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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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The Triangle, one of the most historic places in Berea, has been the center of the city’s civic life since the mid-19th century. Just beneath lie the solid layers of the famous Berea Sandstone that brought prosperity to Berea during its early years. Quarry owner and Berea Seminary founder John Baldwin obtained much of what is now Berea from Gideon Granger, Postmaster General under President Thomas Jefferson and original owner of Township 6, Range 14 (later Middleburg Township) of the Western Reserve. When the seminary trustees transferred the Triangle tract to the people of Berea in 1847, they designated it by deed as a public promenade. This farsighted stipulation preserved it from commercial development during the 20th century. (continued on other side)
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Near this site on July 4, 1825 ground was broken in Ohio for the National Road. The National Road was America’s first federally planned and funded highway and linked the east coast of the United States to Old Northwest Territory. Albert Gallatin, President Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of the Treasury, conceived the idea for the road and advocated for it. Construction began in 1811 at Cumberland, Maryland, but was interrupted by the War of 1812. The road reached Wheeling in 1818, but was again delayed until 1825 because of debates over the constitutionality of federal funding for road and infrastructure projects. The National Road in Belmont County began at Bridgeport on the Ohio River and ran 28.5 miles to the western end of the county at Fairview.
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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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Built of bricks of clay from the Little Miami River, the King Mansion has stood majestically overlooking the town of Kings Mills since 1885. The home of industrialist Ahimaaz King and the first house in Kings Mills, this 12-room, three-story Italianate-style house is crowned with a widow’s walk and features stained-glass windows, distinctive fireplaces, and a tack room. The carriage house included a milking operation for cows on the lower level, stables on the main level, and carriage storage on the upper level. A cast iron fountain in the yard gave the name “Fountain Square” to the area. Occupied by three generations of Kings until 1988, the mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008 and is a reminder of Ahimaaz King’s importance to the history of Kings Mills.
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In 1866, Alliance physician, amateur horticulturalist, and politician Dr. Levi Lamborn propagated the scarlet carnation from French seedlings in greenhouses at this site. Opposing William McKinley for the 18th Congressional District in 1876, Lamborn presented the future president with a carnation boutonniere before each debate. McKinley, successful in those debates, continued to use the carnation as a good-luck charm, wearing the carnation in his lapel as president. On September 14, 1901, moments after removing the flower from his lapel and giving it to a young admirer at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, President McKinley was killed by an assassin’s bullet. The Ohio General Assembly passed a joint resolution naming the scarlet carnation the state flower on February 3, 1904, as it “represented a token of love and reverence for the Ohio president.” On April 1, 1959, the Ohio Legislature proclaimed Alliance “The Carnation City.”
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One of America’s most prolific and important inventors, Thomas Alva Edison was born in this house in 1847. Designed by his father, Samuel Edison, a shingle maker by trade, this small gabled brick cottage was built in 1841. Though the Edisons moved to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, when he was seven, Edison cherished the memories of his early boyhood here and acquired the home from his sister’s family in 1906. Edison’s daughter Madeleine Edison Sloane opened the home to the public as a memorial to the great inventor in 1947, the centennial of his birth. It became a registered National Historic Landmark in 1965.
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The first canal boat arrived in Toledo from Indiana in 1843 via the Wabash & Erie Canal. The Miami & Erie Canal from Cincinnati was completed in 1845. It joined the W & E Canal near Defiance and they shared the same course along the Maumee River. The final section of the canal from Toledo’s Swan Creek Side Cut to Manhattan and passed across the present courthouse square.
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