(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 350 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO It is mostly in New Haven Township, only 558 of its population being in Richmond Township. The establishment of three divisions of the B. & 0. R. R. here caused the town to be founded. The first building in 1874 was occupied by Sam L. Bowlby's grocery and hotel. On January 1 of that year the B. & 0. opened for traffic, the portion of the Chicago extension, being then known as the Baltimore, Pittsburgh & Chicago, as far as Deshler. In December, 1874, the road was completed to Chicago and soon temporary shops were erected. In the following year a brick depot and hotel was erected. Until comparatively recent years the town was called Chicago Junction and under that name it was incorporated in the fall of 1882 with Samuel Snyder as the first mayor ; N. B. Parker, clerk ; W. B. Keefer, treasurer ; A. R. Nichols, Otis Sykes, F. J. Gunther, George H. Miller, Elias Mason and William Carpenter, members of council. The telephone system was established in 1898, water works in March, 1899 ; electric lights in December, 1900, in which year there was some street paving; natural gas in 1903 and the Norwalk, Shelby & Mansfield Electric line was built through here in 1905, but was abandoned years ago. The town was named Willard some years ago in honor of Daniel Willard, president of the B. & 0. R. R. The city owns its water and lighting plants, has splendid churches, schools and bank. In February, 1931, a religious survey of Willard was made by the Presbyterian, United Brethren and Methodist churches. T. C. Smith is president of the Willard Civic Club and Earl G. Youngs, secretary. W. B. Keefer, who became the town's first postmaster in 1875, has been in the banking business in Willard for more than forty-two years. He was the first treasurer of the town, holding that position for twenty years. When a school building was erected in 1883, he was treasurer of the board and it was through his duties in that office that Willard's first bank was established, opening for business Aug. 20, 1888. Mr. Keefer was the sole owner of this bank until 1906 when it was incorporated as the Commercial Banking Company and he has been re-elected president of it every year since then. In 1876 a disastrous fire destroyed a large part of the town, but it recovered from the set-back and in recent decades has been growing in importance, especially since 1915. A few miles to the south of Willard, lies the great marsh tract where immense crops of celery and onions are grown, the region around Celeryville being especially noted. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 351 Mrs. Sarah Riddle, who at the age of seventy-eight died last October, was Willard's first school teacher, more than sixty years ago. She taught school in Richmond Township for a number of years before teaching in the village. The president of the Willard board of education is E. J. Langhurst; vice president, Dr. G. A. Heinlen ; clerk, Mrs. T. W. Beelman. Willard is proud of its municipal hospital. During a period of nine months ending December 31st, last, 231 patients had been cared for, there had been twenty-five clinical examinations. In January, 1931, freight business handled in the Willard railroad yards showed a steady increase, the average per day being over 3,150 cars. Over this road between Chicago and Washington are now operated two of the most powerful passenger train engines ever used on the B. & 0. They carry 13,600 gallons of water and nineteen tons of coal and they have forty per cent more power than any used previously. Willard is one of the two places on the trip where coal supply is received and one of the four places at which water is supplied. Following the membership campaign in January, 1931, 124 former service men were enrolled in Huron-Buckingham Post of the American Legion, the largest number of legionnaires ever affiliated with the local post. The president of the Willard Federation of Women's Clubs is Mrs. R. P. Sharrick ; first vice president, Mrs. Emma Landfeld; second vice president, Mrs. T. A. Purcell ; secretary, Mrs. C. T. Spencer ; treasurer, Mrs. John Teeple. One of Willard's new industries is the Willard Burial Vault Company. T. W. Beelman is president and treasurer ; Harris Buckingham, vice president; and D. C. Hawn, secretary. At the age of ninety, Leander Bliss, Civil War veteran who lived in Huron County all his life except when he was in army service for three years and eight months in the Third Ohio Cavalry, passed away in March, 1931, at the Willard Municipal Hospital. Another of Willard's oldest citizens, Edward O'Neil, died in December, at the age of eighty-nine. The mayor of Willard is C. L. Willoughby ; clerk, Ed. A. Evans ; treasurer, J. D. McMorris; marshal, Charles D. Bohn ; members of council, Charles W. Beamer, Arthur W. Bilgar, Frank E. Suitor, Roy 352 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Bishop, H. C. Stapf, Earl Wilson ; fire chief, L. C. Williams ; city engineer, Charles Ogan. The first cabin in New Haven Township was erected about 1811 by Caleb Palmer, surveyor. The settlement of New Haven, which in the days before the railroads became an important town, increased fast after being founded in 1815. Sophia Barney, in 1815, taught the first school. William Clark built the first sawmill and Caleb Palmer, the first grist mill. It is said that in 1810 before he settled in the township, Caleb Palmer sowed the first wheat in the township. The first orchard in the township was that of Reuben Skinner. He and his son picked cranberries from the adjoining marsh, took them to Knox County and traded them for 100 small trees, probably from one of Johnny Appleseed's nurseries. The village of New Haven which David and Royal N. Powers laid out April 8, 1815, became in five years a strong rival of Norwalk and Mansfield. It was on the direct thoroughfare from the south to Lake Erie and some of the activities of this village are given in another chapter. It is said that the failure of New Haven to get the railroad through the village, was due to one of the prominent citizens who argued that it was not necessary to make any inducements to the projectors of the railroad as it couldn't be built by any other route than through New Haven. So the subscriptions asked for were not forthcoming and the line of railroad was considerably to the west of the village. Plymouth, several miles to the south, drew some of the citizens of New Haven and the town for which such great hopes had been entertained, declined until now it is a mere hamlet. One of the landmarks of the community is the old home of Judge Ives. Celeryville, near New Haven, is a village of thrifty folk who are extensive raisers of celery. Some years ago a group of Hollanders secured several thousand acres of muck land in this part of Huron County. Battling marshy groves, plant diseases and blight, they persisted in their undertaking. They formed an association, drained the land and planted it to celery. The community practiced cooperative buying but the marketing was done individually. It is said that in one year the thrifty Dutch celery raisers had a profit of $80,000 from the crop in the muck land. Sixty greenhouses were operated at Celeryville this spring to furnish plants for the celery fields. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 353 Another community in the muck lands in this township west of Plymouth is New Pittsburgh where large crops of onions are raised. The north part of Plymouth is in Huron County. Sketch of this town is given in another chapter. Botanists say that in the vicinity of Willard are to be found great numbers of plants from nearly all parts of the world growing alongside of the ordinary native varieties. It is explained that some of these were brought to this country in the holds of ships and left at Willard during the process of transferring freight. Other plants from the far west have been brought to Willard in livestock cars and thrive there because of the favorable soil and other conditions. NEW LONDON, NEW LONDON TOWNSHIP. The town of New London (population 1,527) is on the New York Central (C., C., C. & St. L) , the Northern Ohio and auto routes 60 and 162. It is a short distance north of the Ashland County line and four miles east of Fitchville. One of its substantial industries is the C. E. Ward Company, which manufactures regalia. There is a large printing plant, the B. F. Harrison Company ; a tile factory and other industries. Charles H. Hearson is publisher of the New London Record, the postmaster is L. L. Leech, and the town is looking forward to the erection of a federal building. The banks are the Third National, of which E. E. Townsend is president and V. B. Winebar is cashier. C. H. Burke is president of the Savings & Loan Banking Company, Preston Golding, first vice president; E. D. Briggs, second vice president; and W. R. Lawrence, secretary and cashier. C. H. Burke is Huron County representative in the General Assembly. New London has a very commodious library building. Miss Marian Wood is the librarian and Miss Elizabeth McConnell is librarian-emeritus. In this library is a framed picture of New London's soldiers in the Civil War, presented by William B. Thom of New York City and George W. Runyan, who for many years was editor and publisher of the New London Record. Photographs are shown of Edwin D., William H., Myron B., and James M. Runyon, Andrew K. Evans and Charles H. Rawson. Forty veterans appear in a picture of the reunion of the Twelfth Ohio Independent Battery, Light Artillery, held in New London, Sept. 26, 1889, as follows : G. H. Clock, W. H. Brown, W. B. Fleming, Sam Call, George Russell, Norman C. Potter, 354 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Ransom Barrett, James Tompkins, David Houghtlen, C. H. Boden, A. P. Fairbanks, Peter Clemmons, J. T. Mead, J. M. Knapp, R. F. Fulton, William Richardson, J. M. Beelman, M. B. Spalding, Albert A. Powers, William Culbertson, Ashley A. Barrett, M. S. Pollack, A. McClellan, J. A. Turner, William Banks, Theodore Brown, Clem LaValle, B. Vanator, Garrett VanVranken, H. Cookingham, C. A. Newman, H. B. Belding, W. L. May, John Bigelow, C. Starbird, F. T. Daniels, B. F. Watros, Charles June, W. S. Carney, Russell Godfrey. Ira L. Landis is superintendent of the New London schools. A fine new school building was finished a few years ago. Churches of New London are Baptist, Congregational and Methodist. Charles McClave, who for many years has been connected with the poultry business in New London, is said to be the oldest living water fowl judge in the country and last January, was made president of the Old Guard, a fanciers' organization, membership of which is limited to veteran poultry raisers who have exhibited their stock for twenty years or more at shows in Boston, New York and Chicago. Mr. McClave, now eighty-one years old and former member of the Ohio Legislature, is dean of Ohio poultrymen and has served as a judge for years at the big poultry shows of the nation. Near New London, Levi Farnsworth raises from 4,000 to 5,000 ferrets a year for shipment to all parts of the world. New London was first called Merrifield Settlement, then it became Kinsley's Corners, then King's Corners and in 1853 was incorporated as the village of New London. R. C. Powers was the first mayor; clerk, John Thom ; treasurer, J. 0. Merrifield ; councilmen, J. Bradley, J. F. Badger, A. Starbird, V. King and A. D. Kilburn ; marshal, A. A. Powers. In May, 1857, the J. S. Merrifield lot, now Monumental Park, was purchased as the site for a new school house. Among the teachers in the 50s and 60s were Mary L. Carney, D. W. Prince, G. H. Thomas, Miss E. L. Ladd, Cyrene E. Whiting, E. C. Washburn, Miss C. Scutt, S. E. Adams, E. J. McClellan, A. D. Skellenger, Miss D. J. Townsend, Louisa Ladd, Miss N. S. Sage, I. A. Peasley, Henry C. Kilburn, Delia Palmer, Sarah Gilbert, J. H. Thompson, Cordelia Rawson and J. J. Peasley. New London officials : Mayor, A. M. Turner ; clerk, R. H. Seiler; treasurer, E. E. Townsend ; marshal, Roy E. Campbell ; members of council, W. G. Broughton, George Petterman, L. C. Gibson, John L. O'Hara, F. B. Peck and Leon C. Stone. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 355 Former Congressman J. Ford Laning, a native of New London, born here in 1853, admitted to the bar in 1875 and for a great many years at the head of a large printing plant in Norwalk, where he still lives, says that a law which he introduced as a member of the General Assembly and which was passed in 1876 was the model for Ohio's centralized school system. Mr. Laning, at the age of fifteen, became a school teacher in the Firelands and continued in the work until he became twenty-one. His experience taught him that the provisions of the Akron school law, passed in 1847, allowing a city to be formed into a single school district, which law was extended in 1848 and again changed in 1849 so as to give any town of over 200 inhabitants the privilege of organizing under it, ought to be extended so that the township school could be united with the village school and conducted under a single board of directors. In this way the whole township could have a graded school with a high school in a central place and the lesser districts as primaries. The law, which as a member of the General Assembly, he drew up along these lines, was made to apply to New London, his home town. After it was passed in 1876 schools were organized under it, a township superintendent was provided and educators praised the law and its operation. Subsequently action was brought and taken to the Supreme Court, the enactment being declared invalid as it IF- applied to but one township instead of being a general law. "But the law had sown good seed," says Mr. Laning. "Educators took it up, a new school law applicable to every township in Ohio was prepared in 1900 and the township schools of the state are now conducted under this law, patterned after the New London law except that the small country schoolhouse is abandoned and the children attend a graded central building where each grade of pupils has its separate room. "Thus New London, Huron County, is entitled to pass into school history as the home of the first centralized township school in Ohio and I should be credited with having inspired and pioneered the plan." Mr. Laning was admitted to the bar in 1875 and began the practice of law. In partnership with him there was A. M. Beattie, who also located later in Norwalk and was at one time president of the Huron County Bar Association. Beattie and Laning were at one 356 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO time in the newspaper business in New London. Mr. Beattie sold his interest in the Tri-County News to Mr. Laning, who removed the plant to Greenwich, where it afterwards became the Greenwich Enterprise. Interesting reminiscences of the New London of the long ago are given in the Firelands Pioneer by W. B. Thom of New York City. He tells of the part New London women had in the temperance crusade in 1874 ; baseball teams of the late '60s ; circuses which came to New London, one of these in 1856 exhibiting the famous elephant, Hannibal, which traveled the United States on foot for thirty-six years ; the Bailey show in 1865, exhibiting the first hippopotamus brought to the United States ; also a number of other circuses, one of them being Dan Rice's. He speaks of home talent productions of the long ago, one of them being "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," put on about 1865 by the Good Templars. As early as 1854 a theatrical company presented "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in New London. John S. Rarey, internationally known horse-tamer, appeared in New London in the '50s. New London's largest building for many years was King's Hotel. A hotel of Civil War days was the American House, of which Amos Potter was the landlord. Mr. Thom tells of the Rev. George Gordon, president of Iberia College, whose anti-slavery views caused him to be thrown into the Cuyahoga jail at Cleveland. On Christmas Day, 1861, Miss Jane Lawson of Savannah, and her fiance, Rev. J. D. Millard of Oberlin, with Miss Lawson's father and aunt, went to the jail at Cleveland, where the bride's pastor, Rev. Gordon, united them in marriage. Others who witnessed the ceremony were the Rev. J. A. Thome of the Old Stone Church and the Rev. Mr. Crooks of the Wesleyan Church in Cleveland. Petitions from all parts of the North were sent to President Lincoln asking for Rev. Mr. Gordon's release and on April 4, 1862, the minister was pardoned. A mile south of New London, at what is now the Ashland County line, was a settlement called Fiddler's Green, which its residents hoped would be a station on the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati R. R. It had a couple of stores, a hotel, two blacksmith shops and a number of dwellings. But the railroad passed through New London, which drew from Fiddler's Green, and you will pass the corners without seeing any indication that there was ever a settlement there. