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Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins of Virginia, with 350 Confederate cavalrymen, crossed the Ohio River near this point on September 3, 1862, and advanced to Racine. After occupying the town for a few hours and after seizing a dozen horses, the troops re-crossed the river at Wolf’s Bar. This was the first invasion of Ohio soil by Confederate troops during the Civil War.
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The Sheridan monument was erected by and given to the Village of Somerset by the State of Ohio in 1905 to honor the memory of Somerset’s General Phillip Henry Sheridan. “Little Phil” was raised in Somerset and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1852. He rendered valuable service to the Federal Army in the Civil War at Stone’s River, Missionary Ridge, Yellow Tavern, Winchester, Cedar Creek, Five Forks, and Appomattox. He later commanded in the West and became General of the Army in 1883, received his fourth star, and died in 1888. The heroic sculpture, created by Carl Heber of New York, portrays “Sheridan’s Ride” to Winchester. Somerset citizens paid for the granite base through a children’s “penny fund.”
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Seven-year-old Jonathan Alder was captured by a Native American war party in Virginia in 1782 and taken to a Mingo village north of the Mad River in Ohio where he was adopted by an Indian family. He remained with the Indians until after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville ended the Indian Wars in the Ohio Country. As white settlers entered the region, Alder frequently served as an interpreter. In 1805, he journeyed to Virginia and was reunited with his original family. He returned to Ohio with his new wife, Mary Blont, and built a cabin on Big Darby Creek. His cabin is now at the Madison County Historical Society Museum in London. Alder is buried in Foster Chapel Cemetery.
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Sounds of boat horns and brawling packet crews resounded for many years at this lock and 142 others on the Ohio and Erie Canal. The canal was a 308-mile water toll road built between 1825 and 1832 from Lake Erie at Cleveland to the Ohio River at Portsmouth. The early growth of Akron and Massillon was due to the canal. Railroads caused its decline and the flood of 1913 destroyed its usefulness.
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Colonel William Crawford, a lifelong friend of George Washington, was born in Virginia in 1722. He was married twice, first to Ann Stewart and later to Hannah Vance. In 1755, he served with Colonel Edward Braddock in the French and Indian war. In 1767, he moved to “Stewart’s Crossing,” Pennsylvania, near the Youghiogheny River. During the Revolutionary War he raised a company of men, commanded the 5th and 7th Regiments, fought in battles in Long Island, Trenton, and Princeton, and built forts along the western frontier. In 1782, he led the Sandusky Campaign into the Ohio country and was subsequently captured by Delaware Indians after the battle of “Battle Island.” On June 11, 1782, he was tortured and killed near the Tymochtee Creek near this marker. A monument dedicated to his memory is located about a quarter mile north of here. Counties in Ohio and Pennsylvania are named for Colonel Crawford.
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One-half mile east is the site of the former BIG EAR radio telescope. Designed by Dr. John D. Kraus, pioneering radio astronomer at Ohio State University, it had a collecting area of 340 by 70 feet (104 by 21 meters). The observatory was completed in 1963. The Ohio Sky Survey recorded here between 1965 and 1972 was the most accurate, reliable, and complete mapping of cosmic radio signals (the “radio sky”) for many years. BIG EAR gained fame for its ability to detect quasi-stellar radio sources, or “quasars,” and for its discovery of some of the most distant objects known. This observatory conducted a 24-year continuous search for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, during which the famous “Wow!” signal was received in 1977. BIG EAR was demolished in 1998. [“Wow!” signal graphic]
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This covered bridge, spanning Salt Creek in Perry Township, Muskingum County was erected in the 1870s. It is a splendid example of an Ohio covered bridge built with Warren type trusses. It is being preserved as an important illustration of the sound, fine craftsmanship of the early bridge builders of Ohio. This plaque has been erected to give these men the honor they greatly deserve.
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You are standing on the famous portage, carrying-place between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers. The two streams and the portage across the watershed formed an early route between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. First the Indians, then French and English traders and trappers, and finally American settlers and travelers carried their canoes and packs across this narrow strip of land in passing, by way of the rivers, between northern and southern Ohio. The portage was a part of the defined boundaries in the treaties with the Indians made at Fort McIntosh (1785), Fort Harmar (1789), and Green Ville (1795). Use of the portage was discontinued in 1827 when the Ohio and Erie Canal was built along the old trail. Today, modern Akron streets–Portage Path and Manchester Road–follow the approximate route of the original portage.
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