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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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Scientist and explorer of the American West, John Wesley Powell moved from New York to Jackson with his family in 1838 and lived here until 1846. He developed an early interest in geology from his tutor “Big” George Crookham, a Jackson salt boiler, educator, and abolitionist. Powell served in the Union Army during the Civil War and lost his right arm at Shiloh in 1862. Later he became professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan University. In 1869, he led a nine-man expedition in the first exploration of the entire length of the Colorado River, providing the first scientific description of the Grand Canyon. Subsequently Powell helped found the U.S. Geological Survey and served as its director from 1881 to 1894.
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The Society of the Precious Blood, established in Italy in 1815, began its American ministry here in Peru in January 1844, led by Swiss missionary Father Francis de Sales Brunner. Continuing the work begun by the Redemptorists at St. Alphonse in 1833, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, or “Sanguinists,” brought spiritual support and education to German immigrants in northern Ohio. In July 1844 the Sisters of the Precious Blood, established in Switzerland in 1834, began their ministry of prayer and education here. The priests, brothers, and sisters attended to the needs of parishes across northern Ohio, and between 1844 and 1856 established nine major foundations throughout Seneca, Mercer, Putnam and Auglaize Counties in Ohio.
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County Road 265 follows an old Indian trail which connected the Wyandot villages at Upper Sandusky with the Shawnee Mac-o-chee towns to the southwest. Many wigwams were pitched near this Scioto River ford during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Soldiers (during the War of 1812), settlers, and stagecoach passengers later followed this route.
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Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargeant, and Benjamin Tupper of the Ohio Company conceived Ohio University, which was encouraged by the Ordinance of 1787 and the Northwest Territorial Legislature in 1799, incorporated as the American Western University in 1802, and chartered by the Ohio State Legislature on February 18, 1804. The university is the first institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory, second west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the first in the United States to be endowed with land by the government with proceeds used to pay for its operations-revenue from two townships was set aside to support the university. Opened on June 1, 1809, as an academy with three students, Ohio University awarded its first undergraduate degrees in 1815.
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A migration of Indians throughout Ohio began due to unstable conditions created by the American Revolution. The massacre of Christian Indians at the Moravian mission of Gnadenhutten in 1782 and Colonel William Crawford’s expedition against Wyandot and Delaware towns along the Sandusky fueled insecurities. Delaware, including a small group of Mingo Indians, abandoned the village of Helltown, five miles southwest of this site, and settled Greentown as early as 1783. Greentown, situated on an elevation on the Black Fork beyond the clearing behind this site, was presumably named for British loyalist, Thomas Green. John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) had an amicable relationship with the Delaware, owned land throughout the Black Fork Valley, and was known to visit Greentown on his travels throughout Ohio. Other visitors to the village included the Shawnee Prophet; Munsee Delaware leader, Captain Pipe; and local preacher, James Copus.
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This is the site of Johnny Appleseed’s earliest known recorded landholdings. Appleseed (whose legal name was John Chapman) purchased two parcels from Joseph Walker on September 14, 1809: Mount Vernon town lot 147, upon which you stand, and lot 145, which is across the road and north of this site. Johnny Appleseed likely rested here on August 10, 1813, after arriving from Mansfield with alarming news of a rumored Indian attack. Appleseed returned to Mansfield with reinforcements from Mount Vernon that same day–a round trip of over fifty miles.
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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.