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The dream of establishing a college was born in the hearts of members of the German Brethren Church. In March 1877, a meeting was held at the Maple Grove Brethren Church to discuss the establishment of a college in Ashland. A town meeting followed in June. At this meeting residents agreed to help raise $10,000 to establish the College. On February 20, 1878, the charter and by-laws were approved and the most desirable location for the campus was chosen. Ashland College opened in 1879 with two buildings, eight faculty, and 60 students. In 1881, four male students comprised the first graduating class.
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Born in Piqua, Ohio, the Mills Brothers grew up and attended school in Bellefontaine. The brothers — John, Jr., Herbert, Harry, and Donald Mills — were the first African-American vocal group to perform on a national radio broadcast and achieve commercial success. Enjoying worldwide fame throughout their career, the Mills Brothers popularized such hits as “Tiger Rag,” “Paper Doll,” and “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” After the death of John, Jr. in 1936, the remaining brothers were joined by their father, John, Sr. In all, the Mills Brothers recorded over 1,200 songs.
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In the heyday of steamboating on the Muskingum, many people made their livelihood on the river. Jane McMillan, known as Old Jane, was one of the few women reported to have piloted boats on the river. In the 1840s she was co-owner of the “Zanesville Packet.” McMillan worked a variety of jobs, from cook to pilot. She was reported to know the twists and turns of the river so well that she could navigate safely at night, something many pilots refused to do. Isaac Newton Hook, a descendant of the earliest settlers in Zanesville, used skills he learned on the Muskingum River as a pilot on the Mississippi during the Civil War. He shipped supplies needed by the Union army. His tomb is in the Brick Church cemetery between Hooksburg and Stockport. He had the grave built out of concrete and above the level of the 1898 flood. The 1913 flood submerged the tomb, but it survived and can be viewed to this day.
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Miami & Erie Canal and Napoleon’s First Cemetery. The Miami & Erie Canal stretched approximately 250 miles from Cincinnati to Toledo. Napoleon and other towns on the Maumee River’s banks were on a slackwater section of the canal. Between 1825 and 1845, laborers constructed the canal using shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, and horse and mule-drawn carts. In Henry County, Napoleon, and elsewhere, German and Irish immigrants and area farmers did the work and were paid around 30 cents a day. As the canal brought more people and business to the area, villages such as Florida, Damascus, and Texas flourished and the county seat of Napoleon boomed. The canal and consequent growth took their tolls, however. Sickness and disease such as “ague” (malaria) and cholera spread and carried off many. Napoleon’s first cemetery was located in the vicinity of 500 East Clinton Street, near the route of the canal.
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The Carthagena Black Cemetery (Union Cemetery) is a remnant of approximately 70 documented rural black and mulatto settlements established in Ohio before the Civil War. In the charged atmosphere following race riots in Cincinnati in 1829, Quaker abolitionist Augustus Wattles led 15 black families north in 1835. In 1837 Wattles purchased 189 acres where the cemetery is located. Headstones date from 1840, the year mulatto Charles Moore, platted the Village of Carthagena. Wattles and mulatto clergymen Sam Jones and Harrison Lee were Underground Railroad conductors. Wattles moved to Kansas in 1855. By 1860, more than 100 black and mulatto families, totaling 600 people, owned over 10,000 acres. (Continued on other side)
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Many well-known hymns, including “Sweeter As the Years Go By,” “Nearer, Still Nearer,” and “Let Jesus Come Into Your Heart,” were composed in this church by its organist, Mrs. Lelia Morris (1862-1929). Her songs have been translated into many languages and published in the hymnals of Protestant denominations around the world. The Methodist Episcopal congregation of McConnelsville was formally established in 1826 and is the town’s oldest denomination. The present church was completed in 1860. It replaced a stone building constructed in 1836. General Robert McConnel, the founder of McConnelsville, donated this land for the use of the Methodists in 1817.
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The first home of the oldest Episcopal parish in the Connecticut Western Reserve, the St. James Episcopal Church was built between 1827 and 1828. Philander Chase, first Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio, consecrated it in 1829. The belfry and steeple were added in 1881. It was moved to this site from its original Market Street location in 1972 after the parish built a new church. Renamed the St. James Meeting House, it is the anchor of a community of historic buildings that includes the Beardsley-Walter-Diehm House (circa 1828), the Oswald Detchon House (circa 1840), and the Schiller-Chuey Summer Kitchen. The oldest known structure in Boardman, the St. James Meeting House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
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The Temple of Rumley Church is of one of two remaining buildings in what once was Rumley, a thriving African American community in Shelby County. On May 19, 1837, the village was surveyed for Amos Evans, who built his hewed log dwelling and store. Brothers Joel and George Goings (aka. Goens), freed black men from Monongalia County, Virginia, purchased 80 acres of land that same year. They settled with their families near Rumley in Van Buren Township along with other free men and women of color, including former slaves. Joel Goings erected the first brick house in 1841, using bricks from his own brickyard. By 1846, the Rumley community stretched over 7,000 acres and included the Collins, Redman, Williams, Davis, Lett, and Brown families. (Continued on other side)