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In 1823, Asher and Abigail Coe migrated from Connecticut and settled here. By mid-century the Coe family operated the second largest dairy farm in Ohio. Their home was used as a post office in 1843. The Universalist Church, built in 1847 at Butternut and Lorain, was established largely as a result of Asher Coe’s efforts. The present Lorain Road, from Columbia to Butternut, was built as a connecting link between his home and the church. In 1857, Coe donated land for Coe School.
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Orrville was founded in 1852 at the railroad crossing that would later serve the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago and the Columbus, Mount Vernon and Cleveland railroads. The town was named in honor of Judge Smith Orr, who was instrumental in bringing the railroad to Wayne County. Orr persuaded landowner Robert Taggart to partition ten acres into town lots. After buying out the land owned by fellow settlers Christian Horst, David Rudy, and Peter Perrine, Orr engaged Jesse Straughan to create the first plat map that centered the newly-formed town on the railroad crossing. Incorporated on May 9, 1864, Orrville prospered and attracted manufactories of all kinds. Orrville was the largest manufacturing town in Wayne County by 1873.
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Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks was born at this site on September 7, 1819. While still a baby, Thomas’ family moved to Indiana and he grew up and rose to prominence in the Hoosier State. Hendricks served consecutively in the Indiana State Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives during the late 1840s and the 1850s. From 1863 to1869, he was one of Indiana’s U.S. Senators. Hoosiers elected Hendricks to serve as Indiana’s sixteenth governor in 1872, making him the first Democrat to win that office in a northern state after the Civil War. In 1876, vice-presidential candidate Hendricks and his running mate, Samuel Tilden, lost the presidential election to Ohioan Rutherford B. Hayes. Hendricks joined Grover Cleveland on the Democratic party’s presidential ticket in 1884 and won. Hendricks died in 1885, after serving only eight months as vice president.
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In the early 1800s, Jabez Wright, an early Huron County judge, purchased a large tract of lakeside land on the north side of what is now Cleveland Road. There Wright built an eight-room farmhouse that later served as a “station” on the fabled Underground Railroad, playing a vital role in aiding fugitive African-American slaves to freedom. Beneath Wright’s farmhouse was a sixteen foot-wide and ninety foot-long tunnel. Escaped slaves entered the passage through a trap door in the home’s basement and exited into a corn crib located a mere one hundred feet from Lake Erie. There the slaves awaited the arrival of rowboats transporting them to vessels heading north to Canada. (Continued on side two)
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Around 1867, along the shale cliffs of the lakeshore of Sheffield Lake, Jay Terrell found fossils of a “terrible fish” later named in his honor as Dinichthys Terrelli. This animal, now known as Dunkleosteus terrelli, was a massive arthrodire (an extinct, joint-necked, armor-plated fish) that lived in the Devonian sea, which covered much of eastern North America some 354-364 million years ago. Dunkleosteus was armed with an incredible set of shearing jaws and was clearly the top marine predator in the Devonian Period (the “Age of Fishes”).
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When the Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Ashtabula Railroad was finished in 1873, Ashtabula’s harbor became a direct route to ship iron ore to the booming steel mills of Youngstown and Pittsburgh. On the west side of the Ashtabula River, a brush-filled gulley became Bridge Street. New buildings and bridges attest to the harbor’s importance as a commercial and shipping hub from the late 19th through mid 20th centuries. Fires destroyed wood-frame buildings on the block closest to the river. A fire in 1886 nearly cleared the north side of Bridge Street. Another fire swept over the south side in 1900. Fire resistant brick buildings replaced frame structures and over the course of rebuilding, the level of the street rose approximately eight feet. In 1889, a swing-span bridge replaced the original pontoon bridge over the river. A bascule lift (draw) bridge replaced the swing bridge in 1925.
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League Park opened on May 1, 1891, with the legendary Cy Young pitching for the Cleveland Spiders in their win over the Cincinnati Redlegs. The park remained the home of Cleveland’s professional baseball and football teams until 1946. In 1920 the Cleveland Indians’ Elmer Smith hit the first grand slam home run, and Bill Wamby executed the only unassisted triple play, in World Series history. Babe Ruth hit his 500th home run over the park’s short right field wall in 1929. With the park as home field, the Cleveland Buckeyes won the Negro World Series in 1945.
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The Marion Steam Shovel Company built the primary tools for America’s civil engineering for more than 100 years. Founded in 1884 by Henry M. Barnhart, George W. King, and Edward Huber, the company’s patent steam shovels helped revolutionize railway and road construction, and were used in the building of the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, and the Holland Tunnel. “The Shovel” also built ditchers, log loaders, dredges, and draglines, including some of the largest land vehicles ever built. The first electric machine was built in 1915, but it was not until 1946 that the name was changed to Marion Power Shovel. In the mid-twentieth century, “The Shovel” employed 2,500 workers. In the 1960s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration selected Marion to build the crawlers that transport spacecraft to their launch pads. Hundred-year rival Bucyrus International acquired and closed the company in 1997.
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