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 357 MONROEVILLE, RIDGEFIELD TOWNSHIP. On United States auto route 20, five miles west of Norwalk, is Monroeville (population 1,080) on the Huron River where the east and west branches unite. Its railroads are the B. & 0., the New York Central, the Wheeling & Lake Erie and the Lake Shore Electric line. It is in Ridgefield Township, which was organized in December, 1815, four years after William Frink made the first contract for land in the township. He built a log cabin which in the spring of 1812 he sold to Seth Brown, and departed. William seems to have been more of a hunter than a farmer. Numerous parties of the Wyandots and other Indian tribes had their habitations along the Huron River in this township, the lands of which are for the most part a deep, rich, loamy soil. The settlers found the lands heavily timbered. The east branch of the Huron River enters the township from the south, its course slightly east of north. The west branch, formed from two streams at the south line of the township, flows in a generally northerly direction to near the center of Monroeville, where the course changes to northeasterly. Frink Run and the west branch of the Huron River divide the township. The region is rich in historical incidents. Ridgefield Township originally comprised territory of Sherman, Lyme and the south half of Oxford in addition to its present territory. The first postmaster of Ridgefield Township was Schuyler Van Rensselaer and the first schoolhouse in the township was in Monroeville village, which was laid out Sept. 29, 1817, and was called Monroe until the postoffice was established, when it received its present name. In 1836 there was an addition of 141 lots and in 1868 the town was incorporated. Richard Burt erected a grist mill about 1816. Ninety-seven years ago, in the upper story of an old carding factory in Monroeville, Charles W. and George W. Mannahan built what is said to have been the first threshing machine ever made in Ohio. The castings were made at Hamilton & Standard's foundry in Milan from patterns made under the direction of an old millwright, Hosea Jacobs, of the old Jacobs' mills, north of Norwalk. All the work was by hand and only a few machines were made. One of them was sold to Samuel Clock and another to Henry Vroman, farmers of Ridgefield Township. 358 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO In stage coach days Monroeville was an important place as the town was the terminus of various lines of travel. Two coaches were operated between Monroeville and Cleveland, one route being by way of Norwalk and Elyria and the other by Milan and Berlin Heights. There was also a coach to Sandusky. The routes west were by way of Weaver's Corners to Tiffin and by way of Bellevue to Perrysburg. These coaches accommodated about eight passengers and were drawn by four horses, usually. The baggage was carried on top of the coach and the mail under the driver's seat. The mail was sorted at Monroeville and distributed to the several outgoing coaches. The horses were changed here. The arrival of the coaches was the big event of the day in the village. The stage drivers carried trumpets and when they reached the hill above the river they would blow them and the villagers would rush to the tavern to see the passengers. The meal would be ready awaiting the arrival of the coaches and the landlord would stand out in front and ring the bell. At one time Monroeville was larger than Toledo. With the completion of the Lake Shore R. R. in 1852 the east and west coaches quit business. Local annals recall a free excursion to Toledo which the railroad company ran the summer of 1852. A few coaches were used but most of the passengers rode on flat cars with planks for seats. Locomotives burned wood in those days and there were sheds along the line with reserve supply of wood. There was no bridge over the Maumee at Toledo at that time and passengers were taken across on the ferry. A Monroeville man, Thomas Clark, who was one of the first to make the trip to Toledo over the railroad line, said in reminiscences a few years ago that Toledo, as he saw it on that trip, seventy-nine years ago, was a village of possibly a couple dozen houses, some stores, saloons, and several eating houses. But about this time Toledo began to boom and its growth thereafter was rapid. The late J. Pennington Moore, of Ashland, told this writer one time that he was a passenger on the first train out of Fremont over the Lake Shore R. R. He also mentioned that there was no bridge across the Maumee at that time. While Monroeville did not grow so rapidly, the building of the railroads increased its importance and aided in the development of the surrounding country. A newspaper item a few years ago mentioned that before the '70s Monroeville was a decidedly wet town, that it had twenty-three saloons, a large brewery which was burned about 1875, three distilleries and a rectifier. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 359 Early settlers found some interesting earthworks in this township and this region is also particularly interesting to students of geology. The Huron River, it is said, marks the dividing line between the surface limestone and the shale and sandstone formations of the state. The Calcareous concretions found in Huron County are said to be the largest known. Bordering lawns in Norwalk are to be seen small concretions, like boulders. What is probably the largest of these, weighing many tons, fell about a year ago from a cliff into the Huron River, a couple of miles south of Monroeville. It lay in its matrix in the shale cliff about forty feet above the river's edge. It is nearly nine feet in height and about twelve feet in diameter, and last fall great numbers of people viewed it as it lay along the river about 500 feet north of the first bridge south of Monroeville. Geologists say that these concretions started to form about a shell or piece of quartz, the globular form began to evolve and as the concretion kept growing it shoved the softer shale out of the way. Its materials were mainly lime, iron oxide and sulphur, all of them in liquid form as the process began, which some geologists assert may have been a million years ago. The immense concretion south of Monroeville is remarkably symmetrical in the form of a large globe flattened at top and bottom. Protruding from the shale cliff about thirty feet above the river, a smaller concretion was seen about 100 feet from this larger one. It was predicted that erosion would cause it also to fall before many months. The Monroeville Co-operative Grain Company held its eleventh annual meeting at the Monroeville opera house in January, 1931. It has 130 stockholders and in spite of general depression in so many parts of the country, it made a wonderful showing for the year, the trading account showing a gain on every item. The president of the company is 0. W. Heyman. John A. Koch is vice president and Daniel W. Heyman, Jr., secretary-treasurer. W. J. Alexander is superintendent of the Monroeville schools. At the election last November the electors of Monroeville school district, including the village of Monroeville and Ridgefield Township, voted on a $125,000 consolidated school bond issue. The cost of the building was estimated at $110,000, and equipment, together with cost of site, would be about $15,000 more. The present building was erected 360 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO in 1869 and now houses 290 pupils. It was pointed out that Monroe- ville is one of the very few school districts in this section of the state with so old a building. The proposition was defeated by 135 votes. Last October, the seventh annual Monroeville high school fair was held with exhibits in the vocational departments and musical program in the evening. Merchants of Monroeville gave twenty-seven prizes for best exhibits of farm products and achievements in domestic science. William H. Herner, Senator from the Thirtieth District, was formerly mayor of Monroeville. Mention has previously been made of the career of Stephen V. Harkness, Cleveland financier, who was at one time in business in Monroeville. Charles W. Mears, Cleveland pioneer advertising expert, is a native of Monroeville, as is also former Senator Thomas W. Latham, now of Cleveland. The late Mrs. Anna M. Stentz, who succeeded her husband, Henry P. Stentz, as president of the First National Bank of Monroeville, was one of the first women in the country to become head of a bank. Mrs. Stentz died May 16, 1914. Reginald Curtis, who for some time had been cashier of the Farmers Citizens Bank at Monroeville and was prominent in church and civic affairs, died last December at the age of forty-nine years. The churches of Monroeville are the Zion Episcopal, St. Joseph's Church, the Baptist, the Lutheran, and the Methodist. Monroeville has a very handsome memorial to its soldiers in the World War. It was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1929. Monroeville village officers : Mayor, Frank S. Clark ; clerk, Leo J. Cook; treasurer, Roman D. Simon ; marshal, Lawrence A. Rock; members of council, R. C. Curtiss, Otto A. Erf, R. F. Hess, E. D. Scheid, Fred Schneider and E. W. Armstrong. The local newspaper is the Monroeville Spectator, established in 1870. GREENWICK VILLAGE AND TOWNSHIP. The village of Greenwich (population 956) is in the southeastern part of Huron County. It is on the B. & 0., the Big Four and the Northern Ohio (New York Central), also state auto route 17 (Benjamin Franklin Highway), six miles west of Ruggles. East of the town is the Sherman Highway (route 13). The first settler in Greenwich Township was Henry Carpenter from Ulster County, New HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 361 York. Among the early settlers were quite a number of Quakers, the first ones coming as early as 1818. The north and south center road was first laid out, the line being established in 1820, but it was not until later that it was cleared very much. The east and west center road was next built. The first mail carried through the township was in 1829. The carrier for several years was Robert Inscho of New Haven. He carried it once a week on horseback between the village of New Haven and Medina. The first postoffice in the township was established at the center and Benjamin Kniffin was postmaster. In the early days of the township there was very little money and grain, flour, meat, etc., were almost legal tender. In making a trip to Sandusky with a load of wheat one time, Henry Washburn spent a week coming and going, and in exchange for his wheat received a barrel of salt, six milk pans, two pounds of tea and enough cloth for two shirts. Luxuries were unthought of by the pioneers in this region. They were satisfied if they could obtain the necessities of life. But deer were numerous in the early days. It is related that David Briggs killed as many as eight or ten in a single day. As late as 1853 deer were often seen. In the days of the pioneers the Indians came to the vicinity of the Greenwich settlement to make maple syrup and sugar. The town has splendid schools, including a centralized high school. One of the local industries is a factory which makes garden tractors and plows and much timber and lumber are shipped. The banks are the First National and the Farmers. Paved roads lead out into the rich farming districts and bring trade for many miles to the village. Greenwich is the center of dairying and wool growing in that region. The town has a municipal water plant and distributes electricity which it buys. The churches of Greenwich are Methodist, Congregational and Christian. Greenwich was incorporated as a village in 1879. The village officers are : Mayor, R. A. Dove ; clerk, F. H. Daniels ; treasurer, H. B. Knapp; marshal, G. P. Atwater ; members of council, G. B. Baker, C. A. Crum, R. I. Frizzell, H. S. McLaughlin, L. K. Templer, I. J. Travis. The village newspaper is the Enterprise Review. WAKEMAN VILLAGE AND TOWNSHIP. On the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern R. R. and U. S. auto route 20, eleven miles east of Norwalk, is the village of Wakeman   362 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO (population 452). It is also on auto route 60 and the Vermilion River. It is in a beautiful region. The Vermilion River enters the township from the south, runs a crooked course and leaves the township a short distance west of the township line. Other streams of the township are Brandy Creek and LaChapelle. The latter is said to have been discovered by a Frenchman long before the first settlers located here. Until February, 1824, Wakeman was attached to Florence Township. In that year it was set off and organized independently. Mention has been made of the school which Mrs. Clark taught at Wakeman in the summer of 1818. The first