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Site of the first fortified settlement in Anderson Township and one of the first in the Virginia Military District. John Garard and Joseph Martin were the founders of this Station, who, with Elias Garard, Joseph Frazee, and others, came by two flatboats with families and livestock from Garards Fort, Pennsylvania, via the Ohio and Little Miami rivers. They landed here on December 23, 1790, and proceeded to erect the fortification.(Continued on other side)
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In 1796, surveyors for the Connecticut Land Company designated an area five miles square surrounding this place as Range 7, Township 7 of the Connecticut Western Reserve. A landowner’s expedition on June 15, 1798, arrived at the northwest corner of the township. One of its members, Thomas Umberfield (Umberville) brought his family to the center of the township (now Burton Village) on June 21, 1798. Here they built the first home, a simple log cabin located southwest of the spring at the end of Spring Street. The owner of the largest parcel of land in the township, Titus Street, was given the honor of naming the township. He named it after his son, Burton.
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David Stearns, the first permanent settler, built a log cabin near this site on the “ridge” (Lorain Road) in 1816. Stearns was given this land by his father, Elijah, who had bought 1,002 acres from the Olmsted family. This area of North Olmsted was first called Kingston, renamed Lennox in 1823, and Olmsted in 1829. In 1827, Stearns donated his cabin to the community to be used as the first schoolhouse. In 1852 the cabin was moved to Butternut and Dover Center and continued to serve as a school.
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Through the terms of his will, British absentee landowner Samuel Gist (c. 1723-1815) freed his 350 Virginia slaves and provided funds for their relocation, the purchase of land, and the establishment of schools and homes. The executors of Gist’s will acquired over 2,000 acres of land in Ohio, including two large tracts in Scott and Eagle townships in Brown County in 1819. In 1831 and 1835, an agent of the Gist estate purchased 207 acres in Highland County and divided the acreage into thirty-one lots. This Gist settlement in Eagle Township was the first to be purchased and settled. It was recorded at Brown County on August 4, 1819 as 1197 acres of land divided among “150 Negroes who were emancipated by the will of Samuel Gist”. In 2009, descendants of the freed Gist slaves still inhabited part of the original settlement.
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Established in 1823, the pioneer settlement of St. Marys became a thriving 19th century milling center following completion of the Miami & Erie Canal in 1845. The Reservoir Mill, built by Scott, Linzee & Co. in 1847, led this period of industrial growth as the first mill in St. Marys powered by the canal’s water. Robert B. Gordon purchased it in 1855 and in 1896 the mill passed to his son, Robert B. Gordon Jr., who formed the firm Gordon, Hauss & Folk. Producing “Purity” and “Pride of St. Marys” flour, Gordon, Hauss & Folk owned the mill until 1955. The mill was used as a grain elevator until 1972, then as a storage facility for the next 40 years. (Continued on other side)
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The first road through Marion County followed the Scioto Trail of the Native Americans. This 120-foot wide strip through Wyandot territory led from Lower Sandusky (Fremont) to the Greenville Treaty Line. A confederation of Ohio tribes ceded it to the United States at the Treaty of Brownsville, Michigan, in 1808. During the War of 1812, the troops of General William Henry Harrison’s Army of the Northwest traveled this road en route to Fort Meigs and the British fort at Detroit, using it to transport supplies to the army and to the chain of forts and blockhouses that protected the road. After the American victory, this area was opened for settlement by the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids, and soldiers who discovered the area while traveling the Military Road were among the first settlers. (continued on other side)
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The Village of Tadmor is significant as being the location of one of the most important centers of transportation in early Ohio history. As early as 1809, keelboats were poled up river from Dayton to load and unload freight in the village. By 1837, the Miami and Erie Canal had reached Tadmor, connecting it to the Ohio River in the south and Lake Erie in the north. In the 1830s, the National Road was constructed through Tadmor, connecting it to points east and west. In 1851, the Dayton & Michigan Railroad established freight and passenger service to the growing town. Residents hoped that Tadmor’s strategic location would help it prosper, however, successive flooding on the Great Miami River stifled growth. Tadmor was finally abandoned when a dam constructed by the Miami Conservancy District in 1922 to retain water during flooding made the site uninhabitable.
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Through the terms of his will, absentee British landowner Samuel Gist (c. 1723-1815) freed his 350 slaves in Virginia. Gist intended that these freed people would remain on the land and receive instruction in Christianity and that schools would be established for their children. The settlement of Gist’s estate funded the relocation of the freed slaves to Ohio. Gist’s executors acquired over 2,200 acres of land in Ohio. These lands included two large tracts in Scott and Eagle Townships in Brown County in 1819 and another 207 acres in Fairfield Township (now Penn Township) in Highland County in 1831 and 1835. As of 2010, no descendants of the freed Gist slaves lived in the original Scott Township settlement.