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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)
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The completion of the Miami and Erie Canal passing through Napoleon in 1843 provided a way to receive manufactured goods, export farm products, and power local mills. The early industries of Napoleon utilized the canal as a source of reliable water power, which led to the development of a mid-19th-century industrial waterfront. Some of the local businesses that relied on the canal were Sayger’s Saw-mill (1843), John Ritter Flouring Mill (1850), Augustin Pilliod’s Napoleon Flouring Mill (1853), and the Napoleon Woolen Mill (1863). These mills used flumes, or artificial channels, to divert canal water to their water wheels. These brick-arch flumes were instrumental in bringing Napoleon into the national economy.
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Irish railroad workers founded the Catholic community in Washington Court House in the 1850s, with the first Mass being held in a local shanty in 1852. In 1871, Father John B. O’Donoghue purchased three and 5/8 acres of land adjoining Washington cemetery on the outskirts of Washington Court House to build the St. Colman Church and adjacent cemetery. In 1885, much of Washington Court House, including St. Colman Church, was destroyed by a tornado. To mark the site of the church, a stone monument was erected on June 19, 1916. Over thirty-five veterans from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War I are buried in St. Colman Cemetery, and at least sixteen of these veterans were Irish immigrants. The cemetery’s highest decorated veteran, James Aloysius Ducey, served in World War I and World War II, earning numerous awards, including the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre.
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Built in 1846, the Tremont House was opened by Loel and Samuel B. Chandler to serve stagecoach traffic on the Maumee Pike (U.S. Route 20). Briefly a hotel, this Bellevue landmark has housed grocery and hardware stores, a pharmacy, and even a cigar factory. The third floor ballroom hosted community events and fraternal organizations such as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). The building’s west side is on the western boundary of the Firelands region of the Connecticut Western Reserve. An example of Greek Revival architecture, the Tremont House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
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Born on September 28, 1769 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bathsheba Rouse is recognized as the first woman to teach in the Northwest Territory. Rouse arrived in the region along with other pioneers in 1788. The following year, the Belpre community employed Rouse to teach young children in the Farmers’ Castle near the Ohio River. Instruction in reading, writing, and sewing was reserved for the girls, while boys received lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Rouse taught in Belpre for several terms before marrying Richard Greene and settling at nearby Marietta. Their descendants attained civic prominence in Washington County for generations. Bathsheba Rouse Greene died on February 27, 1843 at the age of seventy-three and is buried alongside her husband in Marietta’s Mound Cemetery.
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The Lima Chapter of the American Women’s Voluntary Services Organization established a community-based, free canteen during World War II for troops traveling on the Pennsylvania Railroad and adjacent Baltimore & Ohio-Nickel Plate Railroads. Meeting as many as forty trains a day, the ladies served 2.5 million troops between 1942-1945. Food, coffee, and other items were donated to the canteen from a twelve county area. The “AWVS” disbanded in 1945, but succeeding volunteers continued to provide service throughout the Korean Conflict and Viet Nam War. Lima’s “Servicemen’s Free Canteen” was the longest, continuously operated service canteen in the United States. An estimated four million soldiers, sailors, and marines were served between 1942-1970.
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Clear Fork Gorge was formed when glacial meltwater cut through the sandstone bedrock that forms its steep walls fourteen to twenty-four thousand years ago. The gorge is one thousand feet wide and over three hundred feet deep. Its seclusion has preserved a rare forest community that includes native white pine and towering eastern hemlock. A National Natural Landmark, the gorge displays a wide variety of other tree species more common throughout the state, with sycamore on the bottomlands, beech, ash, and tulip farther up the slopes, and oak and maple on the ridges above. The gorge has changed little since pioneer legend Johnny Appleseed tended his apple orchards nearby.
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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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