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Across the road was the site of Camp Circleville, where members of the 90th and 114th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.) were mustered into service during the Civil War. Pickaway Township farmer Jacob Ludwig donated the land for the camp, which was then approximately two miles south of the Circleville at the southwest corner of Kingston Pike and the Circleville-Tarlton Road. The 90th O.V.I was mustered into service on August 29, 1862 to serve for three years. The unit saw action during some of the war’s well-known western battles, including those at Perryville, Kentucky in October 1862; Stones River, Tennesee on December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863, and Chickamauga, Georgia in September 1863. Later, the 90th joined in General William Tecumseh Sherman’s march through Georgia in the spring and summer of 1864 and later that year was part of the Union force that fought in the Battles of Franklin and Nashville, Tennesee. At war’s end, the unit was mustered out of service at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati in June 1865. During the regiment’s service, five officers and 247 enlisted men were killed, mortally wounded, or died from disease.
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The Dayton and Michigan Railroad provided the single most important impetus to the growth and development of Wapakoneta. Although Wapakoneta had been platted in 1833, at the time of incorporation (1848), “the town was still without any material improvement worth the name of enterprise, save in the erection of residences and opening of small retail stores and shops.” On March 15, 1854, in its first ordinance, the village council of Wapakoneta voted unanimously to grant a right-of-way to the Dayton and Michigan Railroad Company to construct a railroad line through the community. The financial backers of the railroad ran short of funds during construction, and planned to end the line at Sidney, but local leaders raised $70,000 to ensure its extension. (Continued on other side)
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Originally called St. Clairsville and platted in 1801, Decatur was named for early 19th century naval hero Stephen Decatur. It is among the oldest villages in Brown County, which before 1817 was a part of Adams County. Among its notable early residents were Nathaniel Beasley (1774-1835), the first surveyor of Adams County, and Sarah Boone Montgomery (1763-1848), a heroine of the border wars in Kentucky. Decatur and Byrd Township supported at least four known stations on the Underground Railroad. Many area residents helped conduct escaping slaves northward to freedom.
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Myron T. Herrick, Governor of Ohio from 1904 to 1906, was born in Huntington Township in 1854 and lived here until age 12. A respected Cleveland attorney and businessman, Herrick was a friend and confidant to Senator Mark Hanna and Presidents McKinley, Taft, and Harding. His public service career culminated in two appointments as ambassador to France, from 1912 through the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and again from 1921 until his death in 1929. Enormously popular with the French people, Herrick escorted Charles Lindbergh in Paris after his historic 1927 transatlantic flight.
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Prior to the Civil War, New Richmond citizens participated actively in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. In 1836, James G. Birney published The Philanthropist, an abolitionist newspaper, in New Richmond before moving publication to Cincinnati. Local tradition tells of Jim, a slave living in Kentucky who was given permission from his master to visit his parents in New Richmond. He aided his friend Joe, a fugitive slave, by packing him in a box and placing him on a riverboat headed to New Richmond. Famed Cincinnati abolitionist Levi Coffin recorded, “A few abolitionist – white men – who lived near were called into see the fugitive and to advise in regard to his safety.” Joe was taken from Jim’s parents’ home to Cincinnati where Levi Coffin purchased him a train ticket to Sandusky, from where he traveled to Canada.
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By the mid 1830s, Ohio had developed a canal system that linked Lake Erie in the north to the Ohio River in the south. Despite the success of the canals, transportation companies searched for other methods to traverse the state. They found their answer in the railroad industry, which proved to be much faster, cheaper, and more reliable than canals. Located on Lake Erie, Sandusky, Ohio was a major trading depot in the area. Plans were made to connect Sandusky to Cincinnati’s port on the Ohio River. On September 4, 1835, construction began in Sandusky on the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad line, forming the first railroad line located entirely in Ohio. The railroad reached Tiffin by 1841 and Springfield by 1848, where it merged with the Little Miami Railroad line, connecting Lake Erie to the Ohio River.
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First Lady Lucy Ware Webb Hayes was born in this four-room Federal Vernacular house in 1831. Well educated for her time, she attended local schools, took classes in the preparatory department of Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, and graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati in 1850. She married lawyer and future U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1852. They raised five children to adulthood. As a colonel’s wife during the Civil War, “Mother Lucy” boosted morale for the soldiers of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment. In 1870, during Hayes’ first term as governor of Ohio, Lucy helped establish the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home as a state institution. (continued on other side)
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Platted in 1881 by Isaiah Custer at the junction of Zane’s Trace (1796-97) and the Cincinnati and Eastern Railway (1881). Incorporated 1886. Named after John G. Peebles, Portsmouth, Ohio, businessman. David Nixon constructed the first house in town, operated for many years as the Nixon Hotel. Annual chautauquas were conducted on grounds south of the railroad beginning in 1906 and continuing through 1917.
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