, OH
Walnut Hills has been home to a significant middle- and working-class Black community since the 1850s. In 1931, African American entrepreneur Horace Sudduth bought 1004 Chapel Street and then the row of buildings across Monfort, naming them the Manse Hotel and Annex. Throughout the 1940s, hotel dinner parties could move to the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs house next door for dancing. A large addition to the Manse in 1950 created its own ballroom, 24-hour coffee shop, upgraded Sweetbriar Restaurant, and more guest rooms. It appeared in the Negro Motorist’s Green Book between 1940-1963, providing local, transient, and residential guests both catered meetings and top entertainment during the last decades of segregation. It closed in the late 1960s when the economic need for a first-class segregated hotel disappeared in the age of Black Power.
, OH
Born at Wallingford, Connecticut. Served during the Revolutionary War. Proprietor, Agent, and Surveyor of the Connecticut Land Company. Appointed Judge of Trumbull County by Territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair, 1800. State Senator, Trumbull County, 1815-1816. Poland Justice of the Peace, twenty years. Moderator of St. James Episcopal Church, Boardman, 1809. First Worshipful Master of Erie Lodge No. 47, Warren, 1803, oldest lodge in the Connecticut Western Reserve and one of six lodges to form the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ohio, 1809.
, OH
A group of Freemasons, inspired by the concepts of a new country, of Freedom with Responsibility, Brotherly Love, and Truth, formed Harmony Lodge near this site in 1809, the first Masonic lodge in western Ohio. Meetings were held in the log court house, located on Lot 174, East Court Street, and also in Dayton and Springfield.
, OH
Jonas Stutzman, from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, came to this site in 1809 to clear land for farming and to build a log home for his family. He was the first permanent settler in the eastern portion of what would in 1825 become Holmes County. Jonas and his wife Magdalena Gerber Stutzman were of the Amish faith–descendants from a group of strict Protestant Anabaptists with origins in Switzerland and Holland and dating from the 16th -century Protestant Reformation. Some of their beliefs, including separation of church and state, refusal to take oaths, pacifism, and believer’s baptism, were perceived as threats to the state church and government. Persecuted by both Catholics and Protestants, Anabaptists migrated and some came to the New World, many at the invitation of Pennsylvania’s William Penn. The Stutzmans and other early Amish pioneer setters-Millers, Hershbergers, Hochstetlers, Weavers, Troyers, Masts, and Schrocks-founded here what has become the largest Amish settlement in North America.
, OH
This log building was constructed in 1801 by David Hoge on the west side of Third Street. It served as his home and was the first Federal land office in that part of the Northwest Territory known as the Seven Ranges. In 1809 it was moved and 12 years later encased in a brick structure where it was discovered in 1940. It has been preserved by the citizens of Jefferson County.
, OH
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.
, OH
Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States, was born on this site November 2, 1865.
, OH
The Smith Tannery is the oldest original structure remaining in Greenfield. Built in 1821 by Revolutionary War veteran William Smith and his son Samuel, the tannery became a noted station on the fabled “Underground Railroad.” The structure, which also served as the family residence, was the birthplace of Dr. Samuel M. Smith, Surgeon General of Ohio during the Civil War, and Dr. William R. Smith, who personally notified Abraham Lincoln of his nomination to the presidency in 1864. The Smiths were active members of the Abolition Society of Paint Valley, which was established in 1833 in Greenfield and reorganized in 1836 as the Greenfield Anti-Slavery Society. In 1844, the Society assisted the efforts of Frederick Douglass, one of the nation’s leading abolitionists. The Society provided an important junction on the Underground Railroad, assisting many fugitive slaves to gain freedom, including, it is said, Eliza Jane Harris of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame. The Smith Tannery was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
614.297.2300
Contact Us
