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The Soldiers, Sailors, and Pioneers Monument was planned and promoted by Butler County Civil War veterans and financed by a county levy in 1899. The monument, built of Indiana Limestone, is near the center of the site of Fort Hamilton, built in 1791 and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury in President George Washington’s cabinet. Featured, are two large, colorful windows that recognize the contributions of Butler County women during the Civil War. Featured speaker at the July 4, 1906, dedication was Governor Andrew L. Harris, a Butler County native and Civil War veteran. His name is one of the more than 4,300 carved into the interior marble walls.
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After the outbreak of the Civil War in the spring of 1861, the U.S. War Department commissioned Ohio Senator B.F. Wade of Jefferson and local Congressman John Hutchins of Warren to supervise the Union Army’s recruiting service in Northeastern Ohio. Recruitment rolls were to be filled in summer so training could be conducted during the fall. The Oak Grove Fairgrounds in Warren, home of the Trumbull County Agricultural Society, was one of the sites selected for the training. This camp was named Camp Hutchins in Congressman Hutchins’ honor. John Hutchins, an attorney by profession, had served as Trumbull County Clerk of Courts and had been assocaited with future Ohio governors David Tod (1862-1864) and Jacob Cox (1866-1868), in their law firms. An ardent anti-slavery man and Underground Railroad agent, Hutchins served in the U.S. Congress from 1859 to 1863.
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Prior to the Civil War, Ohio was a leading state for enslaved Americans of African decent traveling the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada. For these fugitives, their final stop in Ohio was a Lake Erie port community in the north. One such port was at the mouth of the Black River in Lorain that came to be identified as Lorain Station 100, named because it was thought to be one of the last stops or stations before the fugitive slaves reached freedom in Canada. Many arrived here in a wagon driven by Robbins Burrell who owned a farm five miles up the Black River. Concealed by vegetables, grains, or hay, the slaves were smuggled into schooners, some of which belonged to Burrell’s cousin Captain Aaron Root. From Lorain Station 100, the determined travelers were transported across Lake Erie, completing the final leg of their long journey to freedom.
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Just three weeks after reaching Granville, pioneer villagers decided on December 9, 1805 to build a log cabin where eighty children would attend school. By 1820, public school classes were being held in a three-story brick building. When rail lines and the National Road bypassed the village, dreams of becoming an industrial and commercial center were dashed. Educational institutions, however, thrived and by the Civil War Granville’s citizens had organized the following: the Granville Literary and Theological Institution, later called Granville College and then renamed Denison University; the Granville Female Seminary, the Granville Episcopal Female Seminary, the Young Ladies’ Institute, the Granville Female Academy, and the Granville Male Academy. As Granville enters its third century, educational excellence continues to attract students to the community’s schools.
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On April 20, 1857, the trustees of Morgan Township met in Okeana to obtain a lot for the township house. From a quarter mill tax levy, $850 was budgeted for a house and lot. Money expended on the project included $50 for the lot, $650 for the construction of the building, $41 for fencing, $12.60 for twelve chairs, and $10.25 for a table. Since its completion in 1858, this meeting house has been used for trustee meetings, a voting precinct, village singing schools and concerts, public school, bank, and township garage. The trustees moved to a new building across the street in 1972 and into their Chapel Road complex in 2000.
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Laid out in 1814, Lakeside Cemetery became the first public burying ground in Dover Township, an area that now includes Bay Village, Westlake, and the northern portion of North Olmsted. Reuben Osborn (1778-1860) arrived in Dover on October 10, 1810, but returned to New York. He settled on this land with his wife Sarah Johnson Osborn (1779-1856) and family in 1811, later purchasing most of the plot where the cemetery would be established from Philo Taylor. Sarah’s sister, Rebecca Porter, and her infant son were the first to be buried here; they were killed when their boat capsized at the mouth of the Rocky River in 1814. Including land purchased in 1877, the cemetery currently spans half an acre. Although not recorded until 1879, there are over 270 known burials. Among those interned here are veterans from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I.
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The coming of the railroads to Alliance is an important event in Stark County’s history. In 1851, the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad (running SE to NW) and the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad (E to W) intersected at this location. It was known as “the crossing” and became the Village of Alliance. William Robinson, Jr., the president of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad, is credited with applying the name “Alliance” to the crossing, dating to when the railroads bought rights-of-way in 1849 and anticipated the intersection of the lines. A plat named “Alliance” was recorded September 26, 1850. The Village of Alliance was established in 1854, when 100 citizens of the communities of Williamsport, Freedom, and Alliance (also known as Liberty), signed a petition to incorporate on March 15. The petition was accepted and recorded in June.
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“All life is interrelated in today’s world. I can’t be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be; and you can’t be what you ought to be ’till I am what I ought to be.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke these words before 3,500 people while addressing a Freedom Rally here on March 20, 1964. His speech addressed issues of racial equality and unity, and urged passage of the Civil Rights Act. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act into law, prohibiting discrimination based on a person’s race, color, religion, sex, or nationality.