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Union County, Ohio, was established on April 1, 1820. The county was created from the “union” of portions of Delaware, Franklin, Logan, and Madison Counties, and a section of former Native American territory. The first seat of justice was in the village of Milford with court sessions held in the tavern of Nathaniel Kazar. In 1822, the county seat was moved to Marysville where court sessions were held in the tavern of Matthias Collins until a courthouse was erected later that year on East Fifth Street. This structure was replaced in 1838 with the construction of a two story brick building located on the Public Square. This courthouse served the county for nearly fifty years before the county decided to construct the current courthouse, built from 1880 to 1883.
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Soldiers from Company F of the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry died in the explosion of the steamboat Sultana seven miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865. The Sultana reportedly carried more than 2,400 passengers–six times its capacity of 376. The vast majority were Union soldiers recently freed from Southern prisons at the end of the Civil War. Approximately 1,800 passengers and crew died in what is considered the worst maritime disaster in American history. Company F was organized in Stark, Columbiana, and Portage Counties and was mustered into service at Camp Massillon in the fall of 1862. This marker is a memorial to the soldiers of Company F who died as a result of the Sultana tragedy and other war-related causes.
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The Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Company was chartered by the State of Ohio in January 1832 to connect west central Ohio with northern Ohio and Lake Erie. It was the first company to be incorporated for railroad purposes in the state. Construction started in Sandusky in 1835. By June 1849, the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad was completed to Springfield. Through a series of mergers, the railroad became known as the Big Four Railroad in 1890. It came under control of the New York Central Railroad in 1905. As the railroad industry consolidated, ownership transferred from New York Central to Penn Central and then to Conrail. In 1994, the West Central Ohio Port Authority, a special purpose district established by the boards of county commissioners of Champaign, Clark, and Fayette counties, acquired the railroad track to ensure that freight service would continue.
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The Connecticut Land Company surveyed Vienna Township as Township 4, Range 2, in 1798. The Township’s proprietors were Ephraim Root, Uriel Holmes, Jr., and Timothy Burr. Survey members Dennis Clark Palmer, Isaac Flower, and Samuel Hutchins and their families were the first to settle here in 1799. Between 1810 and 1840, Vienna was a center for the wooden works clock industry in Trumbull County and the Connecticut Western Reserve, with six factories located amid farms, sawmills, and quarries. After coal was discovered in 1866, over twenty mines were opened, bringing boom times for two decades. Vienna’s miners helped to bring about Ohio’s first mining safety law in 1874. Vienna was the birthplace of abolitionist and attorney John Hutchins (1812-1891), who represented Trumbull and Ashtabula counties in the United States Congress (1859-1863) and raised troops during the Civil War.
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On this site stood the home of Elisha and Polly Mygatt Whittlesey and their ten children. Also here was his law office and a records office that was moved in 1965 to Pioneer Village at the Canfield Fairgrounds. Already an attorney in his home state, Elisha (1783-1863) with Polly (1787-1855) emigrated from Danbury, Connecticut in June 1806 to Canfield in the Western Reserve where he was admitted to the Ohio bar and was prosecuting attorney from 1807 to 1823. During the War of 1812, Whittlesey was adjutant to Maj. Gen. Elijah Wadsworth and later a secretary to Gen. William Henry Harrison. Whittlesey opened a law office in Canfield in 1813, specialized in land cases, and was one of the founders of Norwalk, Ohio in 1815. In 1820, he was elected to the first of two terms in the Ohio General Assembly. (Continued on other side)
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The Lima and Toledo Traction Company Bridge was construted in 1907 by the National Bridge Company of Indianapolis, and it was considered to be a revolutionary type of bridge construction. The Old Electric Bridge, as it was called, was built of steel reinforced concrete and filled with earth. In fact, for this period some considered the bridge to be the longest such railroad bridge in the world. Twelve spans of Roman aqueduct architectural design anchor the 1220-foot bridge in solid river bedrock. The bridge linked Lucas and Wood counties and connected a busy Toledo with points south by means of an electric trolley. This Interurban Bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
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Born in Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown moved with his family to Hudson, Ohio, in 1805 and lived many years in Portage and Summit Counties. His expert knowledge of sheep and wool led to a business partnership with Colonel Simon Perkins from 1844 to 1854. The partnership drew Brown’s family to the house at 514 Diagonal Road, across from Perkins’ estate on Mutton Hill. Brown considered the then two-room house with loft, rented from Perkins, “the most comfortable and most favourable arrangement of my worldly concerns that I ever had.” (Continued on other side)
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In July 1863, Confederate Brigadier-General John Hunt Morgan led a force of 2,000 cavalrymen across southern Ohio. Morgan’s force entered Ohio from Indiana. A chase ensued as Union cavalry pursued Morgan’s men across twenty Ohio counties. To evade 2,500 Union cavalrymen under Brigadier-General Edward Hobson and thousands of Union militia stationed at Cincinnati and Hamilton, Morgan’s exhausted troopers made a daring night ride, resulting in the longest sustained cavalry ride in American military history. Around 9 P.M., Morgan’s cavalry passed through New Burlington, then rode north on Mt. Pleasant and Hamilton Pike (present day Mill Road). Heading east on Bank Lick Road (Kemper Road), they reached this spot in the Village of Springdale around midnight. (Continued on other side)
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