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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.
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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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In spite of small numbers and being welcomed by the mostly white congregation of First Methodist Episcopal Church, African Americans in Findlay in the 1880s wanted to express their faith in ways that best reflected their freedoms and traditions. By the mid-1880s, the congregation was meeting in members’ homes and the Odd Fellows Hall, but began fund raising to build their own church in 1885. The congregation was admitted to the North Ohio Conference of the Third Episcopal District of the African Methodist Church in 1885, one of the first churches to be so admitted. The building on Liberty Street was well underway by the end of 1887 on a lot donated by Judge D. J. Cory. The original twenty foot by forty foot building cost $2,000 and immediately became a focal point for religion and social events for Findlay’s African American community. (Continued on other side)
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The Canfield Christian Church began as a Baptist congregation in 1822 and church met for worship in William Dean’s home. The Mahoning Baptist Association Meeting of 1826 was held in David Hayes barn. In 1827, Walter Scott was asked by the Association to be the first paid traveling evangelist in the Mahoning Valley area of Ohio. Scott accepted the offer and moved his family to a house next to the Canfield Church. By June of 1829, the Canfield Church voted to lay aside the Baptist name for the name Disciples of Christ. They believed all creeds were unnecessary and took the Bible alone as their sole rule of faith and practice. In 1847, a new church was built. Charter members of the church include James and Sarah Caldwell, Ann Winfield, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Caldwell and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Flick, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Clark, Mr. and Mrs. John Flick, and Mr. and Mrs. Simmon Sackett and daughter. (Continued on other side)
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Founded in 1833, this is the oldest congregation organized within Toledo’s original boundaries. From 1844 to 1913 the church occupied a succession of three meeting houses on St. Clair Street. In 1913 First Church merged with Central Congregational Church. The pews and eight stained glass windows from the 1878 church were incorporated into this meeting house which was dedicated in 1916.