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When Sunbury was platted in 1816, a town square was set aside for public use with the intention of constructing a town hall on the site. The first two stories of the Town Hall were built, as a school, in 1868 for $5,000. The Masons added the third story for $1,500 and occupied it for 91 years, until a lodge was constructed. Since 1868, the Town Hall has served Sunbury as a village office building, jail, fire station, and community library. Church services as well as Farmer’s Institutes were held in the building, and at one time it housed a bank. In 2002, the Town Hall was renovated for use as a community room and village offices.
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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.
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The 53rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment was mustered into service at Camp Diamond, north of Jackson, during the first year of the Civil War. Men recruited from the counties of Athens, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Washington, and Hamilton, and Preble began arriving in camp for training in September 1861. On February 16, 1862, the army ordered the regiment to Paducah, Kentucky and there assigned it to General William Tecumseh Sherman’s command. From April 1862 to February 1865, the 53rd fought in 69 engagements, including the Battle of Shiloh (the unit’s first) and the Atlanta Campaign. After hostilities ended, the 53rd marched in the Grand Review in Washington D.C. on May 24, 1865 and was mustered out of service in Little Rock, Arkansas on August 11. The unit suffered 80 battlefield casualties; 196 men died of disease or accidents.
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The most notable feature of Mantua Center is the “Village Green,” which harkens back to the New England heritage of Mantua Center’s early settlers. The Green sets upon land donated by Hezekiah Nooney Sr. and was important to both the social and commercial interests of the town. The businesses located here were a furniture and cabinet maker’s shop, harness shop, blacksmith shop, post office, tannery, ashery, dry goods store, and distillery. The Methodist Episcopal Church, now the Mantua Civic Center, stands at the southwest corner of the green. Eastlawn cemetery, with a burial that dates to 1816, sits along the south border. The cemetery serves as the final resting place for soldiers of several wars, including the American Revolution, as well as many other early citizens. In 1835 Horace Sizer constructed the stone wall around the cemetery adjacent to Mantua Center Road. [continued on other side]
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Sully Jaymes was an African American lawyer and tireless activist for equal rights in Springfield during the first half of the twentieth century. Born on March 30 sometime between 1875-1880, he graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1901. By 1903, he opened a Black-owned law practice at 17-1/2 Main Street in Springfield. Working primarily with the city’s Black residents, Jaymes offered his services free of charge if clients were unable to pay. He was a long-time member of North Street A.M.E. Church. Jaymes served on the first Board of Directors of the Center Street YMCA (a safe-haven for young Black people), on the Board of Trustees at Wilberforce University, and as a Grand Chancellor of Ohio for the Grand Lodge, Knights of Pythias. (Continued on other side)
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Originally a vigilante group, the Bentonville Anti-Horse Thief Society was formed here in March 1853 by area landowners to recover stolen horses and mules and to prosecute thieves. Horse theft was a serious offense in the antebellum era. Trustees nominated a captain and riders, who received a $10 reward upon the capture of a thief or stolen horse. As horses lost their former importance in society in the early 1900s, the organization evolved into a social club. Its annual banquet, held each April, celebrates the continuity of this Adams County tradition.
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When inventor and entrepreneur Garrett Augustus Morgan sold his Traffic Signal patent to General Electric in 1923, he used the $40,000 to purchase a 121-acre farm in Huron County in 1924. Advertising “a village of our own,” Morgan established the Wakeman Country Club — one of Ohio’s early African American recreation clubs — and offered 247 lots for $60 each in “Wakeman Heights.” Located near the intersection of State Route 60 and Chenango Road, the development provided country pleasures to Blacks excluded from the Country Club lifestyle. Club membership, included in the purchase of a lot, offered fishing, hunting, swimming, and horseback riding. A restaurant, dance hall, and amphitheater provided cultural and boxing events. The club waned during World War II and no buildings from the once-thriving Wakeman Country Club remain.
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In 1972 a group of Welsh-Americans chartered the Welsh-American Heritage Museum to preserve Welsh history and culture, and to preserve the Welsh Congregational Church. The old brick church was where songs of praises rang, as the Welsh gathered and sang beloved hymns of their homeland in four-part harmony. The church is a link in a long, unbroken chain of memories and still serves the community as a center of Welsh-American activities and a keeper of the community’s heritage. The red dragon and daffodil are symbols of Wales.
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