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Congress established the United States Military District in 1796 by an act to provide bounty land for Revolutionary War officers and soldiers. District lands consisted of 2.6 million acres in twelve Ohio counties, including Delaware County. The Union Land Company, organized by James Kilbourne of Connecticut in 1806, was formed to purchase Military District land. Kilbourne purchased 4,000 acres in southeast Liberty Township, Delaware County for $7,000, and, in turn, sold the land to 26 Union Land Company members for $2.00 per acre. Five members were from the Case family, and they purchased 950 acres–Ambrose, George, Jonathan, Seth, and Silas. George and Seth were Revolutionary War veterans who did not claim their bounty lands. George purchased lot 11, a part of which is in northwest Highbanks Park today, and Seth purchased 300 acres north of this site. By 1849 the Case family owned over 1,000 acres.
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Michael Uhrich, Sr. founded Uhrich’s Mill on this site in 1806. Uhrich emigrated from Pennsylvania in 1804 and became one of the first County Commissioners upon the formation of Tuscarawas County in February 1808. In 1833, the same year Mill Township was organized, Michael Uhrich, Jr. platted the town named Waterford, which became Uhrichsville approximately six years later. During the Ohio-Erie Canal period, Uhrich’s Mill – consisting of four wheels (one for sawing wood, one for wheat, and two for grinding corn) – became the focal point for nearly all grain produced in the Stillwater Valley and shipped to Cleveland markets via the canal.
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Erected in 1828, the Randolph Mitchell House is a five-bay, Federal-style “I” house. Its facade features a doorway with an Adam-style fan and sidelights. The interior boasts a grand stairway in the foyer and fine woodwork throughout. Randolph Mitchell (1796-1847) was born in Rockingham County, Virginia. In 1819, Mitchell and his mother Sarah (1765-1844), settled in New Reading and he married Lydia Witmer (1798-1872). They had four children. A merchant, Mitchell kept an ample smokehouse and owned a tannery and real estate. He served as a justice of the peace for Reading Township. After Mitchell’s death, his son-in-law, Dr. W.W. Arnold (1818-1872) maintained his practice in the home, where he and Caroline Mitchell Arnold (1825-1888) lived. Their son William Arnold (1858-1948) acquired the house, which remained in the family until 1951. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
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The Birmingham and Ironville neighborhoods were so named because of their early iron industries located along Front Street and the Maumee River. This became Toledo’s first area of heavy industrial development with iron manufacturing, coal shipping, oil refining, shipbuilding, and flour milling operations. In 1864 the Manhattan Iron Company built a charcoal blast furnace near the river’s mouth, securing fuel from nearby forests.
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Many early settlers of Morgan County were of Scot-Irish heritage and brought the Presbyterian faith with them. From this group Reverend John Hunt and twelve charter members organized the first congregation in McConnelsville and Malta in 1824 and third oldest congregation in Morgan County. The congregation built a brick church in 1832 at a cost of $2,361. Known for its excellent acoustics and fine music, the building received the first pump organ in the two villages in 1849. In 1916 the church was stuccoed and added a Sunday school and vestibule. The original bell was sold to the steamboat H.D. Munson in 1865, and the present bell came from the Bristol Presbyterian Church. Because of its large seating capacity, the church was also used for civic functions, including an early court trial. Over the years, members have included General Robert McConnell, founder of McConnelsville, Henry Dawes, uncle of Vice-President Charles Dawes, and Frances Dana Gage, early women’s rights leader.
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The A.H. Heisey & Co. produced high quality, hand-wrought glass in Newark, Ohio beginning in 1896. Glass originally produced by pressing was intended to simulate cut glass making elegant glass affordable to more families. Heisey was an innovator in production methods. He introduced colors and different patterns of glass to meet the social habits of the era. Highly skilled craftsmen produced, cut, and etched glass in many styles. The plant closed in 1957 because of Heisey’s refusal to produce an inferior machine-made product. The beauty and superior quality of this glass makes it a highly collectable item. The Heisey Collectors of America, founded in 1971, opened The National Heisey Glass Museum in 1974. The Museum stands as a historical reminder and an educational resource to the heritage of the A.H. Heisey & Co.
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The original town plat of Rawson was filed on February 3, 1855, consisting of fifty-five lots in sections 13 and 14 of Union Township, Hancock County on the Frederick Keller and George J. Kelly farms. Several residential and business structures were built in anticipation of completion of a railroad rumored to pass from Fremont through the “Rawson” area on its way to the western boundary of Ohio. Farmers Keller and Kelly named their village Rawson after L.Q. Rawson, President of the railroad company, hoping that the name would encourage him to build through their area. Financial troubles delayed construction causing a standstill in Rawson. Seventeen years later the first locomotive arrived in Rawson, spurring new construction. At that time the railroad was called the Lake Erie and Louisville; in 1879 it was changed to the Lake Erie and Western and in 1922 became part of the Nickel Plate Railroad. (Continued on other side)
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J. Scott Garbry, a 1986 inductee into the Ohio Conservation Hall of Fame, had a lifelong commitment and passion for conservation, historic preservation, and education. His gift of land and artifacts to the Upper Valley JVS led to the creation of the Willowbrook Environmental Education Center and Garbry Museum. He was also instrumental in providing land for the site of the Piqua High School and for Garbry Woods of the Miami County Park District. These gifts make it possible to appreciate and experience Ohio’s natural and historic heritage.
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