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Clinton County was a major center of activity for the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware Indians. Early traces and trails developed as Indians traveled from village to village; gathered flint, salt and gold; traded furs, mica, and feldspar; and hunted bear, deer, otters, raccoons, foxes, wild cats, turkeys, and other wildlife. Trails throughout the county connected to other trails and villages in Ohio such as Lower Shawnee Town (now Portsmouth), Hurricane Tom’s Town (now Piketon), Chillicothe, Old Town (near Xenia), and Miami Town (now Dayton). Major trails or traces in Clinton County included the Bullskin, Wayne, Chillicothe, Delaware, Fort Ancient, Kanawha, Kenton and Todds Fork Traces. These routes were the avenues the first white settlers followed. (continued on other side)
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The Scioto Marsh, the largest of three extensive marsh areas in western Hardin County, was formed in the low basins left by the last retreating glacier 10,000 years ago. It covered more than 16,000 acres and was thought to be a source of malaria by the early settlers. A drainage project was begun in 1859, and the remaining peat-ladened soil helped make this rich agricultural area.
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The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. Largely through the efforts of Chillicothe attorney John Poland, the War Department selected Chillicothe as the site of an army training camp for inductees from Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. Construction began at Camp Sherman, named for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, in June 1917. When the first recruits arrived in September, more than fourteen thousand workers had erected two thousand buildings on the 1,700-acre site. The rapid influx of soldiers increased Chillicothe’s population from 16,000 to 60,000.
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In 1817 the United States government signed a treaty with a number of Native American tribes in northern Ohio, including the Seneca Indians. The Fort Meigs or Maumee Rapids Treaty bound the Seneca tribe to cede all claims to land north of the Greenville Treaty line, and in return they received a 40,000 acre reservation at Lower Sandusky (Fremont) and a $500 annuity to be paid each year in perpetuity. The reservation’s boundary began 1.5 miles north of here and extended 6.5 miles to the south. The width of the reservation was 8 miles with the western boundary at the Sandusky River. Beginning in 1830, with a policy of Indian removal developed by the administration of Andrew Jackson, tribes east of the Mississippi River were pressured to move to reservations in the West. The Seneca Indians moved to northeast Oklahoma in 1831.
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Philip Sheridan was most likely born in County Cavan, Ireland in 1831, but records do not indicate his actual birthplace. His family moved to Somerset when Philip was a child and lived down the avenue from this site. His family later owned the house across the street. His military interest was inspired by “Muster” day and frequent visits from a young West Pointer named William T. Sherman. Sheridan graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1853 and served on the Western Frontier Indian campaigns prior to the Civil War. In 1862, Sheridan became Colonel of the Second Michigan Calvary. At Stones River, Tennessee, he commanded a Division of the Twentieth Corps and stubbornly held General William S. Rosecrans’ right flank, distinguishing himself in battle. (continued on other side)
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The village of Chagrin, founded in 1798, changed its name in 1834 to honor Dr. Westel Willoughby, a pioneer medical educator. That same year, the Willoughby University of Lake Erie was chartered, and the Willoughby Medical College opened its doors, signaling the beginning of medical education in northern Ohio. The Medical College trained 160 doctors, educated in contemporary methods of medicine, anatomy, chemistry, and surgery. Financial struggles and public outcry against grave-robbing — which supplied cadavers for anatomy classes — hampered the college’s development. The movement of faculty to Cleveland and the transfer of the state charter to Columbus hastened the demise of the Medical College in 1847, and laid the foundation for the establishment of the medical schools of Case Western and Ohio State universities. (Continued on side two)
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Born in Ashland County in 1819, Lorin Andrews studied at Kenyon College (1838-41) and achieved renown as an Ohio school superintendent and advocate for public elementary and secondary education. As Kenyon’s president beginning in 1854, the charismatic Andrews enlarged the college and enhanced its reputation. Sensing war’s inevitability even before the April 1861 attack on Fort Sumter, Andrews offered his soldiering services to Governor Dennison and organized Company A of the Fourth Ohio Volunteers; Kenyon alumnus Henry Banning raised Company B. Many Kenyon students, including Charles McCook of the “Fighting McCooks,” followed their example. Andrews contracted typhoid fever during the Western Virginia Campaign and returned to Gambier, where he died on September 18, 1861. His remains are interred in the Kenyon cemetery.
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The Wyandot called the Grand Reserve home nearly a century before Ohio statehood. They built houses, cultivated the land, and grew bountiful groves of fruit trees. They governed from the nearby Wyandot Council House and operated a productive saw and grist mill. Many sent their children to school and worshiped at the limestone church, built in 1824, and recognized as the first Methodist mission in the country. But Ohioans set their sights on Wyandot lands in the fertile Sandusky River Valley. State and federal governments were unwilling to allow the Wyandot to remain on their chosen homelands, despite their participation in American society and friendly relations with neighboring settlers. Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Wyandot were the last tribe removed from the State of Ohio in 1843.