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Founded in 1797 in the log cabin of the Reverend Francis McCormick, the Milford Methodist Church is the oldest of the denomination in the Northwest Territory and Ohio. Pioneer worshipers walked many miles through the wilderness to attend its circuit rider services. The present sanctuary was consecrated on Christmas Day, 1835. The bell tower and Sunday School rooms were 1870 additions.
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Oldest Religious Congregation in north-central Ohio. First Methodist Sermon preached at the “spring” in 1809 by Rev. James Copus. Services then conducted in blockhouse, 1811; in first court house, 1813; at church home of Dr. William B. James, 1814; first church building located N.W. corner Park Avenue East and Adams, 1820; present site in 1870. All land donated by General James Hedges, a distinguished member.
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On this site in 1809, pious Christians from Virginia and North Carolina erected a Methodist Church, the first in Greene County. The church was officially organized on May 23, 1807 as the Bonner Society. Frederick Bonner, Sr. and the illustrious Rev. John Sale were the principal organizers. This Methodist Church, one of the oldest in Ohio, has been serving the area known as the Union Neighborhood uninterrupted from this site since 1809. Rev. Bennett Maxey was the first pastor. (Continued on other side)
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In 1772-73 missionary David Jones visited Blue Jacket’s Town, a settlement of 12 cabins downstream on the east bank and Pickaweekee, a Shawnee town, on the west bank. Deercreek Methodist Circuit Deacon, Dr. Edward Tiffin, met settlers after 1798. Dr. Tiffin was later elected first governor of Ohio. A station of Virginia bounty-land settlers, “Williams Town,” assembled here around 1797. Mill sites, established before Pickaway County, flourished in the dense oak forest of Deercreek Township. Frontier hotels in Williamsport prospered due to the “healthful” sulphur springs.
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In April 1830 four Dominican sisters from St. Catherine’s, Kentucky, founded St. Mary’s Academy, the first Catholic school in Perry County. Bishop Edward Fenwick, first Bishop of Ohio, donated a small brick house and attached building situated on an acre of land for the school’s use. Classes began with forty students. The following year the sisters built a three-story structure with a dormitory for boarders; by the end of the Civil War, enrollment had increased to 134 students, and St. Mary’s gained recognition as one of the finest schools in Ohio. An 1866 fire destroyed the academy, and in 1885 the Dominican sisters reestablished the academy as a parish school. The present Holy Trinity School building dates to 1968.
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The 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs opened much of northwest Ohio to white settlement. In return, the U.S. Government granted the Wyandot Nation permanent use of the Grand Reserve at present-day Upper Sandusky. There farming continued, a school was built, and, in 1824, this Mission Church was constructed by Indians and Methodist missionaries. However, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 called for relocation of all eastern Native Americans to areas beyond the Mississippi River. By 1840, all Ohio Indians had been removed except for the Wyandot, who refused to leave, preferring instead to stay upon their beloved Sandusky (now known as Killdeer) Plains. Facing considerable pressure from Federal authorities, the Wyandot Nation in 1842 agreed to relinquish the Grand Reserve and move west. From this site on July 12, 1843, 664 individuals began their week-long journey to awaiting steamboats at Cincinnati. The Wyandot were the last organized Native American people to leave Ohio, settling in modern-day Kansas and Oklahoma. (Continued on side two)
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This area, known as Calmoutier, was an early French Catholic farming community founded in 1832 by Claude Druhot, who came from Calmoutier, Hte-Saône, France. Its first native, the four-month-old Claude Joseph Druhot, was baptized on 9 June 1833 by Fr. John Henni, who resided at St. John’s in Canton (and in 1854 became Milwaukee’s first bishop). In 1836 Fr. John Alleman, O.P., established St. Genevieve’s Mission (when it began to keep its own records) on land donated by the Pierson and Roussel families. The log chapel that was built (the first of four churches here) predated any Catholic church building in Cleveland, Akron, and Toledo.
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General Hedges was born in Ohio County, Virginia and taught school in that state before coming to Ohio in 1803. As a Deputy Surveyor, he worked in Ashland, Holmes, Knox, Medina and Wayne Counties, and purchased 19,000 acres in future Richland County. Hedges was one of three founders of Mansfield in 1808. He served in the War of 1812. This unselfish Mason gave land for the Methodist Church, and Hedges School and Park. In February, 1818, he obtained the Deposition for Mansfield Lodge #35, Free and Accepted Masons. [Masonic Emblem]
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