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The Canfield Christian Church began as a Baptist congregation in 1822 and church met for worship in William Dean’s home. The Mahoning Baptist Association Meeting of 1826 was held in David Hayes barn. In 1827, Walter Scott was asked by the Association to be the first paid traveling evangelist in the Mahoning Valley area of Ohio. Scott accepted the offer and moved his family to a house next to the Canfield Church. By June of 1829, the Canfield Church voted to lay aside the Baptist name for the name Disciples of Christ. They believed all creeds were unnecessary and took the Bible alone as their sole rule of faith and practice. In 1847, a new church was built. Charter members of the church include James and Sarah Caldwell, Ann Winfield, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Caldwell and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Flick, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Clark, Mr. and Mrs. John Flick, and Mr. and Mrs. Simmon Sackett and daughter. (Continued on other side)
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In the early years of the nineteenth century, a religious unrest known as the Second Great Awakening spread across much of the American frontier. Among the most influential of the evolving religious organizations were the Campbellites, or Disciples of Christ, founded in the 1820s by Thomas and Alexander Campbell. The Campbellite movement sought to “restore” New Testament Christianity by calling for a return to the primitive church revealed in the gospels. Campbellites denied creeds and oath-taking and rejected sectarianism. They believed in baptism by immersion and communion on Sundays. Followers also dealt with problems and transgressions of members within the church and did not use civil courts. They held a millennial view that professed human happiness and the belief that Christ would reign on earth for a thousand years. Believers spread this word to the pioneers of the Doty Settlement and elsewhere. By 1850, there were ninety Campbellite Churches in Ohio.
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Jury of Erie County Women, First to be Impaneled Under Federal Suffrage proclaimed the headline of the Sandusky Register on August 28, 1920. One of the first female Court of Common Pleas juries in the nation was impaneled in Erie County on August 26, 1920, moments after the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States was declared ratified. On that date, Judge Roy Williams was to conduct a trial and jurors were needed. Out of the ten men he contacted, only one could serve. Frustrated, Judge Williams later told the women, “When I learned shortly after 10:30 this morning that suffrage had been proclaimed, I decided to impanel a woman jury. Twelve women were summoned. Twelve women served.” (continued on other side)
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The North Baltimore Elementary and High School stood at 124 S. Second St. and was dedicated November 11, 1927. The tan and brown brick building replaced a school (built 1884) that a fire destroyed on January 26, 1926. The new school building, for children in grades 1-12, also included classrooms for home economics and business courses, as well as a 900-seat auditorium (including balcony), second floor cafeteria, gymnasium, administrative offices, and a public library. E.E. Leidy was the school’s superintendent and R. Vern Northup was the high school principal. The members of the board of education were Dr. E.A. Powell, President, D.B. Bushey, Vice President, C.G. Nigh, Clerk, and Nellie Roberts and R.E. Simon. Previously known as the “Independents,” the school’s sports teams became the “Tigers” in 1931. (Continued on other side)
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This Federal house was begun about 1820 for Martin Baum (1765-1831), one of Cincinnati’s early merchants. Art patron and abolitionist Nicholas Longworth (1782-1863) lived here for more than thirty years and commissioned the notable landscape murals in the foyer painted by African-American artist Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872). Iron magnate David Sinton (1808-1900), the subsequent owner, bequeathed the house to his daughter Anna Sinton Taft (1852?-1931). She and her husband Charles Phelps Taft (1843-1929), older half-brother of William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who accepted his party’s nomination for president from the portico in 1908, assembled the acclaimed art collection displayed here. Bequeathed to the people of Cincinnati in 1927, the Taft Museum of Art opened to the public in 1932. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973.
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Originally called Westfield Township, Samuel Fowler purchased this area in 1798 from the Connecticut Land Company for $12,903.23 while living in Westfield, Massachusetts. His brother Abner arrived the following year to survey the land and separate it into smaller plots that could be sold to people wanting to settle here. A Revolutionary War veteran, Abner was the first to arrive here and also the first recorded death in 1806, the same year that his son Abner Fowler II married the first school teacher in Fowler Ester Jennings. In 1817, Samuel Fowler gave five acres of land to Fowler Center to be used as a park or “common” with the provision that no permanent building ever be built on it. At about the same time, the township name was changed to Fowler to honor its founding family. Agriculture was and remains the main occupation in the Fowler area.
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In 1833, Archibald Smith (1803-83) began to build a sawmill a short distance east of here where a tributary enters Blacklick Creek. His work was soon destroyed, he wrote, by a “rise of water known as the great Fourth of July Flood.” Undaunted, he completed the mill the next year and used it to saw lumber from trees felled as he cleared land for cultivation. Archibald’s son, Dr. Isaac Newton Smith, described his father’s mill as the first on Blacklick Creek. Dr. Smith recalled four mills on Blacklick and one each on Sugar Run and Rocky Fork Creeks. These mills, he noted, received some of the best oak, butternut, chestnut, and walnut timber in the area. (Continued on other side)
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Built in 1819, this classic Greek Revival style colonial is attributed to the works of master builder and architect Jonathon Goldsmith. Goldsmith is known for his simple, yet elegant craftsmanship and architectural designs, especially the unique front doorways that are signatures of his creations. The house reveals original detailed woodwork and a functional floor plan. It was constructed for Uri Seeley, one of the earliest settlers of Lake County. Seeley and his family were dedicated to the anti-slavery movement and used this residence as a stop for travelers on the Underground Railroad. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.