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The Canfield Township Hall was erected in 1884. It served as the first public building in which the Canfield citizens could conduct town business, elections, and public meetings. An example of Renaissance Revival or “Italianate” architecture, the building is typical of late Victorian commercial buildings, but constructed of wood rather than of the customary brick. Drafted by Colonel S. Kinney, it was originally constructed for the sum of $2,389 by G.W. Strock at the corner of South Broad and East Main streets, on a lot purchased for $500. In 1936, R.J. Neff moved the hall several hundred feet south to its present location. In addition to official township meetings, the second floor has been used for a variety of activities, including social meetings, lectures, contests, dances, and roller-skating. The building served as an early home of the Canfield Historical Society and operated continuously for over one hundred and twenty-five years.
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St. Augustine Episcopal Chapel was founded by Lenora Evans Berry, an African American woman, in 1907. A lifelong Baptist, her mission was the development of the Episcopal Church for African Americans in Youngstown. Mrs. Berry’s husband, bricklayer Thomas D. Berry, the son of master builder P. Ross Berry, became the church’s first senior warden and treasurer. The congregation met in St. John’s Parish until they were able to obtain property on Parmalee Avenue. In 1912, Reverend John Ogburn was officially called to vicar. In 1920, work began on plans for a new church. The structure was designed by Charles F. Owsley and construction began after more than six hundred individuals from the community attended the laying of the church’s corner stone on September 11, 1921. St. Augustine Chapel is the oldest African American church and congregation in Youngstown still in its original location and structure.
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Built in 1804 by Jonathan Fowler, one of the founders of Poland Village, this structure served as his family home, general store, tavern and a hotel all at the same time. It became an important stagecoach stop on the main highway between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. In 1861, the future President of the United States, William McKinley was sworn into the Union Army from the tavern’s front porch.
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For more than two centuries, this burial ground has been a final resting place for those individuals whose lives represented the community history of Canfield. The earliest existing tombstone marks the death of Huldah Tanner in 1803. Seven earlier deaths in Canfield Township are recorded from 1798 to 1803, but the gravesites are unknown. Elijah and Rhoda Hopkins Wadsworth formally deeded the cemetery to the citizens of Canfield in 1810 with a first edition of land donated by Matthew B. Whittlesey in 1811. In 1862-1863, the graveyard was again enlarged. For seventy years the cemetery and fencing were maintained on a volunteer basis. When the Village of Canfield was incorporated in 1869, the care and management was vested in a board of trustees. (continued on other side)
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In 1846, the same year that Mahoning County was created, Ohio’s General Assembly passed an act “for the encouragement of agriculture.” An outgrowth of this legislation led to the founding of the Mahoning County Agricultural Society in April 1847. Boasting a membership of 170, the Society agreed to sponsor competitions for premiums to be distributed at an “annual fair and cattle show the next fall.” Canfield was the geographic center of the county and selected as the site for the first fair. In October, from the lawn of the First Congregational Church, Comptroller of the United State Treasury Elisha Whittlesey welcomed participants. Admission was one shilling (twelve and one half cents). The Village Green overflowed with exhibitions of prized livestock, harvests, plowing contests, and horse racing. Early fairs were one-day events attended primarily by gentlemen. However, the church provided a venue for ladies to display their handiwork. (continued on other side)
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In 1827, noted evangelist Walter Scott came to Canfield and visited with a number of area Baptist families living on Palmyra Road and in the vicinity of Dean Hill. A follower of Alexander Campbell, Scott delivered powerful sermons that persuaded some to establish a new church congregation in the Disciple faith. After meeting in congregation members’ homes, a framed meeting house was erected circa 1830 on land purchased from William and Orsemus Dean. This church stood across from William Dean’s brick residence. A burial ground was provided at the site with existing grave markers dating to 1837. Veterans from all the wars of this nation are buried here, including Benjamin Dean of the 105th Ohio Infantry Regiment who died from wounds suffered in the 1863 Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee. (continued on other side)
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On this site stood the home of Elisha and Polly Mygatt Whittlesey and their ten children. Also here was his law office and a records office that was moved in 1965 to Pioneer Village at the Canfield Fairgrounds. Already an attorney in his home state, Elisha (1783-1863) with Polly (1787-1855) emigrated from Danbury, Connecticut in June 1806 to Canfield in the Western Reserve where he was admitted to the Ohio bar and was prosecuting attorney from 1807 to 1823. During the War of 1812, Whittlesey was adjutant to Maj. Gen. Elijah Wadsworth and later a secretary to Gen. William Henry Harrison. Whittlesey opened a law office in Canfield in 1813, specialized in land cases, and was one of the founders of Norwalk, Ohio in 1815. In 1820, he was elected to the first of two terms in the Ohio General Assembly. (Continued on other side)
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Crandall Park is the heart of the historic district and includes Fifth Avenue, Redondo Road, Catalina Avenue, and Tod Lane. Most of the district’s historic structures were built between 1904 and 1930, Youngstown’s heyday as an urban and industrial center. The district encompasses 92 houses, 32 outbuildings, a pavilion and rustic stone shelter in Crandall Park, and the concrete arch bridge carrying Fifth Avenue over the park. The North Heights Land Company and the Realty Guarantee Trust Company developed much of the neighborhood. Homes in the district were built for the city’s prominent industrialists and businessmen. The houses feature the work of architects Morris Scheibel, Charles F. Owsley, Fred Medicus, Barton Brooke, and Cook and Canfield and are distinguished by their grand scale, high-style design, spacious lots, landscaping, and orientation to the park or boulevard roads. (Continued on other side)
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