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About a mile south in St. Paul’s Cemetery, the Reverend Father Edward J. Fenwick, “Pioneer Apostle of Ohio,” organized the first Catholic parish in northern Ohio. The first mass was celebrated in the log house of Daniel McCallister. A century and a half later the cabin was dismantled, moved here, rebuilt, and rededicated in May, 1967 as the Log Cabin Shrine of Dungannon.
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Urbana University was established by the Swedenborgian Church in 1850. Bailey Hall (1853), named after Francis Bailey (1735-1815), was designed by W. Russell West, architect of the Statehouse of Ohio. Bailey was an American Revolutionary War hero, official printer of the Continental Congress and printer of The Freeman’s Journal or the North American Intelligencer. He also printed The True Christian Religion papers. John (Johnny Appleseed) Chapman (1774-1845) distributed The True Christian Religion papers along with his famous apple trees throughout Ohio as a missionary for the Swedenborgian Church. Barclay Hall (1883) was named after Hester Barclay, a ward of Francis Bailey. It was Hester Barclay’s brother-in-law, John Young, who converted Chapman to the Swedenborg faith. Francis Bailey and Hester Barclay were the first male and female Swedenborgian converts in North America. Both Bailey and Barclay halls appear on the National Register of Historic Places.
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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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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 Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) traces its origins to mid-18th-century England, where it served as a mutual benefit society for traveling workmen. Odd Fellowship moved to the United States in 1819; the first Ohio lodge was established in 1830, and the Canfield Lodge was instituted in 1850. The charter members of this lodge were E.J. Estep, John G. Kyle, James Powers, W. M. Prentice, and William W. Whittlesey. Many of the early members of this lodge were businessmen, lawyers, physicians, and tradesmen. Lodge 155 remains one of the oldest active lodges in northeastern Ohio. (continued on other side)
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General John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky led a force of Confederate calvarymen into Meigs County during a forty-six day raid north of the Ohio River. The advance forces burned Benjamin Knight’s carding mill and sawmill, the Shade River Bridge, and pillaged local businesses in Chester on July 18, 1863, while waiting for the rest of the column to catch up. This two-hour halt delayed General Morgan’s arrival at the ford at Buffington Island until after dark, allowing Union troops to arrive before he could make his escape. General Morgan surrendered eight days later near West Point in Columbiana County, the northernmost point ever reached by Confederate forces during the Civil War.
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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.