religious service in Wakeman was conducted Jan. 10, 1819, by Augustin Canfield. Marcus French kept the first public house west of the center. The first settlers had to journey fourteen miles to Squire Merry's mill at Milan to have their grinding done. In 1823 Burton Canfield built a sawmill on the Vermilion River, east of Wakeman, and a grist mill the following year. Elder Canfield took the job of making the millstones, but the contract price of $35 yielded him very small wage, for the stone was much harder than he had anticipated. The schoolhouse which Augustin Canfield built on his farm in 1820 was also used as a house of worship. In 1829 the Wakeman people had a weekly mail service, the route from Grafton being extended to Norwalk. There was so little mail at first that the carrier used a large pocketbook, but presently it increased and he secured a more capacious receptacle. When the postoffice was established ninety-eight years ago, Justin Sherman, who in 1817, with his family, took up his abode in the wilderness on the site of Wakeman, became the postmaster, serving for seven years. He erected the first store in Wakeman. He bought his goods in New York. They were brought by boat to Huron and from there to Wakeman by team. The first physician in the township was Dr. Harmon Clark, who had been a surgeon in the U. S. Navy during the War of 1812. Charles S. Clark, Sr., of Wakeman, who has been spoken of in magazine articles as the "Seed Corn King," began growing seed corn for the wholesale seed trade back in 1878 and is still growing seed corn-111 varieties of sweet corn, thirty-four varieties of Dent corn, fourteen kinds of flint corn and a dozen varieties of popcorn—on the same farm that he began his work fifty-three years ago, when he started with $5 cash, borrowed from his mother, and an acre of land rented to him by his father. For some years he played professional HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 363 baseball until the growth of his seed corn business required all his time. His sons are now interested with him in the business and many farmers in that section of the state grow corn for him. Wakeman has a first grade centralized high school, a community church and St. Mary's Catholic Church. It has a bank, a business men's association, an elevator company and other industries. One of the important Buckeye Pipe Line Company's relay pumping stations is at Wakeman. Wakeman has a very pretty little park in which is a monument with roll of honor of the local heroes in the World War. The novelist, James Oliver Curwood, at one time attended school in Wakeman. Wakeman was incorporated in 1922 and Fred Burke was the first mayor. The present officers are : Mayor, W. L. Pease ; clerk, K. C. Buckley ; treasurer, Iona Benson ; marshal, R. S. Barnes ; members of council, C. S. Clark, Jr., A. B. Frenck, G. B. Haskins, L. R. Kenyon, C. H. McMann and C. T. Thomas. HISTORIC VILLAGE OF FITCHVILLE Fitchville, on the Vermilion River, which furnished power for early day mills, is rich in history and viewing some of the old buildings included the century-old Mansion House, one can picture the village in the days when it was an important center with busy stores and taverns at which lodged great numbers of teamsters hauling grain to Milan and Sandusky. The village is on United States auto route 250 and state routes 13 and 162. It is north of Greenwich and four miles west of New London. To this township in the summer of 1817 came Peter and Abraham Mead and Amos Reynolds. Abe Mead settled on land afterwards Clinton, as Fitchville was then called. He lived there twelve years and then moved to Norwalk. The Palmers came in 1818 from Connecticut, Gilbert Martin, W. W. Watrous and Charles Lyon in 1819, and Daniel and Austin Ward in 1820. By 1826 there were forty families in the township. It is said that the original owners put too high a price on their land, diverting to other sections emigrants who had contemplated locating there, so that it was not until about a century ago that the township filled up. At first the townships of Hartland, Fitchville and Greenwich were grouped. The village of Clinton was laid out in 1832 and after it was incorporated Rundell Palmer became the mayor. 364 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO On Sept. 26 and 27, 1930, Fitchville had a big celebration, the 100th anniversary of the old Mansion House, now the headquarters of the Fitchville Grange. There were agricultural exhibits on the second floor of the Mansion House, these being judged by C. E. Burk, of New London ; Ed Miller, Willard ; and Miss Anna B. Mead, of Greenwich. There were interesting programs, addresses and music and a banquet. Other early day taverns besides the Mansion House were the Clinton House, Washington Hall and the Fountain Hotel. The builder of the Mansion House was Union White, pioneer merchant of Fitchville (or Clinton, as it was at first called). White had come with his parents from Massachusetts in the winter of 1817-18 and settled in Bronson Township, later clearing and occupying what is now part of the county infirmary farm near the south boundary of Norwalk. In 1830 he established a store at Fitchville and a couple of years later J. C. Curtiss became his partner. Merchandise at the village store was frequently exchanged for furs and black salts, the latter being one of the principal mediums of exchange. The asheries formed one of the leading industries of the county at this period. White and Curtiss bought large quantities of these salts, manufacturing them into pearl-ash which they shipped to the eastern markets. A recent historical article mentions that at one time there were five dry goods and grocery stores in Fitchville. The postoffice was established in 1828 and Rundell Palmer became postmaster. The Wooster-Norwalk road was laid out in 1826 and improved in 1832. The route through Fitchville became a very important one for farmers of a number of counties to the south and east in transporting grain and produce to Lake Erie. A stage line from Wooster to Norwalk was established by White, Curtiss and an Ashland man. A two-horse hack made the trip twice a week and later a stagecoach with four horses was used. Traditions tell of operations of the Underground Railroad in this vicinity. Fitchville was to have been on the line of a railroad, the old Clinton Airline. Some grading was done east of the village and part of the old roadbed was used to fill in the gap in the construction of the new Fitchville bridge in 1930. Laurel Lodge of Masons was organized at Fitchville and was moved later to New London. Last January the Fitchville Methodist Church celebrated its 109th anniversary and rededicated the church building erected in 1837. The old building had been greatly improved, the auditorium refinished and a new chancel added. At the home of T. B. White, a HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 365 spinning wheel and chair maker, in the north part of Greenwich Township, the class which became the Fitchville church was organized in 1822 by a circuit rider, the Rev. Dennis Goddin. The master of the Fitchville Grange is Valentine Tidswell and the secretary, Frank Weaver. There is also a Juvenile Grange, the master of which is Carl Morrow and the secretary, Dorothy Ernst. One of the first master farmers in Ohio, William Erf, pioneer in Huron County agriculture, died last November at his home near Bellevue. A Huron County man, Theodore C. Laylin, a Farmers' Institute lecturer for many years, was formerly master of the Ohio State Grange. OLENA ONCE BUSY PLACE. On U. S. route 250 and state route 13, five miles northwest of Fitchville and seven miles southeast of Norwalk, is the village of Olena, Bronson Township, once a busy place, as Fitchville used to be. The first cabin in the township was that of John Welch, a quatter in 1815. His parents and brothers came later, stayed a while, then departed. In the spring of 1817, Norwalk and Bronson were incorporated as a township for business. Bronson was named for Isaac Bronson, one of the largest owners of land in the township. The first house in Olena was built nearly a century ago by William H. Burras. Other early settlers were Joel Wooley, Hiram Allen and John Moore. A tavern was opened in Olena about 1835 by Ben Drake and after a while other taverns were opened, for the patronage was large. Ephraim Angell sometimes had at his tavern a hundred teamsters. The rate here and in many of the other taverns along the trade routes was 50 cents, which included supper, lodging and breakfast for the teamster, and feed for a four-horse team. The first school in the township was taught by Lola Sutliff in 1818. Until the log schoolhouse was erected the following year school was held in a log barn. John Lyon was the first postmaster, the postoffice being established about 1829 or 1830. Last fall it was rumored that the postoffices at Olena and Fitchville were to be discontinued and the patrons served over a rural route, but there seemed to be no basis for the report. The Olena Farmers' Institute last January was unusually well attended. The president of the institute is Fred Jarrett and Mrs. D. M. C. Pratt, secretary. 366 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO TOWNSEND TOWNSHIP. Townsend Township, to the east of Norwalk, had wonderful forests of oak, hickory, ash, elm and other trees. The first settlers in the township are said to have been George Miller and family in 1811. In 1833 and 1834 a postoffice was established called East Townsend. An important industry for many years was the manufacture of white oak staves, sometimes referred to as "Townsend wheat." William G. and Dudley S. Humphrey were in this business for a long time. Sons of Dudley moved to Cleveland in 1890 and achieved wealth as the owners of the Euclid Beach Park. The old home farm is still in the family. On the railroad a half mile north of Townsend Center is the village of Collins, at which, in 1855, the Western Reserve Union Institute was established and continued until 1870 when the building was bought by the township for a school. OTHER VILLAGES. North of New London is the village of Clarksfield. The first schoolhouse in the township was erected in 1819 with Alzina Barker as teacher. In 1821 a postoffice was established at Clarksfield. West of North Fairfield is the village of Steuben, Greenfield Township. Near this village is the old Phoenix Mill, a stone structure four stories high and built against the side of a steep hill. The roof is also of stone and projects in a wide eave supported by stone brackets. It was erected in 1856 by Barnet Roe. It is now owned by M. R. Grandon. The scenery in this locality is beautiful. A short distance south and east of the old mill is the Noble farm, where the poet, Cyrus Noble, was born. A tablet marking his birthplace was placed a year or so ago. In the village of Steuben are still to be seen some houses nearly, or quite, a century old. North Fairfield is an interesting village which at one time aspired to become a county seat. The first clearing in Fairfield Township was made in 1816 by the Widow Sample and her nine children. Township annals say that in 1817 Mrs. Sample outreaped a man in the field and clothed her family in cloth she wove from the silk of wild nettles. North Fairfield has a splendid centralized school and four churches. At one time the village had two grist mills, a tan- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 367 nery, chair factory, foundry, shoe shops and half a dozen stores. The village had expected to get the old Clinton Airline R. R. Grading was done near the town and bridge erected over the Huron River, but the railroad was never built. The Norwalk, Shelby & Mansfield traction line was built through the village, but it was abandoned years ago. The village of Peru was originally called Macksville. The first settlers came in 1815 ; a postoffice was established in 1818, in which year Dr. Moses C. Sanders, pioneer physician of that region, located there. An academy was established in the village at an early day, but lasted only a year. Another Peru Township village is Pontiac. In Norwich Township are Centerton and Havana. In Sherman Township is Bismarck. In Riple Township, Delphi and Boughtonville. There are fifteen postoffices in the county and thirty-six rural mail routes, as follows : Bellevue, six ; Boughtonville, one; Collins, two ; Greenwich, three; Havana, two; Monroeville, three; New London, five; North Fairfield, two; Norwalk, six ; Wakeman, four ; Willard, two. CHAPTER XXX IV. MT. VERNON AND OTHER KNOX COUNTY COMMUNITIES. CLINTON, MT. VERNON AND FREDERICKTOWN FOUNDED BEFORE KNOX COUNTY WAS ORGANIZED-AREA AND POPULATION OF TWENTY-TWO TOWNSHIPS OF COUNTY-EARLY TAVERNS-FIRST COUNTY BUILDINGS-MT. VERNON'S FACTORIES, HOSPITALS, PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS-DAN EMMETT COMPOSER OF DIXIE-GAMBIER AND KENYON COLLEGE -FREDERICKTOWN, DANVILLE, CENTERBURG, AND OTHER VILLAGES-SCHOOLS. In the heart of Ohio, geographically and in patriotic interest, is the city of Mt. Vernon on the B. & O. and Pennsylvania (C. A. & C.) railroads and a number of auto bus lines. This city on the Kokosing River, forty-six miles northeast of Columbus, is on the CCC Highway, from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati and connected with Mansfield and Newark by the Sherman Highway, named in honor of the statesman, John Sherman, who was a schoolboy in Mt. Vernon for four years and studied law in Mansfield, which was his home in later years. Five miles east of Mt. Vernon is classic Gambier, founded by Bishop Philander Chase 106 years ago, nineteen years after Mt. Vernon was laid out by Benjamin Butler, Thomas B. Patterson and Joseph Walker. Incidents of the early settlement and the ruse by which Mt. Vernon became the seat of justice of Knox County, instead of the town of Clinton, a mile and a half to the north, are told in another chapter. Long before the coming of the white men, the Knox County region was a favorite place of resort of Indian tribes, to whom this picturesque country particularly appealed not only because it abounded in game in great variety but also because of its scenic beauty. John Stilley, a captive among the Indians, in 1779, is the first white man positively known to have traveled through what is now Knox County, - 368 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 369 though others may have been here when they were in captivity among the red men. It will be recalled that the Virginia hunter, Andrew Craig, had his cabin near Little Indian Field, junction of Center Run and the Kokosing, five years or more before Mt. Vernon was founded. Nathaniel M. Young and John Butler came in 1803, William Douglas and Robert Thompson arrived in 1804 and in the spring of the following year others came and settlement was formed, a rival to the village that Samuel Smith had platted a mile and a half to the north. Clinton, Mt. Vernon and Fredericktown were all founded before Knox County was organized