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The great Native American Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, was born on the bank of a large spring at this site in 1768, at the very instant that a great meteor seared across the skies. The birth occurred while his parents, Shawnee war chief, Pucksinwah, and his wife, Methotasa, were en route from their village of Kispoko Town, on the Scioto River, to a major tribal council at the Shawnee tribal capital village of Chalahgawth (Chillicothe – now Oldtown), which was located “two arrow flights” northwest of this site. Though prohibited by tribal tradition from becoming chief of the Shawnees, Tecumseh rose to become one of the greatest warriors, orators, and military strategists of any tribe in America.
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One of Ohio’s earliest colleges, Alma College (earlier known as Alma Academy) was founded in 1818 and became Franklin College in 1825. Its founders were primarily of Scots-Irish descent who had settled in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio and were of the Presbyterian faith. Many nineteenth-century national and international leaders attended this school, including 8 U.S. Senators, 9 U.S. Representatives, 32 State Legislators, and 2 Governors. Notables include John Bingham, author of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and chief prosecutor of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassins; Civil War General George W. McCook; Ohio Supreme Court Justice John Welch; and Joseph Ray, publisher of the universally popular school text Ray’s Arithmetic. The slavery question bitterly divided the school, and its enrollment declined in the years following the Civil War. Franklin College closed in 1921, and its charter was later transferred to Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio.
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In 1787, the construction of Fort Steuben was completed by Captain John Francis Hamtramck and soldiers of the 1st American Regiment, who were sent to the frontier by the United States government to remove illegal squatters and protect government surveyors from American Indian raids. The surveyors were platting the First Seven Ranges of the Northwest Territory. The surveyed land was sold for settlement or offered to soldiers as payment for military service during the Revolutionary War. Consequently, the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin were formed from the settlement of the Northwest Territory. Fort Steuben was named after Baron Frederich Wilhelm Augustus Steuben, who had served in the Revolutionary War and from which the town derived its name. Captain Hamtramck abandoned the fort in 1787 by order of Colonel Josiah Harmar, and by 1790 the remains of the fort had disappeared. Fort Steuben has been reconstructed on its original location.
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Maple-Dell was the home of John Butler, a Quaker who expressed his religious faith by working for humanitarian causes. An early Goshen Township teacher, Butler opened his home to orphans, the homeless, and runaway slaves, and devoted 20 years of his life to support the Freedman’s Camps for former slaves. One of the many individuals he sheltered was Edwin Coppock who was hung along with abolitionist, John Brown, after the raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Butler met with President Lincoln and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton in 1862 to request exemption from military service for Quakers during the Civil War. In 1868, President Grant petitioned the churches to assist in organizing a peace policy for the Indians. Butler prepared and presented to Congress a proposal for treating the Indians humanely including providing them with scientific and industrial education.
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The Richwood Opera House and Town Hall was erected in 1890 as a community center designed to house the town council chambers, fire department, jail and opera house. The Richardsonian Romanesque styled building served Richwood in all these capacities for nearly 75 years. The Opera House was the site of minstrel shows, concerts, movies, lecture courses, revivals, farmers’ institutes, commencements, and community meetings. The second floor gymnasium was used for a men’s independent basketball league, dance classes, and as a teen center after World War II. Construction of an interurban railway running between Richwood and the resort town of Magnetic Springs in 1906 provided an expanded audience for the Opera House. (continued on other side)
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George Washington Crile was born in 1864 at Chili, in Crawford Township, Coshocton County. Before embarking on his notable medical career, he graduated from Northwestern Ohio Normal School (now Ohio Northern University) at Ada, teaching for two years before becoming principal at Plainfield School. Crile first studied medicine under village physician Dr. A.E. Walker, who loaned him medical books and took him on calls to visit rural patients. Later in life Crile credited his early experience in education in Plainfield as one of the most influential points in his career. (continued on other side)
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Henry Simon Winzeler, founder of The Ohio Art Company, was born in 1876 in the Winzeler family home just north of this site in Burlington. As a young man, he opened a dental practice in 1900 in the Murbach Building in Archbold on the corner of North Defiance and East Holland streets. Making a dramatic career change eight years later, Winzeler, inspired by an oval mirror in his aunt’s clothing store, started a company to manufacture picture frames. Calling it The Ohio Art Company, venture capital came from Winzeler’s Hub Grocery that he opened in August 1908 located on North Defiance Street. His picture frame company was opened in the Spoerle and Baer Building, a few doors down on the same street. [Continued on other side]
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Simon Kenton who is buried here. During the Revolutionary War he frequently served as scout under George Rogers Clark and later praised Clark for his role in saving the Kentucky settlements. Kenton’s Indian captivity of 1778-79 acquainted him with the Mad River Country where he subsequently provided leadership in its development. Though a legendary frontier scout and rifleman, Kenton was never biased against the Indians.
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