Skip to content
3-70 Johnny Appleseed’s Run for Reinforcements
The killing of local shopkeeper Levi Jones stirred rumors of an impending Indian attack. Mansfield’s settlers needed help. On the evening of August 9, 1813, Johnny Appleseed is believed to have embarked from here on a daring overnight journey to the settlements of Clinton and Mount Vernon for reinforcements. At the time of Appleseed’s run, […]
2-70 General James Hedges
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 […]
1-70 First Religious Service
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. […]
74-18 Camp Cleveland
Opened in July 1862, the 35 1/2-acre site here in Brooklyn Township’s University Heights served as the largest Civil War army camp of rendezvous, organization, and training in northeast Ohio. It was bordered by Hershel (now West 5th) and University (now West 7th) streets and Railway and Marquard avenues. A wartime high of 4,151 volunteers […]
6-69 Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School / Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School
Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School. One-room schools were commonly named for people who furnished land for the building. Michael Bridenbaugh (1820-1895), who settled in Riley Township in 1835, and wife Jemima (1834-1903) sold a half-acre of land to the Riley Township school board in 1873. The first school on the site was a wooden structure, […]
5-69 The Miller City Wildcats / The “Cinderella Kids” of 1950
Team photograph here Standing, L to R: Coach C. Norris Simpson, Donald Alt, Bill Ziegler, Roy Meyer, Jerry Kuhlman, Karl Inkrott, Vern Schroeder, Mel Lammers Kneeling, L to R: Joe Lammers, Junior McDonald, Frank Schroeder, Ralph (Skip) Meyer, Dick Barlage Team manager: Charles Warnimont Cheerleaders: Betty Lou Meyer, Agnes Riepenhoff, Clara Schroeder, Audrey Wischmeyer School […]
4-69 Frances Rappaport Horwich
Frances Rappaport Horwich was born in Ottawa on July 16, 1907, the daughter of Sam Rappaport, an Austrian immigrant who operated a general store, and Rosa Gratz Rappaport, a Russian immigrant. The youngest of six children, she attended the Ottawa elementary school and graduated from Ottawa High School in 1924. After high school, she attended […]
3-69 Native Americans in Ottawa
The Ottawa, or “Tawa” Indians had inhabited the Maumee Valley since the middle of the 1700s. By the 1790s, Ottawa settlements included villages along the Blanchard River at the present-day Village of Ottawa. During the War of 1812, Colonel James Findlay destroyed these villages because the Ottawa aided British forces. In 1817, the United States […]
2-69 Artist Emerson Burkhart
Described as a Columbus “institution” when he died in 1969, Emerson C. Burkhart was born on a farm in Union Township, Putnam County in 1905. The son of Albert and Nora Burkhart, Emerson graduated from Kalida High School in 1924 and from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1927. After studying art in Provincetown, Massachusetts and in […]
1-69 Columbus Grove Municipal Pool
The construction of Putnam County’s first public swimming pool helped Columbus Grove weather the Great Depression of the 1930s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Village of Columbus Grove planned the pool to provide much-needed jobs and recreational facilities for the residents of Putnam County. Between the fall of 1935 and […]