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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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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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The oldest building in Cincinnati’s basin area, the Betts House exemplifies a national trend on the expanding frontier of impermanent log and frame structures giving way to more permanent brick architecture. It is the earliest surviving brick building in the city. During Cincinnati’s period of settlement in the early 1800s, the William and Phebe Betts family established a brickyard here that supplied building materials for the rapidly growing frontier city. The Betts House lends its name to the Betts-Longworth Historic District. Established in 1983, the district represents the last nineteenth century remnant of Cincinnati’s lower West End and surrounds the older Betts House with tall, narrow mid-and late-nineteenth century buildings. The Betts house is oriented to the cardinal directions, rather than to the city’s slightly skewed grid.
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Raised and educated in St. Louis, author Fannie Hurst (1885-1968) was born in Hamilton at 918 Central Avenue, the home of her maternal grandparents. She was the daughter of Rose Koppel and Samuel Hurst. Already a writer as a student at Washington University (Class of 1909), Fannie moved to New York in 1910 to begin her career. Success came after repeated rejection. Stories for popular magazines brought her attention in the mid-1910s; by the mid-1920s she had become a best-selling, highly-regarded, and well-paid author. Between 1912 and 1964, Hurst wrote 18 novels, eight short story collections, and many other pieces. Hurst’s short story “Humoresque” (1919) and the novels Back Street (1931) and Imitation of Life (1933) were three of 32 films based on her writings. The film adaption of Imitation of Life received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in 1934. (Continued on other side)
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The figure atop the Soldiers’ Monument has looked over Youngstown’s Central Square since 1870. Ohio Governor David Tod began campaigning for a monument for Youngstown’s fallen soldiers even before the Civil War ended. The community raised $15,000, and the cornerstone was laid in 1868. The memorial was completed and dedicated on July 4, 1870, with Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and Congressman James A. Garfield, both future U.S. presidents, attending the ceremony. Four cannons procured by Garfield formerly surrounded the monument. In 1951 the figure on the pedestal was accidentally damaged. A new statue of Carrara marble was commissioned, sculpted in Italy, and installed in 1955. The Bertolini Bros., a local marble firm, donated the new figure, which as patterned after the original, as their gift to the city.
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Landscape architect Howard Daniels designed the original portion of Green Lawn Cemetery in 1848. Noted Columbus architect Frank Packard designed Green Lawn’s Chapel mausoleum, the Hayden family mausoleum, and the Packard mausoleum. Spanning over 360 acres, the cemetery’s wooded setting provides a habitat for a variety of birds and other wildlife. The Chapel contains stunning stained glass windows and mosaic artwork by Tiffany & Company of New York. The monuments, obelisks, and memorials throughout the cemetery represent a wealth of artwork and a history of Columbus. As one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in Ohio, Green Lawn is the resting-place of many noted individuals who have made significant contributions to Columbus, Franklin County and the nation.
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Art Tatum was born in Toledo on October 13, 1909, the son of Arthur Tatum, Sr. and Mildred Hoskins Tatum. Despite being blind in one eye and only partially sighted in the other, he became one of the greatest jazz pianists of his era. To deal with his sight disability, he attended the Ohio State School for the Blind in Columbus from 1918-1920. He came from a musical family and had some formal training at the Toledo School of Music, but was largely self-taught. Influenced by famed Fats Waller, Tatum began playing his music on a local radio station at age 18 and then lived in Chicago, New York City, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, playing and recording extensively both as a soloist and in small groups. His ability to improvise set him apart as a musical genius. Tatum died in November 1956 and was named to the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1983.
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Thousands of Irish immigrants came to Columbus to seek personal and religious freedom. With the “Great Hunger” in Ireland and the completion of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the National Road, immigration to Columbus increased in the mid nineteenth century. They initially settled in the north side of the city in the swamp flats, where inexpensive land was available and work could be had on the railroads. Settlement spread to Franklinton, on Naghten Street, later known as “Irish Broadway”- part of which is now Nationwide Boulevard, and to nearby Flytown. The immigrants became domestic workers, civil servants, entrepreneurs, and served the city in police and fire departments. Others were leaders in government, law, medicine, and education. Their legacy continues today in the Irish-American population of Columbus, Ohio.
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