in February, 1808. A couple of years before he located, Ben Butler, with his brother John, had come up Owl Creek on a prospecting expedition. They stopped at the cabin where Craig and his wife were living, and being well pleased with the region returned later. When they first came in 1801 there was not a white settlement in Knox, Morrow, Richland, Ashland or Wayne counties or any part of the country watered by Owl Creek, the Mohican River or any of their tributaries, early annals say. Ben Butler, who became the pioneer tavernkeeper in Mt. Vernon, lived to advanced age and left many descendants. Norton in his history narrates many incidents of Butler and others of the early settlers. Knox County was originally divided into four townships, Wayne, Morgan, Union and Clinton. In 1809 Madison Township embraced all of Richland County and until 1813 was under Knox supervision. Numerous changes in boundaries were made. The county now consists of twenty-two townships with the following acreage and population (1930) : Berlin Township, 12,015 acres, population 674 ; Brown, 18,940 acres, population 661; Butler, 15,422 acres, 403 population ; College, 3,417 acres, 699 population ; Clay, 15,941 acres, 712 population ; Clinton, 11,572 acres, 12,321 population ; Harrison, 15,198 acres, 478 population ; Hilliar, 16,172 acres, 1,447 population ; Howard, 14,689 acres, 768 population ; Jackson, 14,634 acres, 500 population ; Jefferson, 20,582 acres, 621 population ; Liberty, 16,122 acres, 800 population ; Morgan, 16,480 acres, 468 population ; Miller, 13,078 acres, 578 population ; Middlebury, 13,048 acres, 693 population ; Morris, 13,498 acres, 1,060 population ; Monroe, 16,112 acres, 736 population ; Milford, 16,072 acres, 592 population ; Pleasant, 12,383 acres, 735 population ; Pike, 18,450 acres, 836 population ; Union, 18,711 acres, 1,800 population ; and Wayne, 16,389 370 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO acres, 1,756 population ; total acreage, 328,925; total population, 29,338. Mt. Vernon's population in 1930 was 9,370, of which all was in Clinton Township except seventy-six in Pleasant Township. Fredericktown had a population of 1,257, 1,096 being in Wayne Township and 161 in Morris Township. Population of other villages in the county was Gambier, 498 ; Centerburg, 761; Danville, 764 ; Gann, 277; Martinsburg, 189. From original settlers still living when he wrote his history of the county, A. Banning Norton obtained information regarding the early days of Mt. Vernon and so well did this historian describe early day events that the scenes are very real. We can see Judge William Wilson, presiding judge of Licking County, holding court in Coyle's Wagon Shop with the associate judges, John Mills and William Gass, at his side, seated on smooth, round logs, which also furnished seats for the jurymen that May day in 1808. Charles Loffland was clerk, pro tern. ; Samuel H. Smith was appointed surveyor. At an election the previous month John Lewis, John Heron and Joseph Walker had been made commissioners of the county ; Silas Brown was sheriff ; Jonathan Craig, coroner ; and Edward Herrick, prosecutor. It is said that the pioneer orchardist, John Chapman, voted at the first election in Knox County. We can see William Hedrick on trial for theft, being defended by Sam Kratzer, who later was an officer in the War of 1812. We can see Hedrick, convicted, sentenced and the sentence of castigation carried out on the public square. At this first session of court the Rev. William Thrift, a Baptist minister, was licensed to perform marriage ceremonies. Sam Kratzer and Stephen Chapman having paid a fee of $5 each, were licensed as retail merchants. Kratzer also paid $6 for license to keep a house of entertainment and Daniel Ayres paid a license fee of $5 to operate a hotel at Fredericktown. In September, 1808, the founder of Clinton, Sam H. Smith, county surveyor, was fined $2.50 and costs by the court for selling goods at Clinton without a license. Smith then got a license for his store at Clinton at a cost of $10 and paid $5 fee for authority to keep tavern there. In those pioneer days, sessions of the Supreme Court of Ohio were held from county to county and the first session of the Supreme Court in Mt. Vernon was Aug. 3, 1810, with William W. Irwin and Ethen Allen Brown presiding. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 371 It was not until a year after this that Samuel Mott, a native of Vermont, located in Mt. Vernon, being the first resident lawyer in the village. In 1830, Mott was mayor of the village. In 1813, William C. Enos was admitted to the bar, and in 1815, Hosmer Curtis located in Mt. Vernon as the second resident attorney. He figured prominently in the county's history. In another chapter we have told of scenes at Mt. Vernon during the War of 1812, the assembling of troops, the night march to Mansfield in response to an alarm of danger from Indians. Gilman Bryant had been made postmaster of Mt. Vernon a couple of years before the War of 1812. Near the corner of Gambier and Main streets was Ben Butler's tavern, which was fortified as a blockhouse during the war. To this tavern came the Indian chief, Armstrong, from Greentown. An incident is related where Abe Emmett, while drilling militia, knocked the Indian down, whereup Armstrong sought to retaliate but met with too much resistance. Mt. Vernon's early taverns must have been quaint, judging by the description given of them. They figure prominently in the early day annals, for they were the center of the village life. When John Haron kept the log tavern which was afterwards taken over by his son-in-law, Gottlieb Zimmerman, he displayed as a sign for his hostelry a life-size portrait of General Wayne. Then there was the Green Tree Tavern, of which Mordecai Vore was landlord. This was later owned by Judge Eli Miller and Charles Timberlake. Constance Barney, another early day tavern keeper, had the first stage line from Mt. Vernon to Sandusky. The Golden Swan Inn, at the southwest corner of South Main and Gambier streets, kept by Thomas Irvine, was the place where court was held, while the third court house, begun in 1829, was under construction. The county paid $25 a term for rent of the quarters. The first court house was the old log building on the south side of High Street and the west side of Main Street, facing Main. It was a one-story affair. In this same year, 1808, the commissioners ordered a jail built, this being finished in 1809. In the following year the jailer's house was ordered built. Contract for the second court house at $2,430 was given to Sol Geller and George Downs in June, 1811, and was finished the following year. The site of this temple of justice, a square brick building, was on the square, facing High Street, east of Main, the ground then being some ten feet higher 372 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO than it is now, early accounts say. This building did not serve very long in spite of the fact that repairs were made a couple of times, and in 1828, while some grading was being done, dirt was removed too close to the wall, which was considerably weakened, and though a stone wall was erected the building finally gave way and it became necessary to erect the third court house. In October, 1825, a new jail and jailer's house was finished. The third court house, contract for which was given in 1829, stood at the northwest corner of Main and High streets. The contractor was John Shaw and the contract price $5,485. This court house was partly destroyed during a storm April 9, 1854, and the present court house, one of the landmarks of Mt. Vernon, was erected on the hill on the north side of East High Street. With its fluted pillars and clock tower, this substantial old court house is still serviceable after all these years. In its day it was one of the finest court houses in this section of the state. It cost about $40,000 and the completion of it was celebrated by a dinner at the Kenyon House. While an addition was made to it in recent years, the lines of the building are substantially the same as they were when it was constructed. Winding stairways lead to the court room on the second floor. The records show that while it was being built court was held at George's Hall on Gambier Street, near Main. The third jail was erected in 1851. Charles W. Sheedy, the present clerk of courts of Knox County, discovered in the county's archives in October, 1930, records of the Ohio Supreme Court from 1808 to 1850. They are most interesting. The present jail, erected in 1913, east and north of the court house, is of modern style of architecture. The county home farm of 132 acres in Liberty Township, southwest of Mt. Vernon, near Bangs, was purchased in June, 1842. The present county home building, on a rise of ground near Dry Creek, was finished in 1877 at a cost of $83,000. The present common pleas judge is Philip L. Wilkins ; probate judge, Clyde L. Purdy ; clerk of courts, Charles W. Sheedy ; sheriff, by Clynde ; auditor, Howard N. Mendenhall ; county commissioners, L. A. Barker, Charles H. Cassell, and Clinton W. Frye ; county treasurer, A. H. Spellman ; county recorder, Guy Tucker ; surveyor, Russell E. Levering ; prosecuting attorney, Charles Hayden ; coroner, Dr. Robert L. Eastman ; representative, Julius Headington. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 373 From very early days there has been a literary atmosphere in Mt. Vernon. As early as 1815-116 years ago—the Polemic Society was holding its meetings at the court house or the Golden Swan Inn. In 1816 the first library society was formed in Mt. Vernon. In 1850, five years after Mt. Vernon was incorporated with five wards, a historical society with thirty-two members was formed. Its first president was Judge Hosmer Curtis ; Gilman Bryant, vice president ; Rev. J. Muenscher, corresponding secretary ; M. E. Stredy, recording secretary; R. C. Herd, treasurer; and R. R. Sloan, cabinet keeper. The Mt. Vernon Literary Society, in the formation of which, in 1856, Rev. Dr. Muenscher led, continued until 1864. An account of Mt. Vernon's library, the work of which is growing in importance, is given in another chapter. MAYOR OVER A CENTURY AGO. In the mayor's office at Mt. Vernon is a profile, with sketch, of Samuel Mott, who in 1830 became mayor of Mt. Vernon. It was presented by Colonel Ralph S. Porter, U. S. Army, a great-grandson of Mayor Mott. Mott was born in 1780 at Brandon, Vt. He was educated at Dartmouth College. He died Oct. 23, 1841, in Springfield, at the age of sixty-one years and is buried in Columbus Street Cemetery, Springfield. His wife, Lurena Moody Newell Mott, died in 1868 and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery, Springfield. Samuel Mott was the son of Capt. John Mott and Mary Rowell, who are both buried at Brandon. One hundred years after the inauguration of Mt. Vernon's first mayor, Samuel Mott, we find William A. Wander holding this position. William Wander was born in Jefferson Township, Knox County, Oct. 30, 1857, the son of Benjamin Wander and Druzilla (Stillinger) Wander. As a boy he attended public school in the rural district in his neighborhood. Later he attended Normal School at Danville and Greentown Academy at Perrysville. He also graduated from Columbus Business College. At the age of sixteen he began to teach, and for ten years taught in Knox and Holmes counties. While on his farm in. Jefferson Township, he was elected township treasurer and served in this capacity for twelve years. In 1893 374 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO he moved to Danville, and in 1895 was elected county auditor of Knox County, which necessitated his moving to Mt. Vernon, the county seat. He was twice re-elected to this office, serving six years in all ; he then served one year as deputy under Archie Collins. In 1902 he was appointed a member of the County Tax Commission and held this position until 1912. From this time until the present he has looked after his home farm in Jefferson Township and is also president of the Ohio Grease Company, located at Loudonville. This company manufactures some 300 different kinds of lubrication oils and greases and its business extends all over the United States, having store houses at numerous wholesale points. In the fall of 1929 he was elected mayor of Mt. Vernon, which office he took Jan. 1, 1930. The grandfather of William A. Wander was Benjamin Wander, who came to America from Alsace Lorraine, at that time a French province, about 1830. After living in New York for two years, Benjamin drove to Knox County, by ox team, settling on the farm now owned by Mayor Wander. Mayor Wander's predecessor was R. L. Jones. Other mayors of Mt. Vernon in recent years have been Charles Kegley, Bert Bair, Ned Ilger, A. A. Perrin, William Smith, 0. Poppleton, and Charles Mitchell. Other officials of the city in addition to the mayor are : City clerk and clerk of council, George W. McNabb ; president of council, C. G. Conley ; councilmen, A. A. Dowds, J. S. McCrackin, Zenno E. Taylor, R. M. Jewell, Fred J. Lawler, James C. Platt, C. Orval Hill; auditor, George W. McNabb ; treasurer, Anna D. Baker ; solicitor, Robert J. Grossman ; director of public service, B. H. Lytle ; director of public safety, W. A. Ulery ; chief of fire department, U. G. Pickard ; chief of police, Lauren McDonald ; board of education, H. S. Workman, F. A. Coile, Anna B. Severns, Charles M. Gray, Robert Baldwin ; clerk, board of education, Harry W. Koons; board of health, J. B. Sensel, clerk ; Ada Wooton, W. A. Wander, Dr. F. F. Dowds, J. C. Bone, Walter M. Riley, B. E. Sapp ; health commissioner, Dr. Julius Shamansky. MT. VERNON SCHOOLS. Mt. Vernon has reason to be proud of its public school system and its parochial schools. Nearly 2,000 pupils are enrolled in the HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 375 public schools, of which Prof. A. W. Elliott is superintendent. There are six excellent and modernly equipped school buildings, worth at least $530,000, and there is a teaching force of twenty-seven. The St. Vincent de Paul's parochial schools, high school and grade school are also of high standard. At Academia, on the CCC Highway, is a denominational school, Mt. Vernon Academy, under the supervision of the Seventh Day Adventists. With three conservatively managed banks, the First National, the Knox County Savings Bank and the Knox National Bank, the combined resources of which are considerably more than five millions of dollars, and three building and loan associations with resources equally large, the financial facilities of Mt. Vernon are excellent. