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The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College grew out of the Cannon Act of March 22, 1870. “But let it be started,” Governor Rutherford B. Hayes told the Legislature in 1873, “with the intention of making it a great State University.” The little college opened September 17, 1873 with a faculty of seven and twenty-four students. One academic building at first housed everything. The campus, remote from the city, was surrounded by some of the original forest. In May, 1878 the name was changed to The Ohio State University. It was after 1900 before it really began to realize its educational potential, and its major growth occurred after World War II. By 1970, the Centennial Year, the university had more then met the hopes of its founders. A leading university with great manpower and physical resources, it had earned high standing in many fields covering a wide range of educational and research activities.
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Prairie grasslands were once widely scattered across western Ohio. One of Ohio’s best remaining prairies, Killdeer Plains is dominated by tall grasses such as the big bluestem and plays host to some unique species of wildlife such as the eastern massasauga or swamp rattlesnake. Prairie grasslands are one of the most rare types of wildlife habitats in the state. Named for the killdeer, a shore bird, this is part of a wet prairie that once spanned some 30,000 acres and boasts a tremendous number and diversity of native wildlife.
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The Bloomingburg Presbyterian Church and cemetery were established in the northwest corner of the current cemetery grounds on March 7, 1818. Several years later it became a center for anti-slavery activity. The Reverend William Dickey, who presided over the church and other members, devoted their lives to the anti-slavery cause not only in voice but also in abolitionist activity. By the mid-1800s, their work, as well as the fact that Bloomingburg had become home to a vibrant African American community, led to the town becoming the area center for the Underground Railroad, which helped transport many fugitive slaves to freedom in the north. Six soldiers from the American Revolutionary War, nineteen from the War of 1812, and over 100 from the Civil War and Spanish-American War are buried in the Bloomingburg Cemetery, including Henry Casey, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor at Vicksburg.
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Myron T. Herrick, Governor of Ohio from 1904 to 1906, was born in Huntington Township in 1854 and lived here until age 12. A respected Cleveland attorney and businessman, Herrick was a friend and confidant to Senator Mark Hanna and Presidents McKinley, Taft, and Harding. His public service career culminated in two appointments as ambassador to France, from 1912 through the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and again from 1921 until his death in 1929. Enormously popular with the French people, Herrick escorted Charles Lindbergh in Paris after his historic 1927 transatlantic flight.
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Born in Piqua, Ohio, the Mills Brothers grew up and attended school in Bellefontaine. The brothers — John, Jr., Herbert, Harry, and Donald Mills — were the first African-American vocal group to perform on a national radio broadcast and achieve commercial success. Enjoying worldwide fame throughout their career, the Mills Brothers popularized such hits as “Tiger Rag,” “Paper Doll,” and “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” After the death of John, Jr. in 1936, the remaining brothers were joined by their father, John, Sr. In all, the Mills Brothers recorded over 1,200 songs.
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John Campbell (1818-1891), founder of Ironton, was an ironmaster and president of the Ohio Iron & Coal Company, a Presbyterian, and an abolitionist. This house and barn, which he built in 1850, became a stop on the Underground Railroad for slaves crossing the Ohio River from Kentucky. Fugitives were concealed here and furnace wagons transported the escapees northward by way of Campbell’s furnaces in Lawrence and Jackson counties.
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In the years leading to Ohio statehood in 1803, Ames Township citizens decided to establish a stock-owned circulating library. Since cash was scarce during Ohio’s frontier era, some citizens paid for their $2.50 shares by the sale of animal pelts, which were taken to Boston for sale in the spring of 1804 by merchant Samuel Brown. There he acquired fifty-one volumes, primarily books on history, religion, travel, and biography, as the first accessions for the Western Library Association. Senator Thomas Ewing later related that he paid his share with ten raccoon skins, thus suggesting the collection’s popular name “the Coonskin Library.” Judge Ephraim Cutler was the first of many librarians who kept the library until 1861.
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Like many nineteenth century communities in Ohio, Stryker owes its birth and early growth to the railroad industry. Stryker, named for Rome, New York, attorney and railroad executive John Stryker, was surveyed on September 19, 1853, beside the proposed Northern Indiana Railroad. For more than fifty years, “track pans” at Stryker allowed steam locomotives to take on 5,000 gallons of water while traveling at forty to fifty miles per hour, saving valuable time, “the principal enemy of railroad schedules.” On July 23, 1966, the U.S. rail speed record of 183.85 miles per hour was set through Williams County, including through Stryker. The Stryker depot was constructed in 1900 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 7, 1989. (continued on other side)
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