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In 1772-73 missionary David Jones visited Blue Jacket’s Town, a settlement of 12 cabins downstream on the east bank and Pickaweekee, a Shawnee town, on the west bank. Deercreek Methodist Circuit Deacon, Dr. Edward Tiffin, met settlers after 1798. Dr. Tiffin was later elected first governor of Ohio. A station of Virginia bounty-land settlers, “Williams Town,” assembled here around 1797. Mill sites, established before Pickaway County, flourished in the dense oak forest of Deercreek Township. Frontier hotels in Williamsport prospered due to the “healthful” sulphur springs.
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Union Village, the first and largest Shaker (United Society of Believers) community west of the Allegheny Mountains, was established in 1805. Nearly 4,000 Shakers lived in Union Village, the last living here until 1920. They owned 4,500 acres of land with more than 100 buildings. Union Village was parent to other communities in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Georgia. Shakers were among the most successful religious communal societies in the United States. Believe in equality of men and women, separation of sexes, confession, communal ownership of property, and celibacy helped define their society. The name “Shaker” was derived from the shaking and dancing that were part of their worship. Union Village Shakers were successful entrepreneurs selling herbal medicines, garden seeds, and brooms. They also raised and bred Poland China hogs, Durham cattle, and Merino sheep.
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This area, known as Calmoutier, was an early French Catholic farming community founded in 1832 by Claude Druhot, who came from Calmoutier, Hte-Saône, France. Its first native, the four-month-old Claude Joseph Druhot, was baptized on 9 June 1833 by Fr. John Henni, who resided at St. John’s in Canton (and in 1854 became Milwaukee’s first bishop). In 1836 Fr. John Alleman, O.P., established St. Genevieve’s Mission (when it began to keep its own records) on land donated by the Pierson and Roussel families. The log chapel that was built (the first of four churches here) predated any Catholic church building in Cleveland, Akron, and Toledo.
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General Hedges was born in Ohio County, Virginia and taught school in that state before coming to Ohio in 1803. As a Deputy Surveyor, he worked in Ashland, Holmes, Knox, Medina and Wayne Counties, and purchased 19,000 acres in future Richland County. Hedges was one of three founders of Mansfield in 1808. He served in the War of 1812. This unselfish Mason gave land for the Methodist Church, and Hedges School and Park. In February, 1818, he obtained the Deposition for Mansfield Lodge #35, Free and Accepted Masons. [Masonic Emblem]
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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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Robert Caldwell and his family, from Chester County, Pennsylvania, moved to the Northwest Territory in 1795. In 1809, they bought and cleared land along Duck Creek in what became Olive Township, Morgan County (in 1819). In 1832 Robert’s son, Samuel and his wife Sarah Brownrigg Caldwell built the “Ball-Caldwell” house. Samuel Caldwell advocated for the formation of Noble County, established in 1851. In the contest to determine the site of the county seat, Caldwell promised a donation of land if it would be used for that purpose, which is was in 1857. In gratitute, the commissioners named the county seat “Caldwell.”
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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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