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES. Mt. Vernon is steadily growing in importance industrially. Among the most important industries are the Mt. Vernon Bridge Co., the Cooper Bessemer Corporation, the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., the Land Glass Co., Northwestern Elevator & Mill Co., Cureton Casting Co., Mt. Vernon Sand & Gravel Co., Knox Oil Co., and others. The Hope Engineering Company, contracting engineers in natural gas and oil, has its headquarters in Mt. Vernon, which is so admirably situated, both regarding materials and shipping facilities. The Cooper Bessemer Corporation had its beginning in the partnership of two brothers, C. and G. Cooper, who started into business nearly a century ago with capital obtained from the sale of one horse. The humble beginning, the steady growth of the C. & G. Cooper Company until it became one of the leading large engine building industries in the country, show the power of wisely directed enterprise and persistence. Iron castings for agricultural tools were the first products turned out by the Coopers, but it was not long until the work of building engines was taken up. As some one has said : "Some of those first crude engines were built so well that they continued to serve American industries for more than fifty years. The company is more widely known for the many Corliss steam engines built during the last of the nineteenth century. These were sent into nearly every industrial country of the world, even into the diamond mines of South Africa. Many a world traveler has gotten a favorable and lasting impression of Mt. Vernon and the engine building craftsmanship of the men who live here, from the nameplates of Cooper engines 376 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO in Japan, China or Australia. Today a big majority of the finest and largest gas compressing stations in this country are equipped with Cooper gas engines, which have been the chief product for the past twenty years." A few years ago in the project of piping natural gas 450 miles from Texas to Kansas City, 15,000 horse power of Cooper engines was required. B. B. Williams, a brother of Whiting Williams, noted writer on economics and lecturer on social problems, is president of the Cooper Bessemer Corporation. The Williams brothers at one time lived in Shelby. Electric light and power for Mt. Vernon are furnished by the Ohio Power Company, which years ago took over the local electric light plant. The company now supplies Mt. Vernon, Knox County and many other counties in this section of the state from a 325,000 horse power generating plant at Philo. The plant erected there several years ago is said to have cost $17,000,000. The Mt. Vernon Telephone Co. has a very complete plant with up-to-date equipment. Mt. Vernon has two daily papers. History of newspapers of city and county is given elsewhere, also facts regarding city, village and rural schools. MT. VERNON'S HOSPITALS. The Mt. Vernon Hospital-Sanitarium at Sugar and Mulberry streets has doubled its capacity in the past year. The Hinde-Ball Mercy Hospital on East High Street, a Catholic institution, is also doing a splendid work in relieving suffering. Near the city is the State Sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis. Further mention of this institution, its growth and the character of the work done here appears in another chapter. The city's water supply is from artesian wells. There is an abundant natural gas service. Knox County for years has been a center of gas production activities. At Bangs there is the largest gas pumping station in that section of the state and northeast of Amity is a large compressor station. PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS. Adequate provision has been made in Mt. Vernon for recreation. In the heart of the city is Central Park, the public square when the town was laid out, and in the west part of the city off of West High Street is Riverside Park, a fifteen-acre tract of land which is being HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 377 developed into a park that will be of increasing value to the city's population. It is a beautiful place with plenty of provision for recreational activities. The Country Club with a fine golf course is beautifully located on hills overlooking the city and surrounding country. The majestic monument in Central Park commemorates the soldiers of Knox County. It was erected fifty-four years ago by the Mt. Vernon Ladies Monument Association and dedicated on Independence Day, 1877. The inscription on the south side of the shaft is as follows : "Dolcue et decorun est pro patria morii. In grateful appreciation of the patriotism and self-sacrifice of the lamented sons and soldiers of Knox County, who for their country and for freedom laid down their lives in the war of the great Rebellion. "They laid down their own lives that the life of the nation might be preserved and shared in the glory of securing to every dweller in the land a heritage of human freedom and their blood helped to cement that union which has made this great people, now and forever, one.” Inscription on the north side is: "In honor of the victories and triumph of the national arms in the war of the great Rebellion 1861-65 and in memory of the noble sons of Knox County, Ohio, who fought and who fell in that conflict." On the west side is inscribed: "Our County. By that dread name we wave the sword on high and swear for her to live, for her to die-- Campbell." On the east side is the inscription setting forth by whom the monument was erected. Mt. Vernon is rich in patriotic associations. Mention has been made of the part this frontier settlement had in the War of 1812 and in the other wars of the nation. One of the Mt. Vernonites who joined Colonel Cass' company in Knox County was the blacksmith, Abram Emmett, whose grandfather had served in the Revolutionary War. Abram was captured by the British near Ft. Meigs and upon his release returned to Mt. Vernon. To him and his wife, Catherine, in an humble cottage at the northwest corner of Mulberry and Front streets was born, Oct. 29, 1815, Daniel Decatur Emmett, who became the famous minstrel and author of one of the most famous songs ever written, "Dixie." His career is well known. In his latter years he returned to the scenes of boyhood days and the rest of his life was spent at his modest home a short distance north of the city, where he passed away June 28, 1904. He is buried in the south side of 378 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Mound View Cemetery, overlooking the city. Four large maple trees stand sentinel over his grave, which is marked by a large, broad slab of red granite on a base of gray granite and bears the following inscription : EMMETT Daniel Decatur 1815-1904 Whose Song, "Dixie Land" Inspired the Courage and Devotion of The Southern People and Now Thrills The Hearts of a Reunited Nation This famous son of Mt. Vernon, pioneer minstrel of America, who wrote hundreds of other songs during his long career as a showman, never dreamed, when he wrote Dixie in New York City that dreary, rainy day in 1859—seventy-two years ago—that down through the generations hundreds of millions of Americans would have their hearts stirred by this inspirational melody which never grows old. Jerry Bryant, late one Saturday night, asked him to compose a "hooray song" of plantation type and have the "walk-around" ready for the show on Monday. Accustomed as he was to writing catchy songs, he had no success in his attempts at writing this one and remarked to his wife that he couldn't do it, but Mrs. Emmett encouraged him to make another attempt, saying that his songs had always pleased his employers and he wouldn't fail this time. Although still depressed, Sunday morning he picked up his violin and presently the melody came and the words to go with it, but it required hours of patient work to complete it. When he played it and sang the words Mrs. Emmett said it was all right and so did Bryant next day. It attained popularity and brought to Emmett $500 in royalties. Two years later at a great meeting in New Orleans, it was adopted as a song to stir Southern blood, it spread rapidly throughout the South, became the rallying song of the Confederacy and at the close of the war President Lincoln remarked that Dixie now belonged to the Union. In 1888 the aged minstrel returned to Mt. Vernon to make his home in a little house near the farm his father once owned. A few years later the Columbus minstrel man, Al G. Field, learned that his former employer in Chicago had returned to Mt. Vernon and was probably still living there. Meeting a Mt. Vernon newspaper man, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 379 he asked him if Dan Emmett, author of Dixie, was living in Mt. Vernon. "Uncle Dan Emmett lives north of town ; he used to travel with a circus ; he never wrote Dixie or anything else," was the reply. "Oh, yes, he did," insisted Field, "I am going to see him." He did so and found the aged minstrel still full of energy in spite of his eighty years. He decided that he wanted to make a trip with the minstrel show and Field was glad to have him do so. When the show opened at Newark on the night of Aug. 22, 1895, and the aged man sang the song he composed nearly thirty-six years before, he made a hit. In the South he became the star attraction ; a great ovation was given to him in Richmond. Flowers were showered upon him. He was enthusiastically greeted everywhere. At Nashville, General John B. Gordon of Georgia, lecturing in the city, honored him. At Wilmington, Del., the daughters of Ambassador Thomas F. Bayard gave a reception in his honor. Telling about it afterwards, Al Field said : "Every time Uncle Dan appeared before the footlights to sing Dixie the audience went as nearly wild as any I have ever seen. Every man, woman and child would rise in a body and simply overwhelm Uncle Dan with applause." His last appearance with the minstrel show was at Ironton, April 11, 1896. From there he returned to his little home at Mt. Vernon and many distinguished people visited him there, one of them being General Gordon. His last appearance on the stage was at an entertainment given by the Mt. Vernon Elks a couple of years before his death. C. B. Galbreath, writing of a visit to the aged minstrel in September, 1903, said : "The aged minstrel had been much impressed with the demonstrations in his honor during the minstrel tour. Nor could he forget the novelty of the situation. Born, reared and educated in the North, and through the Civil War sharing the sentiment of that section, he was enthusiastically received throughout the South for service that he had never intended to perform." Weekly benefits which he received from the actors' fund in New York helped to make his latter years very happy ones. He passed away on the evening of June 28, 1904. On the day of his funeral, July 1st, the body lay in state at the Elks' Home and in the afternoon at the services in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, the rector, the Rev. William E. Hull, paid glowing tribute to the memory of the famous minstrel. Rector Hull spoke of Emmett's deep religious nature, a great reader of the Bible, a great soul. "He once told me," 380 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO said the minister, "that he never laid his head upon his pillow at night without bending his knees at his bedside and offering up a prayer to the Almighty One. I am informed that he never partook of his meal, however humble and frugal, that he did not bow his head and ask God's blessing upon it." From the church the procession moved up North Main Street to the cemetery on the hill, where the band played Dixie and the people stood with uncovered heads about the grave. A movement by patriotic societies has been started to place on the little brown cottage at the northwest corner of Mulberry and Ohio (formerly Front) streets, a bronze tablet marking Emmett's birthplace. The famous novelist, Vaughan Kester, who in his boyhood lived with his grandmother in Mt. Vernon, made this city the scene of his last novel, "The Just and Unjust." A considerable number of people who have achieved, and are achieving honor in the world's activities have been associated with Mt. Vernon, only a few of whom can be mentioned here. One of these was the statesman, Columbus Delano, who in addition to service in the General Assembly, as State Commissary-General of Ohio, Congressman, and Commissioner on Internal Revenue, was Secretary of the Interior in President Grant's cabinet. Mr. Delano, who located in Mt. Vernon in 1817, was admitted to the bar in 1831 and was one of Ohio's most noted lawyers. For many years he lived on a farm south of Mt. Vernon, was an earnest advocate of the interests of agriculture and served as president of the National Wool Growers Association. Mention has been made, in another chapter, of the distinguished service of another Mt. Vernon man, Major General George W. Morgan, in the war for Texas independence, the Mexican and Civil wars. Others prominent in the Civil War were Colonel W. C. Cooper, Colonel Joseph Vance and Colonel Lorin Andrews, the latter, president of Kenyon College. William Windom, who for ten years was a congressman from Minnesota, served for many years as United States Senator from that state and was Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinets of Presidents Garfield and Harrison, spent his boyhood in Middlebury Township, Knox County, attended Mt. Vernon Academy, studied law with Judge R. C. Hurd and was prosecuting attorney of Knox County before removing to Minnesota in 1855. Jesse B. Thomas, one of the early residents of Mt. Vernon, became HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 381 United States Senator from Illinois. United States Senator Clarence C. Dill of Washington State, is a native of Knox County, his boyhood home being near Fredericktown, where his parents live. O. H. Oldroyd, Civil War veteran of Washington, D. C., who in 1926 sold to the government for $50,000 his collection of Lincoln relics in the house where the martyred President died, spent his boyhood in Mt. Vernon. The late Evan Williams, noted tenor, was a resident of Mt. Vernon at one time, as was also Prof. James Carleton Bell, psychologist of the College of the City of New York. Charles Ezra Scribner, New York electrical engineer and inventor of some 500 electrical appliances, many of them relating to telephony, is a native of Mt. Vernon, as is also John Wootton, Cleveland cartoonist, formerly of the Plain Dealer, now of the Press. Among the story writers who lived at Mt. Vernon, besides Vaughan Kester, were John Taintor Foote and Mrs. Josephine Scribner Gates. John L. Baltzell, most famous of Ohio's old-time fiddlers, who for a number of years has broadcast old-time melodies over the radio, winner of numerous fiddling contests, including one with fiddlers of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, has lived in Mt. Vernon nearly all his life. He was born in a log cabin near Gambier. The most prominent member of the Knox County bar in recent decades was Judge Lewis B. Houck, who was serving his third term as a judge of the fifth district, Court of Appeals, at the time of his death, Nov. 14, 1930. For a number of years he was secretary and treasurer of the Ohio Association of Appellate Judges. He served as State Senator and was secretary to Governor John M. Pattison, who, soon after his inauguration, was stricken and for nearly a year prior to Pattison's death practically all the duties of the Governor's office devolved on the future judge, these duties contributing materially to the development of his splendid abilities. The president of the Knox County Bar Association is the Hon. William M. Koons, now the oldest member of the Mt. Vernon bar. For nearly fifty-six years he has been practicing his profession and was a pioneer champion of good roads, introducing into the General Assembly back in 1883 a bill that established the present system of pikes and which has been used as a foundation for road legislation. The secretary of the County Bar Association is Jay S. McDevitt of Mt. Vernon, who until the beginning of 1931 was prosecuting attorney of Knox County. 