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Colonel William Simmons (1757-1823) served in the Continental Army under the command of General Washington. Appointed as Accountant of the War Department by Washington and served under Presidents Adams, Jefferson and Madison. For his services in the Continental Army, received a land grant in the northeast section of Jefferson Township in Coshocton County.
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Myron T. Herrick, Governor of Ohio from 1904 to 1906, was born in Huntington Township in 1854 and lived here until age 12. A respected Cleveland attorney and businessman, Herrick was a friend and confidant to Senator Mark Hanna and Presidents McKinley, Taft, and Harding. His public service career culminated in two appointments as ambassador to France, from 1912 through the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and again from 1921 until his death in 1929. Enormously popular with the French people, Herrick escorted Charles Lindbergh in Paris after his historic 1927 transatlantic flight.
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Robert C. Henry, the first African-American mayor of an Ohio city, was born in Springfield, Ohio, on July 16, 1921. He attended Springfield High School and graduated in 1939. After high school, he attended Wittenberg University and the Cleveland College of Mortuary Science. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Central State University. In 1961, Springfield citizens elected him to the City Commission, where he served until being appointed mayor by his fellow commissioners in 1966. Henry was among the first African-American mayors of a U.S. city, and is especially notable due to Springfield’s majority white population at the time. After his tenure as mayor ended in 1968, Henry was chosen by presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon for fact- finding missions in Vietnam. Robert C. Henry died on September 8, 1981.
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William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States. Following McKinley’s assassination in 1901, the Village of Jackson dedicated this triangle of land as a park in his honor. Earlier in the nineteenth century, a small school had occupied the plot. In 1902, a local commission was appointed to oversee the development of a park. It was not, however, until 2012 that the Jackson Garden Lovers Club finished the commission’s long overdue work. The park was dedicated in 2013, 111 years after it began.
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In 1968, Richard Nixon won the presidency partly based on a campaign promise to end the Vietnam War. Though the war seemed to be winding down, on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, triggering protests across college campuses. On Friday, May 1, an anti-war rally was held on the Commons at Kent State University. Protestors called for another rally to be held on Monday, May 4. Disturbances in downtown Kent that night caused city officials to ask Governor James Rhodes to send the Ohio National Guard to maintain order. Troops put on alert Saturday afternoon were called to campus Saturday evening after an ROTC building was set on fire. Sunday morning in a press conference that was also broadcast to the troops on campus, Rhodes vowed to “eradicate the problem” of protests at Kent State. (Continued on other side)
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As Morgan’s Raiders rode eastward across southern Ohio during the third week of July 1863, the scattered defensive forces pursuing him consolidated and drew closer. Four regiments under Brigadier General Eliakim P. Scammon (including the 23rd Ohio, containing future U.S. Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley Jr.) arrived here by steamboat on July 18, preventing Morgan from entering Pomeroy. Brigadier General Henry Moses Judah’s division also arrived in Pomeroy on July 18, immediately marching east following Morgan. Following Morgan’s defeat at Buffington Island on July 19, both Judah and Brigadier General Edward H. Hobson returned to Pomeroy and headquartered at the Grand Dilcher Hotel. Of the approximately 900 Confederate prisoners captured in Meigs County, 227 were held here at the courthouse before being sent downriver to Cincinnati.
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On January 31, 1798, Joseph Howland bought Township 4-Range 3 (Howland Twp.) for $12, 903.23 and an equalizing portion of Township 1-Range 10 (Springfield Twp.) as part of a lottery held to distribute Connecticut’s Western Reserve lands. On February 26, 1803, Dr. John Seely bought 85 acres of the Howland Township acreage that included a mineral springs and developed it into a health spa for the treatment of “scrofulous & dyspeptic diseases”. The spa became the Township’s center for culture and recreation with future Presidents James A. Garfield and William McKinley reported as frequent Howland Springs visitors. In 1873, the Shedd brothers built a three-story hotel south of the springs with a dance hall, billiard room, and bowling alley. The hotel flourished until fire destroyed it on June 16, 1882; consequently recreational use of the springs diminished. Today, the sale of spring water throughout northeastern Ohio makes Howland Springs the oldest continuous business in Howland Township.
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With the help of town founder, David Hudson, Western Reserve College and its Academy were founded in 1826. Often called “The Yale of the West,” the college saw success initially as all of its professors and college presidents were Yale College graduates. Nationally, Western Reserve College became involved with the Underground Railroad and anti-slavery movement 28 years before the Civil War began. Moreover, Western Reserve College established the Loomis observatory, named for Elias Loomis, a Yale tutor and WRC professor, which is now the second oldest observatory in the United States. The Western Reserve College moved to Cleveland in 1882 and eventually became Case Western Reserve University while the Academy remained in Hudson. Today, the Western Reserve Academy is one of the nation’s oldest and most respected independent college preparatory schools.
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