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The Cleveland Grays were organized by statute in 1837 as an independent volunteer militia company. The Grays were the first company to leave Cleveland for service during the Civil War. In April 1861, they were designated Company E, 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). They saw action at Vienna Station and First Manassas and also served in the 84th OVI and were on duty with the 150th OVI at Fort Stephens when Confederate General Jubal Early attacked Washington in the summer of 1864. During the Spanish-American War the Grays volunteered for service and were admitted to the National Guard as the 1st Battalion of Engineers, 10th OVI. In 1916, they joined General John J. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition against Mexico. After service on the Mexican border, the Grays became part of the 1st Battalion, 148th Infantry Regiment, 37th “Buckeye” Division. (continued on other side)
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John Young included a public square in his town plan of 1798. A one-room log schoolhouse opened in 1803. In the decades that followed, the Market and Federal Street intersection became the social center of Youngstown with wood-frame houses, churches, and an opera house surrounding the square. Horse-drawn streetcars, running from Brier Hill through the square, became the first form of public transportation in 1875. From 1869 to 1969 the nationally known Tod Hotel dominated the southeast corner of the square. Guests included seven U.S. presidents. Federal Street was paved in 1882, and electric street lights were installed in 1886. The “Diamond,” as the square was sometimes called, became the transportation hub of the city, especially after the Market Street Bridge opened in 1899. Marker for “Central Square (1900-2004)” across the street.
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Clark Lane (1823-1907), industrialist and philanthropist, was a son of John Lane (1793-1880) and Rosanah Crum (1795-1877). John came with his family to the Ohio Country when it was still part of the Northwest Territory. As a young man, Clark worked in his family’s blacksmith shop, and eventually helped found Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company in 1854. It built agricultural machinery, sawmills, papermaking machines, and other products, initiating Hamilton’s prominence in metals manufacturing. Lane funded the Butler County Children’s Home, an orphanage for over a century, and constructed an octagon house as his residence on Third Street. He built this library in 1866, also as an octagon, and donated it to the people of Hamilton. A 19th century admirer wrote, “The name and generous deeds of Clark Lane will never fade from the memories of a grateful people who have been recipients of his favor.”
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Born at Richford, New York, John D. Rockefeller moved to the Cleveland area with his family at age 14. He began his business career as a bookkeeper in 1855. From modest beginnings he became one of the richest men of his era by developing the world’s largest oil corporation, the Standard Oil Company, which was founded here in the Flats of Cleveland. Rockefeller moved to New York City in 1884 but maintained two homes in Cleveland, returning often with his wife Laura (1839-1915). Although he was a controversial businessman, Rockefeller donated millions of dollars to Cleveland charities and institutions, and land for Rockefeller and Forest Hills parks. John and Laura Rockefeller are interred in Lake View Cemetery.
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First Baptist Church of Dayton organized on May 29, 1824. A council met on the porch of William Huffman’s home at Third and Jefferson and approved 9 members as a congregation. The next day Lydia Huffman was baptized in the Great Miami River, the first recorded Baptist immersion in the city. Their first church building was erected in 1827 on Main Street. In 1829 the congregation suffered a Campbellite schism. Those resolved to remain Baptist incorporated on February 25, 1837, as The First Regular Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio. The foundations for the Monument Avenue building were begun prior to the 1913 Dayton flood and the cornerstone was laid May 31, 1914. The building was completed, furnished, and ready for worship on June 26, 1915. (Continued on other side)
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Elm Court, designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw of Illinois, was built in 1912 for Arthur Hudson Marks. The original mansion exemplifies the Italian Renaissance Revival style. Elm Court included the mansion, barn, stables, carriage house, pond, and a variety of trees, especially elms, on 33 acres. Arthur Marks was the inventive genius in chemistry and business who revolutionized the rubber industry in Akron. He was best known for inventing the alkaline-recovery vulcanization process in 1899, the cord tire, the chemical research laboratory system, and placing rubber research on a scientific basis. In World War I he served as director of chemical warfare services. Marks served as vice-president of B.F. Goodrich Company and Curtis Airplane and Engine Company and president of other rubber companies and the Aeolian Skinner Organ Company.
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In July 1796, the first survey party for the Connecticut Land Company, led by General Moses Cleaveland (1754-1806), landed on the shore of Lake Erie near present-day Ashtabula to lay out the lands of the Connecticut Western Reserve. On July 22, the party arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, the western boundary line for American settlement established by the Treaty of Greenville, and set up a base camp near this site. On the eastern river bluff the surveyors platted the “capital town” of the Western Reserve and called it Cleaveland; a misspelling later changed the name to Cleveland. The original survey called for a Public Square, surrounded by right-angled streets and uniformly-shaped lots. Cleaveland returned to Connecticut in October to resume his law practice and never returned to Ohio.
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Frances Payne Bolton (1885-1977) was the first woman from Ohio to serve in the United States Congress. Elected in 1940 to complete the term of her late husband, Chester C. Bolton, Mrs. Bolton represented the 22nd District for 28 years. Her life long advocacy of nursing education is reflected in both her philanthropy and the legislation she supported. Her gift to Western Reserve University in 1923 enabled the school to set up one of the first college-based nursing programs in the country. The school was renamed the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing in her honor in 1935. The Bolton Bill she supported in Congress created the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps to address the critical shortage of nurses during World War II.