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The Grenadier Squaw Village was located between this area and Scippo Creek, upon the Pickaway Plains, the primary Shawnee settlement in Ohio. Non-hel-e-ma, born circa 1722, was the sister of the Shawnee Cornstalk and Silver Heels. Known as Grenadier Squaw because of her imposing stature, she spoke four languages, serving as peacemaker and interpreter. After the peace treaty with Lord Dunmore in 1774, and in spite of Cornstalk’s murder, she remained allied with the Americans. On October 1, 1978, Non-hel-e-ma was honored with a marker in Logan Elm Park near to those for Chief Cornstalk and Chief Logan. The “Burning Ground,” used as a site to burn captured prisoners at the stake, was located on the elevated hill just south of Grenadier Squaw’s Village. The Council House was located slightly to the northwest.
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The Muskingum River forms at the confluence of the Tuscarawas and Walhoning rivers at Roscoe Village and flows south approximately 100 miles to the Ohio River at Marietta. During the first half of the nineteenth century, fugitive slaves from Virginia crossed the Ohio River and followed the Underground Railroad lines north toward Canada. Four Underground Railroad lines converged in Roscoe Village on the Muskingum River. The first followed the river north out of Marietta through Rainbow and Waterford. An Ohio River crossing at Belpre connected runaways with the Muskingum River at Putnam in Muskingum County. Two others came from the west through Granville in Licking County and New Concord in Muskingum County. From Roscoe Village, fugitive slaves sometimes traveled from station to station along the Ohio-Erie Canal that was completed in 1825. The canal ended at Lake Erie where the runaway slaves were assisted in crossing into Canada.
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In the early 1800s, William and Eleanor Kendall owned this land, known for its natural springs, beauty, and farmland. In 1850, Elias Drake, lawyer and former speaker in the Ohio General Assembly, purchased the property and named it Tawana or Xenia Springs. He developed a health resort hotel surrounded by summer cottages, all of which were completed the following year. “Tawana” is believed to be Shawnee for “clear or gold water,” alluding to the clear, mineral-rich springs. From its beginnings, the resort did not fare well as it was popular among southern planters who, much to the consternation of nearby antislavery sentiment, brought slave entourages whenever they came. In October 1855, negotiations for its sale opened with the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which purchased Tawana Springs, including 54 acres and the hotel and cottages, for $13,000 to establish a university for African Americans. (Continued on other side)
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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.
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In 1870, African American men in Circleville attempted to vote in municipal elections. Despite the recent ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, pollsters refused their votes on the basis that state law forbade them from receiving the ballots. The Second Baptist Church was the site of a meeting of 147 African American men seeking redress. Together with Republican leaders these men produced petitions that were sent to the United States Senate and House of Representatives. These petitions gave the Republican Party the grounds to introduce bills to enforce the Fifteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The passage of the Enforcement Act of 1870 imposed criminal penalties for interference with the right to vote and also helped to shift power and authority from the individual state legislatures to the centralized Federal government.
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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.
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Memorial Park hosted the famous Kansas City Monarchs during a barnstorming tour on August 4, 1961. The home team was the Lima Metro League’s Cairo Merchants. Legendary pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige (1906-1982) appeared on the mound for the Monarchs. The first African American to pitch a World Series, Paige was famous for helping the Cleveland Indians win their 1948 championship. After the Cairo exhibition game, he thrilled fans by signing autographs. Although the score of the 1961 game is forgotten, the impact of meeting Paige and other Kansas City players is remembered. During an era of racial tension and national change, a baseball game between an all-Black and all-White team taught many in attendance that they had much in common, including a love of the game.
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Augustus West, an African American, was born in Madison County, Virginia on March 20, 1814, and moved to Ohio in 1837. Legend has it that West was a runaway slave and worked as a farm laborer before designing a scheme to purchase his own farm. West, with abolitionist Alexander Beatty, traveled into slave territory no fewer than three times where the pair would sell West, help him escape, and split the profits. After splitting the profits, West used his portion of the money to purchase 177 acres of land in Fayette County where he built his “mansion.” To remain inconspicuous and secure, West built the “mansion” as far from the main road as possible. (continued on other side)