382 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO The Mt. Vernon Chamber of Commerce, which has a membership of 240 and has a weekly noon-day luncheon at which are discussed matters pertaining to the advancement of the city, is doing a splendid work in correlating helpful forces for community betterment. R. V. Headington is president of the organization ; A. G. Gibbony, vice president ; Cyril F. Allerding, secretary ; and Harry W. Ward, treasurer. The Knox County Auto Club has its offices in connection with the Chamber of Commerce. On the west side of the public square is the new Elks' Home and on the west side of North Main Street is the well equipped Y. M. C. A. building, finished in 1909. The president of the Y. M. C. A. is R. S. Lord of the Hope Engineering Company ; vice president, F. E. Withgott ; treasurer, B. D. Herron ; general secretary, Maurice Mitchell; physical director, R. C. McKown. The present membership of the Y. is 450. Splendid work is being done along various lines of association work, including the Hi-Y movement. General Secretary Mitchell has for years been interested in scouting, organizing in 1919 the first Boy Scout troops in Mt. Vernon. He and Physical Director McKown are scout masters of the two troops in Mt. Vernon, and other troops in the county are at Centerburg and Danville. The Eagle Scouts in Mt. Vernon are Lester Williams, Webster Buell and Ralph Houck. Mt. Vernon has thirteen churches, some of the finest church edifices of any community of equal size in the state. The following are the churches : St. Paul's Episcopal, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Gay Street M. E., First Congregational, First Presbyterian, Vine Street Church of Christ, Baptist, Mt. Calvary Baptist, Church of the Nazarene, Methodist Protestant, Salvation Army, Wayman Chapel, A. M. E.; South Vernon Union Chapel. The St. Paul's parish was founded in 1829, first church built in 1831 and the present building at East High and Gay streets, erected in 1839, was restored in 1929. Across High Street is St. Paul's Parish School. The Methodist Church building at the southeast corner of Gay and East Chestnut was erected in 1926. Previous churches were built in 1831 and 1852. Under the will of Dr. Charles P. Peterman, native of Mt. Vernon, who died Oct. 6, 1930, the Home for the Aged in Mt. Vernon received a bequest of $1,000 and St. Paul's Episcopal Church, $5,000. Two of Mt. Vernon's beautiful old homesteads of which Milton Smith Osborne, professor of architecture in the University of Manitoba, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 383 made sketches in 1930, were the Israel homestead on North Main Street and the Meltzer home, 101 East Gambier Street. Built about 106 years ago the Israel homestead, some seventy-five years ago, was Sloan's Select School for Girls. During the World War this building, suggesting the French in its delicacy of detail, was Red Cross headquarters. Prof. Osborne says the Meltzer home is a splendid example of the formal Greek Doric Order in small residence design. Another is the old Devin home on North Main Street. At the junction of North Main. Street and the Mansfield Road, the new $55,000 armory for the local military company is nearing completion. Another landmark of Mt. Vernon is the Curtis House at South Main Street and the public square. Here during many decades notables of this and other lands have been entertained. How many people will recall Truman A. Davidson and the two white horses to the old cab in which for so many years Truman hauled people coming to the hotel and departing guests to the B. & 0. and Pennsylvania depots. Long after autos were in general use "Trume" continued to operate the cab with the span of white horses. At one time he had been a hotel proprietor, had a saloon and beer garden where he installed one of the most mechanical organs ever heard in this section of the state. Later he owned one of the finest livery outfits in Mt. Vernon. He used to tell of the time when he hauled a load valued at many millions of dollars from Mt. Vernon to Gambier on the occasion of the dedication of Hanna Hall, gift of the late United States Senator Marcus A. Hanna of Cleveland to Kenyon College. This load, he said, consisted of Senator Hanna, Tom L. Johnson, Andrew Carnegie and J. Pierpont Morgan. He also drove for scores of other notables, many of whom knew him as "Trume." He is believed to have been the last to drive a horse-drawn cab in the state of Ohio and as such, was the subject of many feature articles in metropolitan newspapers. At the age of seventy-six, after having driven a hack for more than sixty-one years, "Trume" was found dead on the morning of Dec. 12, 1924, in his bed, at his office on West Ohio Avenue. TO HAVE NEW FEDERAL BUILDING. During the next year or so Mt. Vernon expects to have a new federal building. A government appropriation of $135,000 for this 384 HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO project has been arranged for and the site will probably be at West High and Mulberry streets. Postmaster L. H. Kelly reported in January, 1931, that the receipts at the Mt. Vernon postoffice during 1930 were $60,883.39 surpassing the previous record years business by $553.50. KNOX COUNTY MEMORIAL BUILDING. On the south side of East High Street, nearly opposite the court house, is the Knox County Memorial Building, a beautiful commodious $250,000 building erected by the people of Knox County to commemorate the services of soldiers, sailors, marines and pioneers of the county in the wars of the nation. The cornerstone was laid Oct. 23, 1923, with veterans of three wars in attendance. Chauncey Baker, Ohio department commander of the American Legion at that time, made the principal address. It was finished in time to be used for the meetings of the Fifty-ninth Annual Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic and affiliated organizations June 8 to 10, 1925. Twelve hundred Civil War veterans, on the tenth of June, marched in a parade of 7,000 people. Henry C. Devin was president of the Memorial Association, Ernest Ackerman, secretary ; Fred C. Bishop, Clement A. Blubaugh and Lieut. Mark Curtis Kinney, members of the board. The architects were Richards, McCarty & Bluford and the contractor, E. Elford. On the ground floor is the memorial theatre. At the High Street entrance is a broad flight of steps leading to the pillared entrance. At the south side of the main hall are four plaques commemorating soldiers, sailors, marines and pioneers of Knox County participating in the wars of the nation. On the west side, off of the main hall, is the G. A. R. Hall. Here is a tablet to Joe Hooker Post, No. 21, G. A. R., organized Oct. 25, 1880 ; displayed in a case is a bridle used by Gen. Joe Hooker and on the wall facsimile of the charter of the first G. A. R. Post, that of Decatur, Ill., dated April 6, 1866. And here is a picture of the comrades of the Twentieth Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, taken at the regimental reunion at Mt. Vernon April 6, 1876—fifty-five years ago. It was taken by Photographer Crouch in front of Green's drug store and C. Peterman & Son's dry goods store. Once there were enrolled in Joe Hooker Post, 554 boys who wore the blue in the War of the Rebellion ; there were other G. A. R. posts in Knox County ; now Joe Hooker Post is the only one in the HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 385 county and there are enrolled in it only sixteen, the average age of whom is eighty-seven years. For fifteen years George D. Neal, eighty-seven, has been commander of the post. East of the main hall are the headquarters of the Knox County Red Cross which has been very active. Chairman of the executive board of the county organization is Frank J. VanVoorhis ; secretary, Mrs. James Lyman ; treasurer, S. W. Alsdorf. Above the main hall is the lodge room of Dan C. Stone, Jr., Post 136, American Legion, commodious quarters also used for large meetings of other patriotic organizations. In addition to the memorial theatre on the ground floor of the memorial building there are two other movie houses in Mt. Vernon, the Vine and the Lyric. Mt. Vernon is in the midst of one of the richest agricultural regions in the state, the farmers are aggressive and actively interested in the various movements for the betterment of the farming industry. The first Knox County Fair was held about 1852 and they have been held down through the years. One of the prime movers for a county fair nearly seventy years ago was the public-spirited A. Banning Norton. The annals reveal that at the first fair the court room of the old temple of justice on the public square was used as an art hall. HIGHEST PRODUCING-LARGEST HERD. The dairy herd at the Ohio State Sanatorium, two miles northeast of Mt. Vernon, received recognition at the 1931 0. S. U. Farmers' Week in Columbus, when Dr. F. C. Anderson, superintendent of the sanatorium, and F. C. Riley, supervisor of the sanatorium herd, received on behalf of the institution a trophy cup for having the highest producing largest dairy herd in the state in 1929, in which year the herd made the highest test record ever recorded in the years of testing the productions of large herds by the Ohio Farmer. For over five years the herd has been under Mr. Riley's supervision. J. Dwight Dean is president of the Knox County Guernsey Breeders' Association and 0. A. McKee is secretary. As a matter of historic record it is interesting to note that the first trans-Atlantic telephone call to be sent through the Mt. Vernon Telephone Company exchange, was on the morning of Jan. 30, 1931, when Byron E. Hepler, treasurer of the Hope Engineering Company, 386 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO called up Germany and talked to H. J. Lindsay, vice president of the company. The reception was excellent, both parties hearing distinctly and the conversation lasted over ten minutes. In a religious survey taken in Mt. Vernon in November, 1930, it was revealed that there were in the city 2,624 protestant families, 216 Catholic families, 7 Jewish, 17 rated as miscellaneous and 43 unclassified. The survey showed that there are in protestant Sunday Schools in the city 3,648 people of all ages and 4,386 of the protestant population not in Sunday Schools. A Mt. Vernon high school senior, Walter Rudin, was one of thirty boys in the nation chosen to represent the United States at the Hi-Y international camp at Sarazaya, Czecho-Slovakia in the summer of 1930. Before returning home Walter visited a number of other countries of Europe. GAMBIER AND KENYON COLLEGE. On a ridge 150 feet above the valley of the Kokosing River, five miles east of Mt. Vernon, is the village of Gambier, seat of Kenyon College with its ivy-covered buildings, beautiful architecturally and of fascinating interest in their historical associations ; with its umbrageous avenue through the campus, half a mile, from 104-year old Old Kenyon, first building of the institution, to the theological seminary, Bexley Hall, which the historian, Henry Howe, on his visit to classic Gambier, eighty-five years ago, as a "large elegant and highly-ornamented Gothic structure of light color with battlements and turrets, standing boldly relieved against the blue sky." Just as the history of the town of Oberlin is inseparably connected with the founding of the college and the labors of Rev. John J. Ship-herd and Philo Stewart, the settlement of Gambier and the establishment of an "Oxford in miniature," the first missionary enterprise of the Episcopal Church west of the Allegheny Mountains, center around the enthusiastic, indefatigable zeal of Philander Chase, first bishop of Ohio of the Episcopal Church, who in spite of opposition, secured from church folk in England funds that enabled him to purchase 8,000 acres of land in the forests of Knox County, erect the first dormitory, Old Kenyon, finished in 1827, and start construction of Rosse Hall. In another chapter it has been told how with unfailing energy he realized his vision of a school for the education of the sons HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 387 of the soil, how his vision was enlarged to include not only a theological seminary, but also a college and how he carried forward extensive farming and milling industries and various business enterprises of the settlement along with his duties as bishop and head of other organizations. Charter of the institution was secured in December, 1824, but it was not until July 22, 1825, that Bishop Chase, in company with Attorney Henry C. Curtis of Mt. Vernon, viewed the land, which was afterwards purchased for the institution. Near Old Kenyon stands a prayer cross in commemoration of the bishop's first prayer on Gambier Hill in June, 1826. History of the college tells of a service the bishop held under the forest trees at the foot of the hill near where the pumping station now is. On June 9, 1827, the cornerstone of Old Kenyon was laid and the annals tell how some of the workers felt they could not do the work without the use of whisky, but the bishop persuaded them that they could not only do it as well, but better without liquor. The walls of this massive Gothic structure are four and one-half feet thick. Temporary buildings had been erected while the work was going forward and in June, 1828, fifty students who had been attending the academy at Worthington came to the new school. Harcourt parish had been organized in 1827. In 1829 the first class received the degree of A. B. at Kenyon. At the diocesan convention at Gambier September 9 at the time six students received degrees, Bishop Chase reported an enrollment of nearly ninety students. In that year the bishop laid out the village of Cornish on Schenck's Creek, three miles from Gambier, but there was no sale for the lots and no town was established. He had other plans for the development of the lands that failed to materialize. Eventually a part of the land holdings brought about $22,500. Disagreements with professors at the college lead to the resignation on Sept. 9, 1831, by Bishop Chase of the