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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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Originally called the James Thompson Inn, named for its builder, the son of Middlefield’s first settler, Isaac Thompson, the Batavia House is Middlefield’s oldest remaining structure. Built in 1818, the two-story wood frame structure was operated continually as an inn by Thompson until his death in 1877. It became the private residence of his daughter, Caroline, until 1907 when again it became an inn, functioning as the Century Inn until 1951. The one-story cement block portion was added circa 1950 to accommodate the weight of the heavy printing presses of the Shetler Printing Company, which occupied the building until 1983.
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The museum of the Mercer County Historical Society, the Riley Home represents six generations of the Riley family in the county. The first Riley to arrive here was Captain James Riley, who surveyed the area in 1819, after it was opened to American settlement following the Treaty of Saint Marys in 1818. Captain Riley was elected to the Ohio General Assembly in 1823. Captain Riley’s son, James Watson Riley platted Celina in 1834, was Mercer County’s Clerk of Courts, and then represented the area in the Ohio General Assembly beginning in 1843. (Continued on other side.)
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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 completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal on July 4, 1843 brought many new settlers into this region. The Wabash and Erie Canal connected with the Miami and Erie Canal at Junction. Antwerp, ideally located on the Maumee River, was seen as a perfect place in which to establish a town. That same year surveyors W. Wilshire Riley and Samuel Rice platted what would become Antwerp. Naming rights belonged to Riley and storeowner Horatio N. Curtis, who wanting a name not duplicated anywhere else in the country, named it after Antwerp, Belgium. Early pioneers subdued the massive forests that once formed the “Black Swamp” and built a thriving city. Antwerp was incorporated in 1863. (continued on other side)
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Established as the county seat of Pickaway County in 1810, Circleville derives its name from the circular portion of a large Hopewell-era earthwork upon which it was built. The Circleville earthworks, described in 1772 by Rev. David Jones for a Boston magazine, comprised an 1,100 foot diameter circle connected to a 900 foot square. Town director Daniel Dreisbach platted the town directly atop the earthworks, integrating the town plan into the prehistoric landscape. An octagonal courthouse stood directly in the center.
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Youngstown’s earliest automobile suburb, Forest Glen Estates was developed in the 1920s during a period of change in urban transportation patterns and rapid expansion in the regional steel economy. A composite of design work by leading northeastern Ohio landscape and residential architects, the park-like suburb integrates period revival architecture into the natural landscape and blends gracefully with adjacent Mill Creek Park. Gently curving streets with low curbs and landscaped islands were a novel departure from traditional grid patterns. Attached garages and walkways that connect to driveways rather than the street reflect the influence of the personal automobile in the suburban landscape during this era. In 1998, the Forest Glen Estates Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Bainbridge Center Historic District. Founded in 1817, Bainbridge Township was named for Commodore William Bainbridge, commander of the USS Constitution during the War of 1812. The unincorporated hamlet of Bainbridge Center is both the geographic and historic center of Bainbridge Township. The town hall, churches, stores, shops, a school, and post office were established in Bainbridge Center. The architecture of houses in the area, most notably those built during the Greek revival period, reflects the agricultural past of the community and its development in the twentieth century. Citizens gathered in The Center to attend church and school, shop, and participate in social and political functions.
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