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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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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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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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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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Jacob Foos, while surveying the Military Road north from Fort Morrow to Fremont during the War of 1812, dug a well at this site. General William H. Harrison and his troops, on their way to Lake Erie, camped here and drank from the well. This area was known as “Jacob’s Well” until the founding of Marion in 1822.
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Opened in 1926, Tanks Memorial Stadium became the home of the Ironton Tanks semi-professional football team. The Tanks were formed in 1919 and through the years played other semi-professional teams as well as teams from the American Professional Football Association that became the National Football League in 1930. In twelve seasons the Tanks had a record of 85 wins, 19 losses, and 14 ties, including wins against the Chicago Bears and New York Giants. The Tanks disbanded in 1931, but five players moved on to the Portsmouth Spartans, which became the Detroit Lions, and other NFL teams picked up four other players. Tanks Memorial Stadium is one of the few remaining roofed high school football stadiums in the country.
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On French Ridge in Richland Township, on June 5, 1863, local citizens in defiance of conscription attacked Elias Robinson, an enrolling officer of the Union Army. When Captain James Drake, the provost marshal, imprisoned the ringleaders, armed locals released them. Colonel William Wallace of the 15th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was sent to the scene with a force of 420 soldiers from Camp Chase in Columbus. On June 17, the soldiers approached the fortified camp of nearly one thousand malcontents. After firing upon the soldiers, the “rebels” scattered with only a few captured or wounded. The next morning, local Peace Democrats, led by politician Daniel P. Leadbetter, negotiated a surrender of the ringleaders. More than forty people were indicted for involvement in the rebellion, but only Lorenzo Blanchard, owner of the farm where the camp was located, was found guilty. Once this riot at “Fort Fizzle” ended, resistance to the draft in Holmes County subsided.
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Robert Reily, founder of the village of Wyoming in 1861. He was born June 1, 1820, the son of John and Nancy Hunter Reily of Butler County. He served as a major, lieutenant colonel and colonel of the 75th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Civil War. At the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, on May 2, 1863, he was killed in action.
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