Episcopate of the Ohio diocese and with it the presidency of the Theological Seminary as the institution was then known and after he had been urged to reconsider, the diocesan convention chose as bishop and president, Charles Pettit Mcllvaine, who continued at the head of the institution until 1840. It is a century since Bishop Chase left the institution to which he gave some of the best years of his life. On the foundations he laid those who came after him have builded a wonderful institution, which, like Oberlin, has had a mighty influence. To it came 100 years ago 388 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO seventeen-year-old Edwin M. Stanton, who became Secretary of War in President Lincoln's cabinet, after having been Attorney General for a short time in the cabinet of President Buchanan, and whose death Dec. 24, 1869, came four days after President Grant had nominated him as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of Treasury in Lincoln's cabinet, was Bishop Chase's nephew. Another of Kenyon's early day students who achieved high place in the nation's life was Rutherford B. Hayes, who matriculated Nov. 1, 1838, five years after Stanton, as a junior, left college because of lack of funds. The bull's-eye room on the top floor of the west wing of Old Kenyon is one that Stanton is said to have occupied when he was a student and on the wall of the bull's-eye room on the top floor of the east wing is a bronze tablet setting forth that Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth President of the United States, occupied this room for the two concluding years of his course at Kenyon (1840- 1842) . Entries in his diary tell of his school life there in 1838. Breaking through the thin ice when on November 27 he went skating, he was rescued from the waters of the Kokosing by companions. The water was eight feet deep but he recorded that he could have got up without any help. At the time of the holiday vacation he walked forty miles to Delaware and a week later walked back to Gambier through snow several inches deep. Young Hayes evidently was not at all superstitious, for his room in West Division of Old Kenyon was No. 13. A letter to his sister Fannie, tells of the Independence Day, 1839, celebration at Gambier. It began bright and early, three flags being raised at four o'clock in the morning to the music of a band. Two of the flags were on the college and one on a pole near the chapel. After prayers, breakfast was served and at ten-thirty there was a program in the chapel, prayer by Bishop Mcllvaine. After Gibbs had read the Declaration of Independence, Lightner delivered an oration and then the students marched to dinner which consisted of "beef, veal, pig, bacon, mutton, chickens, turkeys, peas, beans, new potatoes and turnips, plum pudding, bread, butter, water and other articles too numerous to mention." He declares there were twenty-nine kinds of cake, after which lemonade and ice cream were served. There were lots of toasts, after which the students marched to the chapel and listened to about a dozen HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 389 speeches by students. He declared it was the happiest day he ever spent. Recording his impressions of Kenyon students he mentions Lorin Andrews, whom he met the first day on his arrival at Kenyon. Andrews, who afterwards became president of Kenyon College, left the institution in 1840. He mentions that Andrews was industrious, was indefatigable in his exertions, talented, energetic, honorable. Hayes graduated from Kenyon in 1842, being valedictorian. The founder of Kenyon is not buried in the little cemetery to the west of Rosse Hall on the college campus, but at Robin's Nest, Ill., where he died Sept. 20, 1852. After leaving Kenyon he did missionary work in Michigan, became first Episcopal bishop of Illinois in 1835 and three years later founded Jubilee College at Robin's Nest. At the time of the Kenyon centennial in June, 1924, when Lord Kenyon, a great-grandson of the Lord Kenyon for whom the institution is named, attended the celebration, the "Collegian" stated that Bishop Chase lies amid the ruins of the institution he founded at Robin's Nest, that his grave was unkempt and forgotten and that his body may yet lie in the college cemetery at Gambier. Presidents of Kenyon since Bishop Mcllvaine have been : David Bates Douglass (1840-44) , Samuel Fuller (1844-45) , Sherlock A. Bronson (1845-50), Thomas M. Smith (1850-54), Lorin Andrews (1854-61), Benjamin Lang (1861-63), Charles Short (1863-67), James Kent Stone (1867-68) , Eli T. Tappan (1868-75), Edward C. Benson (1875-76), William B. Bodine (1876-1891), Theodore Sterling (1891-96), William Foster Peirce (1896 ). The Kenyon College of today has buildings and equipment valued at more than $2,000,000; endowment funds, $2,138,943, with income 1929 to 1930, $209,000. The enrollment is limited to 300. Peirce Hall, including the Philander Chase tower, was opened for use in September, 1929, the building which with equipment cost nearly four hundred thousand dollars, is the commons and recreational center. It was given by Frank H. Ginn, class of '90, of Cleveland, and William Nelson Cromwell of New York City, who stipulated that it be named in honor of President Peirce. The architect was Alfred H. Granger of Chicago, a member of the class of '87. The original building, Old Kenyon, built in 1827, was remodeled in 1906. Rosse Hall, erected in 1831, was rebuilt in 1897, after having been damaged by fire on May 9 of that year. A memorial fund by Mrs. Mary Simpson of 390 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Sandusky and a gift from the statesman, John Sherman, were used in the restoration of this building. Ascension Hall, built in 1859, was remodeled in 1927. The Church of the Holy Spirit was erected in 1869 ; Hanna Hall dormitory, 1902 ; the alumni library building, 1910, in which is included the Stephen's stackroom, and Leonard Hall, dormitory, 1923, and the Samuel Mather Science Hall, laboratory, costing $225,000, was begun the centennial year of the institution and finished the following year. A central heating plant, which with power house, cost $100,000, was completed in 1923. The college library contains more than 45,000 volumes. Less than a week before his death Sept. 21, 1930, at his summer home in Gambier, the Rt. Rev. William Andrew Leonard, for forty-two years bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, gave to the library of Kenyon his notable collection of autographs, two beautifully bound volumes. The first volume consists of letters and documents signed by nineteen presidents of the United States, Washington to Hoover. Here is a military order written at Philadelphia in February, 1782, by General Washington to General Forman, directing that no one was to pass through the enemies' lines without first receiving permission from the executive of the state. The bishop wrote that the Lincoln signature was given to him by the emancipator's son, Robert Lincoln, then Secretary of War in Washington. In the second volume are autographs of more than a hundred statesmen, cabinet officers, noted generals, Lord Napier, British ambassador to Washington ; Joseph Chamberlain, prime minister of England ; American immortals of literature, editors, orators, scientists and many others famed in the history of the nation. Bishop Leonard began the collection when he was a boy in school, continued it in college and for the rest of his life. Bishop Leonard and his wife left a total of $35,000 to be used in part for endowment, part for education of men for the ministry and the rest for increasing salaries at the theological school, Bexley Hall. The college lands now consist of 400 acres, 150 of which are used as parks surrounding the college and seminary buildings, the college campus consists of ninety acres and the remainder is Bexley Park. Another institution of Gambier is Harcourt Place Seminary, school for girls, which is to be rebuilt and expanded into a thoroughly up-to-date institution of learning in its physical aspects as it always HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 391 has been on its educational side. Its board of trustees, headed by Mrs. W. G. Mather, of Cleveland, has raised a building fund of $300,000. The seminary property includes eight acres of grounds. The greater part of the town of Gambier is to the south of the Kokosing, on the promontory to the east of Ransom's Run, to the west of Wolf Run and the north limits are beyond the Coshocton Road. It is in College Township, which until 1838 was the northeast part of Pleasant Township. The 1930 population of Gambier was 498. The present officers of the village are : Mayor, Burl A. Lauderbaugh ; clerk, Harold C. Parker ; treasurer, George Evans ; marshal, J. M. Fry ; members of council, Charles Shrontz, George Ayers, W. C. Colwill, Harrison Dial, Thurman L. Eley and Leroy H. Jacobs. Gambier has well equipped village schools of which C. A. Hostetler is superintendent and Clarke L. Foster is principal. The other teachers are Mabel Jacot, Dorothy C. Stewart, Dell M. Hathaway, Frances E. Black, Irene P. Carr, and Mary T. Vinck. Music is taught by I. M. Snyder of Mt. Vernon, who also gives musical instruction at Martinsburg and Fredericktown. President of the People's Bank is C. B. Colwill ; cashier, J. R. Brown. In a valley below Gambier there was still in operation in the summer of 1930, an old-time water-wheel grist mill operated by George D. Jacobs. It is along the Kokosing and two water turbines furnished the power for grinding grain for many farmers in that region. FREDERICKTOWN AND WAYNE TOWNSHIP. On state route 13, seven miles north of Mt. Vernon, is the growing village of Fredericktown, founded Nov. 11, 1807—nearly 124 years ago—by John Kerr. It is on the west bank of the Kokosing (more frequently spoken of as Owl Creek, especially in the early day narratives), the B. & 0. R. R. and state auto route 95, which from Mt. Vernon to this village is also route 13. It is in the extreme northeast part of Wayne Township and extends into Morris Township. The 1930 population of Fredericktown was 1,257, of which all but 161 was in Wayne Township. As stated in the history of early settlements the land on which Fredericktown is situated, was part of a 4,000-acre tract which the founder of Franklinton, Lucas Sullivant, bought from the government. John Kerr, who afterwards bought 392 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO 450 acres of land here, erected a mill on land which Sullivant gave him and the settlement was first called Kerr's Mills. William Farquhar, who surveyed the land when the village was platted and erected the first cabin, gave to the settlement the name of his old home in Maryland. It was in the midst of a vast unbroken wilderness where wild beasts roamed and Indians hunted. The first settlers found in the mounds hereabouts evidences of very early occupation. In this fertile and well watered region were many early day mills in addition to Kerr's. Here, during the War of 1812, was a blockhouse which figures in pioneer reminiscences. The north and south road through Fredericktown was opened in 1809. In this region many Quakers settled and after the War of 1812 a considerable number of soldiers. Abner Myers, early day tavern keeper, used to tell of entertaining General Harrison, who talked freely of war problems. Garrison's was the first store, Thomas Ayres, first blacksmith of the settlement ; Celestial LeBlond, first hatter and Ebenezer Taylor, shoemaker. In 1840 Fredericktown had 500 population and attained further growth after the Sandusky-Mansfield & Newark R. R. (B. & 0.) was built. John D. Struble built a warehouse and bought much grain. In 1850 Fredericktown was incorporated. The sentiment against liquor was such that at an early day the village abolished saloons, which later were re-established, but were put out of business permanently many years before the county voted dry. The water works system of the village was installed in 1905 at a cost of $20,000. It has electric light and power service, well paved streets and substantial industries including the J. B. Foote Foundry Company. The banking house of Dan Struble & Son, of which C. E. Ackerman is cashier, began as a state bank in 1870. Dr. W. H. Eastman is president of the First National Bank ; C. R. Levering, vice president ; and I. C. Willits is cashier. In October, 1930, the Struble Bank was incorporated and the following officers were elected : Helen W. Struble, "-President; F. B. Zieg, vice president ; Charles Ackerman, cashier ; F. L. Barnes, assistant cashier ; Dorothy Scarborough, teller ; Veronica Harlett, clerk. The town's newspaper is the Fredericktown Citizen and the postmaster is Wilbur Foote. The village officers are as follows : Mayor, A. J. Swigart ; clerk, F. B. Levering; treasurer, Earl Kunkle ; marshal, John Jones ; members of council, Hobert Cassell, Forest Briggle, J. T. Divilbiss, Hoy Toms, Carl Herring and A. L. Beal. