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African-American history began in Piqua with the settlement of Arthur Davis in 1818 and expanded with the settlement of the freed Randolph slaves of Virginia in 1846. African-American religious heritage in Piqua began with the Cyrene African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1853 and the Second Baptist Church (Park Avenue) in 1857. Segregated education started in 1854 at the Cyrene Church and ended in 1885 at the Boone Street School. Several Piqua African-American men circumvented Ohio’s early ban against Civil War military service by joining the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments. Following the Civil War an African-American Co-operative Trade Association established Piqua’s first African-American retail store. Continued on/from other side)
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Native Americans inhabited and used much of the land in the Ohio valley as hunting grounds. As American settlers pushed west, conflicts resulted and attempts at peaceful settlement failed. Under political pressure, President George Washington resolved to subdue Indian resistance to American expansion in the Ohio country and appointed General Arthur St. Clair to lead the expedition. St. Clair’s troops camped on the Wabash River (just east of the Ohio-Indiana state line) after an exhausting two-month trek. The ill-prepared soldiers were no match for the forces of Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware Indians who attacked them at dawn of November 4, 1791. By the day’s end, warriors led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket had killed or wounded nearly three-quarters of the American force-the worst-ever defeat of the U.S. Army by Native Americans in a single battle.
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In 1884 the Ohio General Assembly authorized “the burial of the body of any honorably discharged union soldier, sailor or marine of this state who shall hereafter die without leaving means sufficient to defray funeral expenses.” Permanent government-issued headstones have been provided to veterans since the late 19th century. Between 1884 and the 1930s, Washington Cemetery buried 47 white soldiers (including 15 unknown) and 35 African-American soldiers. These veterans served in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and WWI. They are remembered for the sacrifices they made. In the fall of 2001, the cemetery underwent significant renovations, in which students of the Washington Senior High School Research History program aided in identifying the buried soldiers and restoring and replacing the gravestones. Here in Soldiers’ Row, the words of local United States Colored Troops veteran, Albert Bird, echo centuries later: “We have suffered to save the country; we ought to be remembered.”
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Following the American Revolution, the British Crown sought to retain possession of the Ohio Country by sending chief British Indian Agent Alexander McKee and others to establish trading posts with Native Americans and resist American settlement. In 1786, Colonel Benjamin Logan led an American force against the British posts and tribes. Warned of their approach, McKee and a band of Shawnee, took their possessions, including a large drove of hogs, and fled north from the Mackachack Villages near present-day Bellefontaine. Their route was the Black Swamp Trail, now Napoleon Road. An attempted crossing of the rain-swollen Ottawa River turned disastrous, resulting in the loss of possessions and most of the hogs. The hill upon which the party camped following the failed crossing, located one half mile east of here, became known as McKee’s Hill, and the portion of the Ottawa River east of Lima has since been known as Hog Creek.
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Frederick Rice was born on September 29, 1753, near Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania and moved to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania around 1766. During the American Revolution he served under George Washington at Valley Forge and fought in the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, in which American forces surprised and captured 1,000 Hessian mercenaries. He served for two more years as a spy working against Native American tribes in western Pennsylvania. After his service he married Catherine Lauffer, and they raised eleven children to adulthood. Rice chose this 320-acre site, transferred to him in a deed signed by President James Monroe on May 21, 1821, because it offered excellent springs. He assigned the west half to son Simon and the east half to son Barnhart in 1822. Ownership remained in the Rice family until acquired for the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station in 1891, renamed the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in 1965.
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Mary Leonore Jobe was born on January 29, 1878, near Tappan, Harrison County, Ohio. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Scio College and master’s degree from Columbia University. While studying, she began a life-long career of exploration and natural history investigation. She first explored areas of British Columbia, Canada in 1905 and in 1916 started Camp Mystic, a summer camp in Connecticut for girls. She married explorer Carl E. Akeley in 1924 and completed an expedition to Africa when Carl died in the Belgian Congo in 1926. Honors include the naming of Mount Jobe in Canada to recognize her achievements and Belgium awarding her the Cross of the Knight, Order of the Crown, for her work in the Belgian Congo. She is known for her books and contributions to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. She died on July 19, 1966, and is buried in Deersville.
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Dinsmore Township School District #4 was formed in 1865following a decision by the township’s board of education that a school would be built in the center of every four sections of land, or every four square miles. This placement of school buildings gave township children the opportunity to attend school close to home and the chance at receiving a public education up to the eighth grade, Nine districts were created for the children of white households, and an additional district was formed to educate the children of the African American families, for a total of ten districts in the township. On June 11, 1866, the Dinsmore Township School Board purchased land from George Wenger to build the District #4 school near the intersection of Ohio Route 274 and Wenger Road. (Continued on other side)
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One of the outstanding American showmen of the twentieth century, Ted Lewis was born Theodore Leopold Friedman in Circleville to a prominent business family. Stagestruck at an early age, Lewis began performing in cabarets, vaudeville shows, and nightclubs throughout Ohio at age 17, and moved to New York in 1915. Ted opened his own cabaret in 1918. With his animated stage persona, his clarinet, and his trademark cane and battered top hat, Lewis enjoyed a wide appeal with his jazz age audiences. His “Me and My Shadow” act exemplified his popularity during the 1920s, at which time he was the highest-paid entertainer in the business. His career spanned over six decades, from vaudeville to television. Lewis died in New York in 1971.
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