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African-American history began in Piqua with the settlement of Arthur Davis in 1818 and expanded with the settlement of the freed Randolph slaves of Virginia in 1846. African-American religious heritage in Piqua began with the Cyrene African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1853 and the Second Baptist Church (Park Avenue) in 1857. Segregated education started in 1854 at the Cyrene Church and ended in 1885 at the Boone Street School. Several Piqua African-American men circumvented Ohio’s early ban against Civil War military service by joining the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments. Following the Civil War an African-American Co-operative Trade Association established Piqua’s first African-American retail store. Continued on/from other side)
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Native Americans inhabited and used much of the land in the Ohio valley as hunting grounds. As American settlers pushed west, conflicts resulted and attempts at peaceful settlement failed. Under political pressure, President George Washington resolved to subdue Indian resistance to American expansion in the Ohio country and appointed General Arthur St. Clair to lead the expedition. St. Clair’s troops camped on the Wabash River (just east of the Ohio-Indiana state line) after an exhausting two-month trek. The ill-prepared soldiers were no match for the forces of Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware Indians who attacked them at dawn of November 4, 1791. By the day’s end, warriors led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket had killed or wounded nearly three-quarters of the American force-the worst-ever defeat of the U.S. Army by Native Americans in a single battle.
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Following the American Revolution, the British Crown sought to retain possession of the Ohio Country by sending chief British Indian Agent Alexander McKee and others to establish trading posts with Native Americans and resist American settlement. In 1786, Colonel Benjamin Logan led an American force against the British posts and tribes. Warned of their approach, McKee and a band of Shawnee, took their possessions, including a large drove of hogs, and fled north from the Mackachack Villages near present-day Bellefontaine. Their route was the Black Swamp Trail, now Napoleon Road. An attempted crossing of the rain-swollen Ottawa River turned disastrous, resulting in the loss of possessions and most of the hogs. The hill upon which the party camped following the failed crossing, located one half mile east of here, became known as McKee’s Hill, and the portion of the Ottawa River east of Lima has since been known as Hog Creek.
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At the mouth of the Black River in April, 1787, Moravian missionary David Zeisberger attempted a settlement of Indians but was ordered further west by unfriendly Delaware Indians. On July 16, 1834, a plat of this site was filed by Conrad Reid, Daniel Baldwin, Quartus Gillmore and Barna Meeker. The town, Black River, was incorporated as Lorain fifty years later.
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The Society of the Precious Blood, established in Italy in 1815, began its American ministry here in Peru in January 1844, led by Swiss missionary Father Francis de Sales Brunner. Continuing the work begun by the Redemptorists at St. Alphonse in 1833, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, or “Sanguinists,” brought spiritual support and education to German immigrants in northern Ohio. In July 1844 the Sisters of the Precious Blood, established in Switzerland in 1834, began their ministry of prayer and education here. The priests, brothers, and sisters attended to the needs of parishes across northern Ohio, and between 1844 and 1856 established nine major foundations throughout Seneca, Mercer, Putnam and Auglaize Counties in Ohio.
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With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, England lost the American Revolution and ceded to its former colonies land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. By this time, pioneer settlers had reached the eastern bank of the Ohio River, but the Ohio Country, located west and north of the river, was still considered Indian Territory. The Indian tribes desperately defended their hold on this land. On August 20, 1794, United States forces led by Major General Anthony Wayne defeated an Indian alliance at the Battle of Fallen Timbers fought near modern-day Toledo. One year later, on August 3, 1795, the largest assemblage of northwestern Indian representatives at a peace settlement signed the Treaty of Greene Ville, which effectively ceded all land south of the Greene Ville Treaty line to the Americans. The Fort Laurens site was a reference point in the Treaty line. The Ohio Country was then rapidly settled, and in 1808, Tuscarawas County was organized.
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Following General Anthony Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers, members of the western tribes assembled at Fort Greene Ville to settle on terms of peace. Representatives of the Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, Ottawas, Chippewa, Ottawa, Patawatimi, Miami, Eel River, Wea, Piankeshaw, Kickapoo, and Kaskaskia signed the treaty on August 3, and agreed to cede claims to lands east of the Cuyahoga River to Fort Laurens in Tuscarawas County and south of a line running west to Fort Recovery. In return, the United States offered payment and annuities in the form of goods and ceded claim to most land north and west of the treaty line. This treaty marked the end of the Indian Wars in the Ohio Country, forsaking boundary violations by both parties, and established the official western border of the United States, opening much of Ohio for settlement.
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David Snively built the Federal-style Pennsylvania House in 1839 along the newly constructed National Road. This tavern and inn was an important stopover for livestock drovers and pioneers traveling by foot, on horseback, or in Conestoga wagons during the westward expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century. Dr. Isaac K. Funk, of Funk & Wagnalls fame, lived in the house in the 1840s while his father served as its tavern keeper. Closed as an inn after the Civil War, it then served as a doctor’s clinic, boarding house, and secondhand shop before falling into total disrepair. The Lagonda Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution saved it from demolition and has owned and operated it as a museum since 1941. The Pennsylvania House was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
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