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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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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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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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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.
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Kirtland in the 1830s became an early gathering place and headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had been organized under divine inspiration by Joseph Smith in western New York in 1830. Here the Mormons, as they are known outside the faith, created a religious community and introduced doctrinal concepts, organizational programs, and social practices that have been central to the religion ever since. The Kirtland Temple, dedicated in 1836, was the spiritual center of the faith. Internal dissension and external persecution arose largely from the distinctive features of the religion and weakened the Mormon community in Kirtland. In 1838, the majority of the Mormons here followed Smith westward to Missouri, Illinois, and eventually Utah.
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From its founding in 1865, Dennison was a railroad town and became the second largest rail center for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Rail presence was so strong that the industry dictated social and economic development throughout the community. For example, the Railway Chapel, the historic name for the First Presbyterian Church of Dennison was built because W.W. Card, Pennsylvania Railroad Superintendent, saw a spiritual need in the community. As the first church built in Dennison, Card contacted the Presbytery of Steubenville to start the church, arranged for donation of land, provided for financing from railway officials, and arranged for labor and material from the railroad. Railroad workers constructed the furnishing for the church with walnut pews built by the Dennison Car Shops. The pews have reversible backs, designed after ones in passenger cars. The church was dedicated in April 1871 and listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 2009.
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Canfield, named for the area’s primary landowner Judson Canfield, is one of the earliest examples of a New England town plan in both Ohio and the Western Reserve. It dates to April 20, 1798, when surveyor Nathaniel Church arrived from Connecticut to layout the town. Church and his team erected a log cabin and laid out roads and lots using a New England Green Plan that envisioned a communal ground at the center that would later be surrounded by various civil buildings. During the War of 1812, the Canfield Green was used as a drill ground for the Northern Ohio and Western Reserve militia, led by General Elijah Wadsworth. On August 23, 1812, General Wadsworth and the Canfield Dragoons left the Canfield Green heading for Cleveland to defend the United States and the Western Reserve from attacks by the British and their Native American allies. (Continued on other side)
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