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The A.H. Heisey & Co. produced high quality, hand-wrought glass in Newark, Ohio beginning in 1896. Glass originally produced by pressing was intended to simulate cut glass making elegant glass affordable to more families. Heisey was an innovator in production methods. He introduced colors and different patterns of glass to meet the social habits of the era. Highly skilled craftsmen produced, cut, and etched glass in many styles. The plant closed in 1957 because of Heisey’s refusal to produce an inferior machine-made product. The beauty and superior quality of this glass makes it a highly collectable item. The Heisey Collectors of America, founded in 1971, opened The National Heisey Glass Museum in 1974. The Museum stands as a historical reminder and an educational resource to the heritage of the A.H. Heisey & Co.
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The Marblehead Lighthouse is the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes. Originally known as the Sandusky Bay Light Station, the lighthouse was built here in 1821 to aid navigation and prevent shipwrecks. William Kelly (1779-1867) received the contract and, using local limestone, completed construction in eight weeks. The lighthouse was 50 feet high and had a diameter of 25 feet at the base and 12 feet at the top. When the lighthouse had a keeper, the beacon was updated with ever brighter lamps and more powerful lenses. At the turn of the 19th century, a watch room and new lantern room were added, increasing the lighthouse’s height 15 feet. Beacons were lit with whale oil, lard oil, kerosene, and then, in 1923, with electricity. As of 2018, the light is an LED that is visible up to eleven nautical miles.
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Named for the streetcar turnaround once located at Euclid Avenue and East 107th Street, University Circle is a 600-acre district that is home to many of Cleveland’s major cultural, educational, medical, and service institutions. The area was first settled in 1799 by tavernkeeper Nathaniel Doan and became known as Doan’s Corners. In 1882, Western Reserve College moved here from Hudson, followed in 1885 by the Case School of Applied Science from downtown Cleveland. These two colleges federated in 1967 to become Case Western Reserve University. (continued on other side)
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The W.P. SNYDER Jr. is one of the few links between the age of steam-powered, stern-wheeled towboats and the diesel-powered, propeller-driven vessels that push barges on America’s rivers today. The James Rees and Sons Company in Pittsburgh built the boat for the Carnegie Steel Company, and she was launched in 1918 as the W.H. CLINGERMAN. During the boat’s working life, she primarily pushed barges loaded with coal on the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. After various changes in name, the Crucible Steel Company of America bought the boat in 1945 and named her the W.P. SNYDER Jr. after the company’s president. Crucible retired the SNYDER in 1954 and, as was the fate of her kind, she would have probably been scrapped. In 1955, however, the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen and the Ohio Historical Society concluded that one example of a steam towboat should be preserved. (continued on the other side)
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Built circa 1840 by Henry Barnhisel Jr. in the Greek Revival architectural style, the Barnhisel home is one of the oldest remaining structures in Girard. Henry and Eve Anna Barnhisel purchased the land where the house stands in 1813 when they acquired 318 acres in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The couple moved onto the land with their eleven children, and the family lived among a large group of Pennsylvania Germans who settled in Liberty Township. Their son, Henry Jr., took over the farm after his father’s death in 1824. In 1833 he married Susan Townsend. Henry contributed to his community by playing a key role in the building of both the Methodist Church and the first brick school in Girard and Liberty Township. He fathered five daughters, some of whom married into other leading families of the Mahoning Valley, including William Tod, son of the governor. Two granddaughters married into the Wicks and Stambaughs.
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Near this site stood the former Custer Homestead of Emanuel and Maria Custer from 1856-1865. For two years it was the boyhood home of Captain Tom Custer, younger brother of famed General George Armstrong Custer. At age 16, Tom misled a recruiter in neighboring Gilead, Ohio about his age and enlisted in the Civil War. He later earned two Congressional Medals of Honor, the first person in history to do so, for capturing enemy flags at Namozine Church on April 3, 1865 and at Sailor’s Creek on April 6, 1865. His parents relocated to Monroe, Michigan during the Civil War. Tom continued serving in the Army during the Indian Wars in the West and often visited his brother Nevin in Tontogany. He, along with his brothers George and Boston, brother-in-law James Calhoun, and nephew Harry Reed, were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.
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The Homestead was built in 1820 by Nehemiah Wood with an addition completed in 1822 by his son, Harrison. The Wood family, a pioneer family of Gallia County, arrived in 1805. The Homestead remained in the Wood family for over 100 years. The two-story Federal style building is constructed of bricks made on site by freed slaves who accompanied Nehemiah Wood from Virginia. The lane just below the house was a stagecoach route that ran between Chillicothe and Gallipolis. In the mid-1800s the Homestead served as an inn and stagecoach stop. The Wood family sold the farm to Rio Grande College in 1938 which used the land for college gardening and farming programs. (Continued on other side)
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On this site Daniel Gebhart established a tavern in 1811. Taverns were where people gathered to eat, rest, and share news. During spring freshets, boatmen from the Great Miami River stayed at the tavern. Joining them were pioneers coming by the river and overland to settle at Hole’s Station, now Miamisburg. The tavern closed in 1840, became a boarding house, and then sold to become a private residence in 1853. To commemorate the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, Miamisburg’s bicentennial committee purchased the tavern and gave it to the city. It was restored and opened as a museum in 1982. (Continued on other side)
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