Remarkable Ohio

Counties

Below is a complete listing of all Ohio Historical Markers. To find a detailed marker listing including text, photographs, and locations, click on a county below. Our listing is updated by the markers program as new markers are installed and older markers are reported damaged or missing.

5-35 Miami & Erie Canal and Napoleon’s First Cemetery / Miami & Erie Canal and Napoleon’s First Cemetery

Side A: Miami & Erie Canal and Napoleon’s First Cemetery. The Miami & Erie Canal stretched approximately 250 miles from Cincinnati to Toledo. Napoleon and other towns on the Maumee River’s banks were on a slackwater section of the canal. Between 1825 and 1845, laborers constructed the canal using shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, and horse and mule-drawn carts. In Henry County, Napoleon, and elsewhere, German and Irish immigrants and area farmers did the work and were paid around 30 cents a day. As the canal brought more people and business to the area, villages such as Florida, Damascus, and Texas flourished and the county seat of Napoleon boomed. The canal and consequent growth took their tolls, however. Sickness and disease such as “ague” (malaria) and cholera spread and carried off many. Napoleon’s first cemetery was located in the vicinity of 500 East Clinton Street, near the route of the canal.
Side B: A sawmill in Napoleon along the Miami-Erie Canal, c. 1880. The sawmill was approximately one-half mile west of this marker and is an example of the commerce that the canal helped to sustain. In the background is the Henry County Courthouse and St. Augustine Catholic Church, both on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sponsors: Rodenberger Funeral Homes; Henry County Chamber of Commerce; In Memory of Russell & Marlene Patterson; Henry County Historical Society; The Ohio History Connection
Address: 500 E. Clinton Street, 
Napoleon, 
OH, 
43545
Location: Traffic island on CR424 and Clinton Street intersection (east of Napoleon and across from Buckeye Building Solutions)
Latitude: 41.3948020
Longitude: -84.1191930