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James Willard Converse (1806-1892) opened his store in 1825 at 10 South Chillicothe Road. Serving residents, merchants, and travelers, the store proved central to Aurora’s early commercial development. Converse’s Daybook survives as a glimpse into the habits of early citizens, who, along with household items, regularly purchased whiskey. Surprisingly, such sales surged on George Washington’s February 22 birthday. Converse deeded the business to employee Seth A. Gillett in 1834. Hopson Hurd Sr. (1793-1869) purchased it from Gillett in 1845. Hurd’s store was popular with local farmers who used their home made cheese as legal tender and enjoyed the barrel of whiskey kept in Hurd’s basement for customers who paid their bills. Hurd added a cheese warehouse to his store and, as a major exporter of cheese to Cleveland, Warren, and Pittsburgh, amassed a sizeable fortune.
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 prompted an expansion of the “Underground Railroad,” and as the state spanning the shortest distance between the Ohio River and Canada, Ohio saw heavy traffic in escaping slaves in the decades before the Civil War. Hancock County was home to many sympathetic residents who defied fugitive slave laws to help conduct slaves to freedom. “Stationmasters” offered safe havens, “conductors” accompanied fugitives through the county, and “stockholders” provided financial support and misled pursuers. Known stations were located mainly along the Perrysburg Road, now U.S. Highway 68. (continued on other side)
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Silver Lake was previously known as Wetmore’s Pond, named for Judge William Wetmore, an agent for the Connecticut Land Company. In 1808, Wetmore built a cabin overlooking the spring-fed lake, which was then a part of Portage County. Local lore records his friendship and conscientious dealings with the Native Americans, likely Seneca, who inhabited a populous village between the lake and the Cuyahoga River. The tribe left the area to join the British during the War of 1812, but later sided with the United States.
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The charter establishing the original thirteen colonies were vague in their descriptions of location. In some cases, more than one colony had a legal claim to the same western land, After much controversy and compromise, each new state gave up its claim to the west. The lands were placed in public domain to benefit all the states. Virginia, which had given up vast claims as part of the compromise, reserved an area in Ohio called the Virginia Military District. It was bounded by the Scioto River to the north and east and by the Little Miami River to the west. All of present-day Union County was within the Virginia Military District. (Continued on other side)
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Granville, Ohio, was settled in 1805 by the Licking Company, a group formed in Granville, Massachusetts, and Granby, Connecticut, for the purpose of emigrating west. The Old Colony Burying Ground was defined on the first town plat of Granville in 1805. Many of Granville’s pioneers are interred within this ground, and the cemetery retains its original form and most of its westward facing rows of sandstone and marble gravestones. The early settlers buried here helped to lay out this town and determined the appearance and development of the village as it is today. The first burial, the infant son of Ethan Bancroft, was in April 1806. The oldest extant gravestone is dated 1808. Eighteen veterans of the Revolutionary War, thirty-nine from the War of 1812, and sixteen Civil War veterans rest here along with ministers, farmers, industrialists, physicians, young mothers, children, and other citizens of Granville.
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The village of Perrysburg was founded in 1816 and Wood County in 1820. In 1822 the town established a village cemetery and located it on the southwest corner of West Indiana at Cherry Streets. By 1848 it was full and a new one was created on West Boundary and Indiana Avenue. The first burial was that of William Cassady in 1849. The cholera epidemic of 1854 that caused over one hundred deaths, overloaded the small cemetery workforce. Potters Field was designed in 1868 on the NW corner of Block Two. In 1877 Perrysburg Township bought adjacent land in sections K and L and joined forces to create Fort Meigs Union Cemetery. There are nine underground vaults in the side of the terrace by the old Ewing Creek stream bed adjacent to the 1912 mausoleum.
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With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, many young men of Bristol Township enlisted in the army when President Abraham Lincoln issued his call to defend the Union cause. The death toll of some of these men at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee in April 1862 touched the local community as did the loss of Bristol Township lives at the Battle of Perryville in Kentucky, the Battle of Cedar Mountain in Virginia, and other theaters of war later in the year. The local citizenry responded to a plan for a lasting public memorial at the Town Park through a fund raising campaign. In 1863 the town square was transformed with a marble monument placed on an elevated mound at its center. The monument was designed by local artist Frank J. Hammond and manufactured by Myers, Uhl & Company of Cleveland at a cost of $500. [continued on other side]
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Wilberforce University, founded at Tawawa Springs in 1856 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, is the first private historically black college or university in America. The inspirations for Wilberforce were an unwavering faith in God, an acknowledgement of the contribution of the British abolitionist and Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, the leadership of AME Bishop Daniel Payne, and the belief in the potential of all women and men to learn and prosper. Wilberforce embraces the love of learning and the use of education as a tool of personal and community empowerment. Wilberforce seeks to cultivate and meet the historic hunger for freedom and liberty of all people. Today, Wilberforce is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church and educates diverse students from across the nation and around the world. Wilberforce continues to serve as a beacon for learning and research.