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 393 The town has a very active Community Service Club, one of the projects of which early in 1931 was the marking of the streets and numbering of the houses preparatory to obtaining village mail delivery. There are seven rural mail routes out of Fredericktown. Fredericktown is proud of its splendid schools and school equipment. The superintendent is P. F. Coggins, the Smith-Hughes agricultural instructor is L. H. Lintner and the other teachers are : M. N. Braddock, Arline Dressler, Elizabeth Oldham, Irma Schneider, Thelma Miley, Lucy Rafferty, George McConagha, W. H. Augenstein, I. M. Snyder (music), F. B. Levering, W. M. Dill, B. B. Baker, Lora Dalrymple, Grace Robinson, Ina Blackford and Mabel Bailey. BOYHOOD HOME OF U. S. SENATOR DILL. The most famous alumnus of Fredericktown high school is Clarence C. Dill, United States Senator from Washington State, who was only twenty-nine years old when he was first elected to Congress and has had a most interesting career. Senator Dill's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore M. Dill, have lived in Fredericktown since 1908. The elder Dill, who owns 223 acres in one farm in Wayne Township, served two terms as commissioner of Knox County from 1911 to 1915. He farmed up until the time he removed to Fredericktown. Senator Dill, born Sept. 21, 1884, on a farm five miles from Fredericktown and after attending country school and graduating in 1901 from Fredericktown high school, worked his way through Ohio Wesleyan University. In his reminiscences he tells of his struggles to obtain an education, sweeping out the assembly hall and waiting tables at Delaware, washing windows and going out into the country on Saturdays to husk corn and perform other manual labor. During the summers of 1905 and 1906 he worked as a conductor on the Wade Park, Detroit, and Euclid Beach street cars in Cleveland and one summer he sold stereopticon views through Knox and adjoining counties. He did reportorial work on the Cleveland Plain Dealer, also on the Cleveland Press and it was at this time he came under the influence of Mayor Tom L. Johnson. "From him I learned more politics than from all other men combined," said Senator Dill in telling of his Cleveland experiences. After leaving Cleveland in 1907 he went to Spokane, Wash., where he worked for a year on a morning newspaper, taught school, studied law and having been admitted to the 394 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO bar became assistant prosecuting attorney. He became private secretary to Governor Lister of Washington, was elected to Congress, was defeated for re-election, but two years later was again elected to Congress and in 1922 was elected to the United States Senate, the first Democrat from Washington State to be chosen to that office. He was re-elected in 1928. Senator Dill, in 1927, was united in marriage with Miss Rosalie Jones of New York, noted suffragist and political campaigner, who, with Miss Elizabeth Freeman, campaigned over Ohio during the summer of 1912, preaching the gospel of "votes for women" and early in 1913 lead a suffrage march 166 miles from New York to Albany, bearing a suffrage message to Governor Sulzer. In January of the following year she lead another hike to Albany in the same cause. An interesting event in Fredericktown Dec. 27, 1930, was the celebration by Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Dean of the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding day. More than 150 people were present. Five who witnessed the wedding in 1870 were still living. Decorations from three nations have been received by Miss Grace McClelland of near Fredericktown for service as a nurse during the World War. Out of 21,480 nurses enrolled during the World War, of whom more than 10,000 saw active service in France, Miss McClelland, head nurse in a department of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, was one of three in January, 1931, to receive the American distinguished service cross from the War Department. The official citation says : "For extraordinary heroism in action while on duty with the surgical team at British casualty clearing station, No. 61, British area, France, Aug. 17, 1917. She occupied the same tent with Miss Beatrice H. McDonald, another reserve nurse, cared for her when wounded and stopped hemorrhage from her wounds while under fire caused by bombs from German airplanes." Joining the Johns Hopkins unit, Miss McClelland, saw service in the America ambulance hospital, near Paris before the United States entered the war. Later she was loaned to the British forces. Her record shows that in hazardous duty where the schedule called for only thirty-six hours of continuous duty, she was kept on duty near the front lines constantly for eleven weeks. In addition to the distinguished service cross, this Ohio woman received the British Red Cross medal of honor and the French croix de guerre. One of her brothers, Rev. Stewart McClelland of Monroe, Mich., was chaplain HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 395 on the U. S. S. Arkansas during the war and two other brothers, George and Raymond, are farmers west of Fredericktown. In a rich valley in Wayne Township more than a century ago, Cromwell Newcomer started a settlement which was called Newcomerstown and later Green Valley. A union church was established there in 1845. The village is no longer there but the name is perpetuated in the Green Valley rural school which Mrs. Alta Stump teachers. On the Green Valley- Road is the farm of J. W. Fravel, one of the master farmers of 1930. Of his farm of 204 acres, 160 are under cultivation. He has a dairy herd of about forty pure bred Holsteins, feeds out about 100 hogs and 160 lambs each year and his poultry flock numbers around 400. He is actively connected with a number of farm and community organizations. Mrs. Hazel Auten teaches the Dean rural school ; Miss Blanche Thompson, the Dorema school; Mary Simmons, the Lucerne school and Ray Ruhl, the Salem school. DANVILLE, BRINKHAVEN, UNION TOWNSHIP. Villages of Union Township are Danville, population 764 ; Gann, more generally known as Brink Haven, population in 1930, 277 ; and Millwood, south of Danville, on routes 205, 95 and 19. George Sapp, Sr., 125 years ago entered the first piece of land in this township, which at the time of its organization in 1808 included the territory of what afterwards became six townships and parts of two others. It has almost every variety of soil and some very picturesque scenery. In the northeast portion is the Mohican River ; in the southwest part flows the Kokosing and another stream in the southern part is the Little Jelloway. Among the early settlers besides the Sapps, were the Baughmans, Welkers, Robinsons, Rightmires, Durbins, Spurgeons, McMillens, Hibbits, Logues, all of whom settled before 1814. One of the Welkers, Martin, became Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, served in Congress and became judge of the United States Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Dr. Charles Waddle was an early physician at Danville. In 181213 Robert Griffin built the first grist mill in the township several years after the first road was cut from Coshocton to Mt. Vernon. In 1815 John Greer built a mill on Jelloway Creek. Settlers from Pennsylvania and Maryland flocked into the township after the War of 1812. Jonathan Sapp and Robert Waddle laid out the village of Dan- 396 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO vine in 1815 or 1816. The first postmaster was E. R. Sapp and William Critchfield was the first tavernkeeper. Millwood, on the Kokosing, was named for an old mill in the dense forest. John Hawn, who built the first grist mill there and John Welker, who was also merchant and postmaster, kept the first tavern. Rossville, one and one-half miles south of Danville, was laid out about the time the C. A. & C. was built. In the fall of 1880 Buckeye City was laid out by J. C. Tillton, midway between Danville and Rossville. Rossville is no more and Buckeye City since 1923 has been a part of Danville, where in 1909, a new high school building costing $28,000 was finished. W. B. Edgerley is superintendent of the Danville schools; principal, A. B. Parker, and the other teachers are D. F. Senft, Gertrude Durbin, W. H. Miley, Lillian Hopkins, G. K. Workman, Bernadette Durbin, Constance Hammerstein, Cora Keys, Estella Miller, and A. H. Wheeler. Teachers of the three Union Township rural schools are : Chestnut Ridge, Mrs. Grace Busenburg; Tiger Valley, Dorothy Sapp ; and Oak Hill, Florence Blubaugh. The Danville village officials are : Mayor, T. R. Neldon ; clerk, John G. Rice ; treasurer, Walter Cooper ; marshal, William Baugher; members of council, W. S. Beeman, Ralph Hagans, George Mowery, A. B. Parker, C. V. Banbury and Oscar Shaw. There are four rural mail routes out of Danville. Cashier of the Commercial & Savings Bank Co. is E. J. Wander, and cashier of the Danville Bank is R. W. Rice. The village has splendid churches. The settlement at Brink Haven was formed in 1838 by John Hibbits, who built the first house there. Isaac Means was pioneer store keeper and about 1840 Robert Long built a mill on the Mohican River. It was at one time called Mt. Holly. The name, Brink Haven, was taken about the time the C. A. & C. was completed. When the village was incorporated in 1893, it took the name of Gann. The first mayor was D. C. Cunningham. The present village officials are: Mayor, Dwight Hyatt; clerk, Minnie Sapp ; treasurer, R. T. Fendrick; marshal, C. A. Downing; members of council, N. W. Robinson, E. C. Englehart, William Hunter, C. E. Hibbets, Ed. Shoemaker and C. T. Gardner. Superintendent of the Brink Haven schools is Leland C. Pinkerton and the other teachers are : Leah Funck, Fern Fendrick, C. F. Stout, Lorna D. Hyatt and Pearle McClary. Mrs. Zora McMillan of Dan- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 397 ville is teacher of the Millwood rural school. The Brink Haven school has a tract of three acres as a playground. CENTERBURG, HILLIAR TOWNSHIP. The town of Centerburg, Hilliar Township, has a population of 761. It is on the CCC Highway, the C. A. & C. (Pennsylvania), and the T. & O. C. (New York Central lines). Surveyor Edson Harkness platted it in October, 1830—more than a century ago—and Stephen Sutton and Jacob Houck called it Centerburg, it being in the center of the township. Harvey Jones kept the first tavern and store. In the early days when practically all the travel from Lake Erie to Columbus was over the road through Centerburg and stage lines were established, there was great rivalry between the drivers to pull up in front of Jones' tavern with the most passengers and be hailed as knight of the road. About 1834 or 1835, Harvey became the postmaster and his successor was Nimrod Bishop. With the completion of the Mansfield, Sandusky & Newark R. R., now the B. & 0., the stage lines passed. When a road from Pittsburgh through Mt. Vernon to Springfield was projected and survey was made, the village of Hilliar was laid out and named for Dr. Hilliar, original owner of the township, but the road wasn't built and though a grist mill, a store and other shops, and a few houses had been built, the settlement went into decay. Over this route more than half a century ago the Toledo & Ohio Central R. R. was built. Centerburg was incorporated in 1875 and a water works system completed in 1911 at a cost of $20,000. The Centerburg village officials are : Mayor, C. L. Debolt; clerk, E. F. Hoover ; treasurer, Harry Highman ; marshal, L. B. Evans ; members of council, S. Burchard, 0. W. Brown, W. H. McCalla, George Harris, W. M. Hicks and H. H. Keady. The postmaster is H. B. Ramey and R. M. Hasson is publisher of the Centerburg Gazette. Enrollment in the town schools at the close of 1930 was around 500. H. R. George is superintendent ; Paul W. Mengert is teacher of vocational agriculture and the other teachers are : Alfred J. Jordak, Lawrence P. Green, Mrs. Mary B. Green, Martha Dush, Ruth V. Engle, Marian Black, Pauline Hoover, Mrs. Ida Smith, Maude Yarman, Virginia Snyder, Leona Kile, Wanda Frazier and Caroline Tulloss. There are three rural mail routes out of Centerburg.   398 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Homer C. Smith is cashier of the Centerburg Savings Bank Co. Martin F. Hasson, Civil War veteran, who died Dec. 26, 1930, at the age of eighty-six years, was the first ticket agent at the Centerburg station of the Pennsylvania R. R. when the line went into operation in 1873. His service in the Civil War was in the Fourth Pennsylvania cavalry. He was a member of Debolt Post, G. A. R. MARTINSBURG, BLADENSBURG, CLAY TOWNSHIP. Martinsburg and Bladensburg, on state route 206 in the southeastern part of Knox County, are villages of Clay Township. Martinsburg, which is also on route 19, had its beginning in two hamlets, Williamsburg and Hanover, which sprang up with a street dividing them. In 1828 they were consolidated. Clay Township was organized as a separate township in 1825 from part of Morgan Township. Levi Harrod was the first settler. James Pollock erected the first building in Martinsburg. I. D. Johnson had a big store there, bought large quantities of wool, produce and tobacco, carted them to Newark and sent them to the eastern markets. The Martinsburg folk of the early day brought recognition to the community through their enterprise along various lines. Dr. Hervey's institution of learning was an exponent of culture in the region, a postoffice was started when the village was laid out and an agricultural experiment station was started on the S. V. Dodd farm, one-quarter mile from the village, also a public library in the village. The first hotel was run by Solomon Cook, Enos Beckwith had a horse power mill at an early day and 0. Drake was the first blacksmith in the community. The first mill operated by steam power here was run by Slocum Bunker. Earl R. Welker is superintendent of the Martinsburg village school, Viola Wilkins is principal and the other teachers are Ellis Schoner, N. Myrtle Nafzgar, I. M. Snyder, music ; Martha A. Turner, Eleanor Loyd and Samuel R. Little is teacher of Reagh school. Contracts for four bridges between Martinsburg and Millwood on route 19 were awarded in March, 1931, by State Highway Director 0. W. Merrell, to be finished during the present year. Another bridge on route 206 in this section of the county is also to be built during the year. The mayor of Martinsburg is Fred J. Freese; clerk, Vada Blackburn ; treasurer, W. R. McArthur ; marshal, W. L. Rouse ; members HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 399 of council, B. F. Baird, Roy E. Baker, Joseph Breese, Sterl Brown, D. C. Highman and J. F. Shrontz. The population of the village is about 250. Bladensburg, which is more in Jackson Township than in Clay, was laid out ninety-eight years ago by John and Sam Wheeler and Washington Houck. John Wheeler had the first store. Houck had a hotel, a blacksmith shop and later a store, being the first postmaster of the village. In those early days the mail came once a week. Houck walked four miles to Martinsburg for it and for eighteen months' service as carrier received eight dollars. Long before Bladensburg was founded there was a flourishing mill on the Wakatomica. Sam Wheeler had a grist mill about 1816 and S. Brown a sawmill in 1818, in which year Samuel D. Ross started a carding mill. The village of Front Royal, referred to elsewhere, was started on the William Darling farm after a store, blacksmith shop and some houses had been built, doubt arose regarding title, the place was abandoned and it is said there is no sign of the village now. The late Appellate Judge Lewis B. Houck was born in Bladensburg April 19, 1867. Charles W. Colgin is principal of the Bladensburg rural school and the other teachers are C. W. Cottrell and Mrs. Mary Harris. EARLY SETTLERS OF JACKSON TOWNSHIP. When the early settlers came to Jackson Township in the extreme southeast part of the county, they found large numbers of Indians from Upper Sandusky and Greentown there on their semi-annual hunting trips. Through this township, organized Sept. 4, 1815, ran the Greentown-Coshocton Indian trail which the settlers used for roads. There are numerous large hills in the southern part and several streams including the Wakatomica and Jug Creek. Robert Eaton, first settler in the township, but who later moved away, used to tell how as a soldier he helped to suppress the whisky insurrection. He said he had often seen General Washington. When David Meelick came in August, 1810, and bought land for two dollars an acre, his only neighbors, except Robert Eaton, were Delaware Indians. Peter Fry, a soldier at St. Clair's defeat, recalled many Revolutionary events and said that he had frequently talked with General Washington. Another early settler was John Donahey. One of John Chap-man's largest tree nurseries in Coshocton County was not far away