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Near this site stood the former Custer Homestead of Emanuel and Maria Custer from 1856-1865. For two years it was the boyhood home of Captain Tom Custer, younger brother of famed General George Armstrong Custer. At age 16, Tom misled a recruiter in neighboring Gilead, Ohio about his age and enlisted in the Civil War. He later earned two Congressional Medals of Honor, the first person in history to do so, for capturing enemy flags at Namozine Church on April 3, 1865 and at Sailor’s Creek on April 6, 1865. His parents relocated to Monroe, Michigan during the Civil War. Tom continued serving in the Army during the Indian Wars in the West and often visited his brother Nevin in Tontogany. He, along with his brothers George and Boston, brother-in-law James Calhoun, and nephew Harry Reed, were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.
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Built circa 1840 by Henry Barnhisel Jr. in the Greek Revival architectural style, the Barnhisel home is one of the oldest remaining structures in Girard. Henry and Eve Anna Barnhisel purchased the land where the house stands in 1813 when they acquired 318 acres in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The couple moved onto the land with their eleven children, and the family lived among a large group of Pennsylvania Germans who settled in Liberty Township. Their son, Henry Jr., took over the farm after his father’s death in 1824. In 1833 he married Susan Townsend. Henry contributed to his community by playing a key role in the building of both the Methodist Church and the first brick school in Girard and Liberty Township. He fathered five daughters, some of whom married into other leading families of the Mahoning Valley, including William Tod, son of the governor. Two granddaughters married into the Wicks and Stambaughs.
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The Euclid Avenue United Brethren Church, later the Mount Enon Missionary Baptist Church, was erected at Third & Euclid Street in Dayton. Milton Wright, a bishop of the church, was present at the laying of the cornerstone on May 28, 1911. Bishop and Mrs. Susan (Koerner) Wright were the parents of Orville and Wilbur Wright and their siblings Reuchlin, Lorin and Katherine. The church’s congregation included Orville and Katherine Wright and other notable Daytonians such as local historian and former pastor Dr. Augustus W. Drury, food distributor and potato chip maker Daniel Mikesell and Prof. Josiah P. Landis of the Bonebrake Theological Seminary. The church playedd a role in offering aid during the disasterous flood of 1913.
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Among the earliest settlers to Rush Township were members of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, who emigrated from the eastern states, mostly Pennsylvania and North Carolina. At first religious services were held in the homes of devout Quakers who in turn built a small-framed meeting house on this site in 1842. The present Friends Church replaced the original structure in the 1870s at a cost of $4,245. Although not a stop on the Underground Railroad, the church supported local ardent Abolitionists who helped runaway slaves reach freedom in Canada. An epidemic during the winter of 1850-1851 reduced the Friends’ membership and led to several Quaker families relocating to Iowa. The final religious service was held here on October 26, 1997, after which the church was donated to the village of North Lewisburg.
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The Canfield War Vet Museum was chartered in 1988 by American Legion Post 177 and Ladies Auxiliary to collect and preserve items and history from American wars. The building that houses the museum was built in 1809 by Comfort S. Mygatt, a Revolutionary War veteran, and later, passed through several generations of the Church family. Colonel James Madison Nash, a Civil War officer, lived here for a time, giving the house its nickname, “The Colonel’s House.” The structure stands as the oldest building in Canfield on its original site. The carding barn on the rear of the property was built in 1810 to process sheep wool. The Wall of Honor at this site honors war veterans, in particular, the Revolutionary War veterans interred in Canfield cemeteries and the 18 Canfield men who lost their lives in World War II.
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Born in 1832, Otho French Strahl grew up in Malta Township, Morgan County, Ohio. After attending Ohio Wesleyan University and teaching in a schoolhouse that stood on this site, he moved to Tennessee, becoming a successful attorney and landowner. Following the attack on Fort Sumter and President Abraham Lincoln’s call to arms, Strahl chose to stay and fight with his adopted state. Despite his northern roots, he was elected Captain of the Dyers Guards, his local volunteer unit in Tennessee. Two years later, he attained the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate army and served with distinction in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. At the age of 32, Strahl was one of six Confederate generals killed or mortally wounded at the Battle of Franklin. He is buried in Old City Cemetery in Dyersburg, Tennessee. (continued on other side)
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Hanktown, settled in 1846, was home to eighty-nine of the three hundred and eighty-three slaves, owned by John Randolph (1773-1833), a wealthy Virginian landowner and cousin to President Thomas Jefferson. Randolph had decided to free the slaves and indicated the decision in his will. His family, however, found three different wills and protested. Thirteen years passed before the slaves left the plantation. In 1846, Judge William Leigh arranged for the slaves to travel to Mercer County and purchased two thousand acres. (Continued on other side)
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Established in 1898 as the Russian Orthodox Church of the Dormition, Holy Assumption was founded by Carpatho-Russian immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Constructed in 1905-1906, it is considered to be the oldest Orthodox church building in Ohio. Archbishop Tikhon, head of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America, consecrated the church and celebrated the first Liturgy. Tsar Nicholas II of Russian personally donated the four icons on the iconostas, or icon screen, as well as liturgical items. Both the Tsar and, by then Patriarch, Tikhon were murdered by the Bolsheviks during the 1917 Russian Revolution and were glorified as Saints of the Orthodox Church. Holy Assumption Orthodox Church continues to be a beacon of the Orthodox Faith on the Marblehead peninsula.