Remarkable Ohio

Results for: social-welfare-services
318 Main St
Coshocton

, OH

William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor from 1924 until death, 1952, began his amazing and strenuous climb to the top rung of labors ladder at age 16, in the Morgan Run Coal Mines in Coshocton County. Born in Coshocton County to parents of English descent, Hugh and Jane Oram Green, he learned their devout Baptist faith. Educated in a one room school house, he studied by coal oil lamp at night and was an avid reader all his life. Married Jennie Mobley, a Coshocton native on 14 April 1892. They were the parents of six children. Held his first union office in Local 379 at 18; then President of Sub-district 6; President of District 6, which included Ohio; Secretary-Treasurer, the United Mine Workers of America; finally, President of the American Federation of Labor. Member of Ohio Senate, 1910-1914; author, Workman’s Compensation Law of Ohio. Member of the Peace Treaty Commission after World War , the Board of International Labor Organization. Advisory Council to Commission on Economic Securtiy, and American Academy of Political and Social Science. Author, Labor and Democracy. Recipient, honorary degrees; Doctor of Industrial Science, Ogelthorpe University and Doctor of Law, Kenyon College. Active Baptist layman; dedicated American; a leader in drive for public education; awarded gold medal for distinguished service in promotion of Industrial Peace by the Roosevelt Memorial Association; received Award of Merit from Secretary of War Robert Patterson for leadership of American workers during World War II; awarded Certificate for Distinguished Service, National Foundation The March of Dimes.

Across from 5798 Oakes Place/Twp Rd 30
Barnesville

, OH

This cemetery stands as evidence of a once thriving African American farming community established in the 1820s. With the aid of community leader, Alexander “Sandy” Harper (c.1804-1889), Captina, originally called Guinea, became a stop on the Underground Railroad, a national network, shrouded in secrecy, of volunteers who directed slaves northward. Harper is buried in this cemetery, along with Benjamin Oliver McMichael (1865-1941), an educator who taught for twelve years in Captina/ Flatrock at a segregated schoolhouse. There are 113 known burials in the cemetery, including nine Civil War veterans. At this site in 1825, an African Methodist Episcopal Church was established to serve the community. Many of its members left Captina to work in cities, but the church continued services until 1962. The building then fell into disrepair and collapsed during a windstorm in 1978.

Kenyon College, OH 308
Gambier

, OH

Born in Ashland County in 1819, Lorin Andrews studied at Kenyon College (1838-41) and achieved renown as an Ohio school superintendent and advocate for public elementary and secondary education. As Kenyon’s president beginning in 1854, the charismatic Andrews enlarged the college and enhanced its reputation. Sensing war’s inevitability even before the April 1861 attack on Fort Sumter, Andrews offered his soldiering services to Governor Dennison and organized Company A of the Fourth Ohio Volunteers; Kenyon alumnus Henry Banning raised Company B. Many Kenyon students, including Charles McCook of the “Fighting McCooks,” followed their example. Andrews contracted typhoid fever during the Western Virginia Campaign and returned to Gambier, where he died on September 18, 1861. His remains are interred in the Kenyon cemetery.

10750 Mayfield Road
Chardon

, OH

Fowlers Mill (originally Fowler’s Mills) developed around a group of mills built in the 1830s on the Chagrin River. Opportunities from these mills led to Fowlers Mill becoming the commercial center of Munson Township. From the 1830s into the twentieth century, the community expanded with construction of churches, a post office, township hall, stores, hotel, blacksmith shop, schools, and houses built in such styles as Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne. This type of community center was common in rural, nineteenth century America, but rarely survives with so much original fabric intact. On Mayfield Road, the Disciple Church was built in 1842. East of the church, the brick central school built in 1913 replaced earlier one-room schoolhouses. The gristmill is the only mill standing in Geauga County. The cemetery contains burials dating from the 1830s. The Fowler’s Mills Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

219 N. Paul Laurence Dunbar Street
Dayton

, OH

The first African-American to achieve prominence as a poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar was born and raised in Dayton, the son of former slaves. Working as an elevator operator while he established himself as a writer, Dunbar published his first book of poems, Oak and Ivy, in 1893. His third collection, Lyrics of a Lowly Life (1896) with an introduction by another Ohio-born author William Dean Howells, gained Dunbar widespread critical acclaim and popular recognition. Widely published in contemporary journals and literary magazines, Dunbar employed both turn-of-the-century African-American dialect and standard English verse to give a voice to the themes of everyday discrimination and struggles for racial equality. Tuberculosis cut his life short at age 33. Dunbar’s body of work includes twelve volumes of poetry, four books of short stories, a play, and five novels.

26 E. Maine Street
Mifflin

, OH

Mifflin was founded in 1816. Originally known as Petersburg, the name was changed in 1827 in honor of the settlers that moved here from Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The first village jailhouse and crossroad watering trough are located here, on the grounds of the historic St. Michael Lutheran Church. Organized in 1835, the church built this house of worship in 1890. As early as 1810, stagecoaches traveled Mifflin’s main thoroughfare between Wooster and Mansfield, stopping at the watering trough, known for “the best spring water in Ohio”. In 1925, the trough was removed to allow room for the construction of the Lincoln Highway built in 1928. A Lincoln Highway “L” marker stands in the village today, in its original location, directing motorists eastbound.

250 Main Street
Zoar

, OH

The Society of Separatists of Zoar built the Zoar Town Hall in 1887 when the village was formally incorporated. Established in 1817 by German religious dissidents, Zoar became one of the most successful experiments in communal living during the 19th century. Early hardships encouraged the Zoarites, in 1819, to establish a communal system to ensure economic and social security. The Society disbanded in 1898. The Zoar Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.

315 E. College Street
Oberlin

, OH

Jabez Lyman Burrell (1806-1900), originally from Massachusetts, built this house in 1852. Burrell made his living as a cattleman and farmer, but devoted much of his time serving the cause of abolitionism, helping slaves, who had escaped the South, get to Sheffield and from there to Lorain and across Lake Erie to Canada. He was also devoted to equal education for all, providing funding to a freedmen’s school in Selma, Alabama, and serving as a trustee of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, well known for educating African Americans and women. From 1884 to 1934, this was the home of Henry Churchill King (1858-1934), who was the president of Oberlin College from 1902-1927. The Kings added the porches and rear wing and made their home a social center for the college and community. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a City of Oberlin Historic Landmark.