statuettes. He created the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Toronto in 1919 as a tribute to the 300 local citizens who answered the call for service during World War I. His other Ohio works include the John Patterson Monument (1925) in Dayton and statue of Simon Perkins (1895) in Akron.
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At the turn of the twentieth century, increased enrollment in the Combined Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce University (which later became Central State University) spurred construction of new teaching and dormitory facilities. Galloway Hall, which included an auditorium and a tower with chimes and a clock, was completed in 1906. Many famous personalities performed in Galloway Hall’s auditorium, including the renown opera singer Leontyne Price; Robert McFerrin, the first African American male lead with the New York Metropolitan Opera; actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis; comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory; and composer and conductor Duke Ellington. Noted authors and intellectuals addressed audiences there, including historian John Hope Franklin; writer, poet, actor, and playwright Maya Angelou; Lerone Bennett, author, historian, and editor of EBONY Magazine; and writer and essayist James Baldwin. (continued on other side)
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Zimmerman-Bury Octagon House. The Zimmerman-Bury Octagon House was built by Ezekiel B. Zimmerman (1843-1935) and Francis B. Hess Zimmerman (1848-1920) in 1883. Ezekiel graduated from Smithville Academy and was an avid reader. One of Ezekiel’s sons, Ernest Zimmerman (1888-1973), remembered that his father had encountered Orson Fowler’s manifesto A Home for All, or the Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building (1853) and surmised that his father patterned the house after Section V of the book. The approximate 99,000 bricks comprising the house were made on the property, creating exterior walls and a center stairway which are three bricks or about 12 inches thick. Ernest noted the house’s “Russian Tin” roof, referring to its metal standing seam construction. The roof and architectural ornament make the house stand out compared to other octagon structures in Ohio. (Continued on other side)
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