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The Village of Adamsville commemorates life in this area as it was during the early to mid-19th century. The original Adamsville settlement was located on the banks of Raccoon Creek, roughly one-half mile east of this site. Adam Rickabaugh (1761-1836), a veteran of the Revolutionary War from Virginia, brought his family to this valley around 1804. His patent for land along the creek was signed by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison. Soon after his arrival, Rickabaugh built a grist mill, which became a meeting place for the growing community. In 1805, Nehemiah Wood, one of the earliest settlers in Gallia County, bought the mill from Rickabaugh, later adding a sawmill and a fulling mill for cleaning and thickening woolen cloth. (Continued on other side)
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In 1809-1811, Magdalene Strader Borror, widow of Revolutionary War veteran Jacob Borror Jr., moved to this area from Virginia with her seven children (Martin, Jacob, Myomi, Solomon, Christine, Issac, and Absalom). Originally clearing and settling 400 acres of land given to Magdalene by her father, Christopher Strader, the family eventually prospered throughout the entire township. After her death in 1838, Magdalene was buried in nearby Scioto Cemetery, the resting place of more than seventy of her descendants.
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In 1837, Cincinnati merchants projected a branch canal to join the Whitewater Canal at West Harrison, Indiana, with the goal of tapping commerce from Indiana’s Whitewater Valley. The major obstacle on this route was the ridge between North Bend and Cleves, just northeast of this site. Engineer Darius Lapham designed a 1,782-foot tunnel though this barrier. Lined with brick made on site, the tunnel, 24 feet wide and 20 1/2 feet high, was the first canal tunnel in Ohio. Six workers died in its construction. The Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal opened in 1843 but was abandoned by 1856, after the main Whitewater Canal had been rendered useless by repeated flooding. The canal tunnel was subsequently used as a railroad tunnel from 1863 until 1888, illustrating the progression of transportation technology in the mid-nineteenth century.
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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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Jeremiah Reeves was born in England in 1845 and began his career in the mills of Wales, United Kingdom, at the age of ten. In 1867, he immigrated to the United States where he worked in the steel mills of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He met his wife Jane Rees in the latter place and they married in 1869. In 1883, Reeves acquired a steel rolling mill in Dover for $14,000. Despite a history of financial difficulties, the Reeves Iron Works would go on to expand several times and employ over 800 men. The iron works and later the Reeves Manufacturing Company established Dover as an industrial center during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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Hanktown, settled in 1846, was home to eighty-nine of the three hundred and eighty-three slaves, owned by John Randolph (1773-1833), a wealthy Virginian landowner and cousin to President Thomas Jefferson. Randolph had decided to free the slaves and indicated the decision in his will. His family, however, found three different wills and protested. Thirteen years passed before the slaves left the plantation. In 1846, Judge William Leigh arranged for the slaves to travel to Mercer County and purchased two thousand acres. (Continued on other side)
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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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Born on June 7, 1931 in Dayton to Edna and Henry Stang, Dorothy Mae was the fourth of nine children. She attended Julienne High School and entered religious life with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1948. She professed final vows in 1956 and worked as an elementary school teacher in Chicago and Phoenix before beginning her ministry in Brazil in 1966. There, she worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, as well as defending land reforms. Over the next 40 years, Dorothy continued to live out and share the Gospel, the foundation of her life. In addition to her work supporting land reform, she opened 39 schools, founded 35 faith communities and educated women and helped them obtain viable jobs. (Continued on other side)
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