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On July 4, 1796, Moses Cleaveland and his survey party landed at the mouth of Conneaut Creek on the southern shore of Lake Erie in what is today Conneaut, Ohio. The Connecticut Land Company, a private land speculation enterprise, had hired General Cleaveland as its agent to survey the Connecticut Western Reserve lands and to found a settlement along the Cuyahoga River, later named Cleveland. Group members pitched tents and erected a crude shelter to protect the provisions and survey equipment before celebrating the independence of the new country with toasts and salutes. The next day they organized into field groups to begin the historic survey of measuring the townships and ranges of the Western Reserve.
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The Sharp family homes and their locations on N. State Street and Africa Road mark an important route through Westerville on the Underground Railroad. The family patriarch, Garrit Sharp, was an original settler of Sharp’s Settlement, now Westerville, and donated land for and helped organize the first Methodist church. He is also associated with the founding of Blendon Young Men’s Seminary, which was acquired by Otterbein College, an institution with enrollment open to African Americans and women from its inception in 1847. He and his sons were all noted abolitionists who, along with Bishop William Hanby and Otterbein president Lewis Davis, assisted southern slaves on their road to freedom. From the Sharp homes, slaves would have proceeded north to the house of Samuel Patterson on Africa Road and along Alum Creek to the Quaker settlement near Marengo in Morrow County.
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This church was organized April 22, 1843, in conjunction with The Central College of Ohio on land donated by Squire Timothy Lee. The college, chartered in March, 1842, continued until 1892. This brick chapel was erected in 1870 under the leadership of the Reverend Levi P. Sabin, and was remodeled during the pastorate of the Reverend Robert B. Wilson, 1943-1953.
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King Solomon Lodge, the first Masonic Lodge in Lorain County, was chartered on December 11, 1821, with Heman Ely as Worshipful Master. Ely (1775-1852), a prominent land developer, founded the City of Elyria in 1817, and built the first grist and saw mills and frame house in the village. Through his efforts, Elyria became the county seat in 1823.
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The Walnut Grove Cemetery is the burial place of members of the Zane and Martin families. Their graves lie within the brick enclosure. The cemetery is also the resting-place of many early Martins Ferry residents, including veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. The Zane and Martin families were significant in the pioneer history of the region. Betty Zane’s legendary heroism at Fort Henry (now Wheeling, West Virginia) helped settlers resist an attack by the British and their Native American allies in September 1782. (Continued on other side)
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Augustus West, an African American, was born in Madison County, Virginia on March 20, 1814, and moved to Ohio in 1837. Legend has it that West was a runaway slave and worked as a farm laborer before designing a scheme to purchase his own farm. West, with abolitionist Alexander Beatty, traveled into slave territory no fewer than three times where the pair would sell West, help him escape, and split the profits. After splitting the profits, West used his portion of the money to purchase 177 acres of land in Fayette County where he built his “mansion.” To remain inconspicuous and secure, West built the “mansion” as far from the main road as possible. (continued on other side)
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When David Knisely, the founder of New Philadelphia, first arrived in the Tuscarawas Valley on August 27, 1803, he found a sparsely populated, pristine wilderness. Five years later the state legislature approved a bill organizing Tuscarawas County effective March 15, 1808. Shortly thereafter, New Philadelphia was chosen as the county seat, and on April 16, 1808, the first commissioners met at Leininger’s tavern. By August, the tavern proved to be an inappropriate location for the county’s official business, and the commissioners approved the construction of a two-story, combination jail and county office building on land donated by John Knisely on the northeast corner of the square. By 1818 a new, larger brick courthouse was authorized by the commissioners. This building was occupied in 1825 and served as the courthouse until 1882 when the present structure was approved. Occupied in 1888, the building continues to be the center of the county’s business. The beautiful, state-of-the-art annex was dedicated on October 27, 1990.
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The Champion Paper Company began production here April 15, 1894, with nine employees under the direction of Peter G. Thomson (1851-1931), a Cincinnati businessman, who had incorporated the firm in November 1893. Thomson, previously a bookseller and publisher, recognized that recent progress in half-tone printing would increase the demand for coated paper. In 1891 he purchased 187 acres west of the Great Miami River to develop into subdivisions. When a recession contributed to a housing slump, Thomson used some of the land along Seven Mile Pike (now North B Street) to build the plant which coated paper produced by other paper mills in Hamilton. The first coated paper was shipped from the mill May 4, 1894.
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