Two Lane Adventure to Ohio – Sunday, May 19th 2019

We enjoyed a pancake breakfast, courtesy of the Band Boosters and a church service in Hunter Hall (focusing on Numbers 22:31 – Open My Eyes Lord). After the service, the state staff had more door prizes to hand out. We won a hanging plant and Charlie gave it to Jan Tedrow, before I could kill it.

We departed the Coshocton Fairgrounds on Route 36E. We traveled this route several times on our tours at the Ohio Good Sam’s Rally. We passed these oil tanks, but never noticed the saying stenciled on them. “American Soil. American Oil.” That basically says it all!

I love these metal city signs that many towns in Ohio have. It gives you a little glimpse into the history of the town or a famous person. Can you believe that in 1836, there was someone that was considered a landscape artist? I would have associated that with more modern times. Oh wait, are they saying he painted landscapes? Got it now ….

Port Washington was a bustling city and major port on the Ohio-Erie Canal - until 1852 and the arrival of the railroad in Millersburg and Baltic. Use of Port Washington Road waned even more after a flood destroyed the canal's usefulness in 1913. The road was designated as "Road Number 20" by the State of Ohio on February 6, 1832 making it the first official state road.

In the 1800’s and early 1900’s the Ohio & Erie Canal which ran from Lake Erie at Cleveland to the Ohio River in Portsmouth, played a vital role in meeting the shipping and transportation needs of early Ohioans. At the time, the Village of Tuscarawas was known as “Trenton” and lock 15 & 16 acted as important loading and shipping points to the commerce opportunities located throughout the rest of Ohio. Residents named the county and town after a Native American word meaning “open mouth” referring to the rivers in the area.

Among the first white residents of the county were Moravian missionaries, who sought to convert members of the Delaware natives. The missionaries established the villages of Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten to carry out their work. Schoenbrunn Village is the site of several Ohio firsts—settlement, church, schoolhouse and code of laws. It was founded in 1772 as a Moravian mission among the Delaware Indians, was the first Christian settlement in Ohio.

The village was established by David Zeisberger, who in 1772 found a rare pocket of neutrality in a region that was tense as the American Revolution approached. Five Indian families and Zeisberger came to the Tuscarawas River area to find a suitable site for a mission, upon an invitation of the Delaware Indian leader Netawatwes to establish a mission in the Ohio country. The village established the state’s first civil code and built the first schoolhouse. Toward the end of its short, five-year history, the villagers were harassed from both sides: the American Indians, who were under the influence of the British, and the American frontiersmen, who were pushing their way farther into the Ohio country. By 1777, pressured by the opposing forces, the villagers chose to abandon Schoenbrunn. Upon leaving, they ruined the meetinghouse so it could not be used again.

New Philadelphia Ohio is most famous of the Schoebbrunn Settlement, but there is a Victorian style house in town that is trying to make its mark. I have never seen so many different styles and types of statues in one yard that were not for sale! The color of the turret in both pictures is unique too!

I found an old picture, on Pintrest, and the previous owners had several statues and fountains too, but they were more Grecian in style.

We transitioned onto Ohio Route 39 E then onto 9 N. In Carrollton Ohio, we passed by the Carroll County Arts Center building and the fence instantly attracted my attention. 

Each fence slat is a different member of the community, unique and different. Some are people, some are animals and some represent a cause. I think this fence embodies their philosophy, “Art for Everyone.” What do you think?

Just on the edge of downtown Carrollton, we pulled over to let about 100 motorcycles pass. There must have been a poker run somewhere. The coolest thing about pulling over and letting them pass, was an old car was traveling in the opposite direction. As, it passed there was a motorcycle almost the same color … the old and the modern … together.

In Augusta Ohio, we were still traveling on OH Route 9 and we came across another piece of “Mail Pouch” advertising. In an earlier blog, this month I talked about another Mail Pouch Barn advertisement, we had seen in Ohio. However, this is the first time I have seen it advertised on a building. But, in doing my research, I see that they did advertise that way too.

In Hanoverton Ohio, we turned onto the Lincoln Highway. The marker here was for the Mansion House Hotel. The building was erected here in 1844 and burned down in 1918. The Lincoln Highway in Ohio combines history that predates Ohio's statehood with how America changed and grew with the advent of automobile travel from 1913 onward. Many of the original signs, monuments, and painted telephone poles that initially marked the route can still be seen today. During the 1840s, Hanoverton once hosted the Sandy and Beaver Canal with barges of goods towed at mule speed. Hanoverton also has a breathtaking, 1840s' housing development much like those in Georgetown or Williamsburg. The towns along the route exemplify Lincoln Highway's best-known slogan, "Main Street Across America," with their tree-lined streets, magnificent courthouse, and historic business district. We have traveled on the Lincoln Highway before, just not in Ohio.

Coxswain Robert B Wood was a Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient. He served as a Coxswain in the Union Navy. His citation reads "Attached to the USS Minnesota and temporarily served on the USS Mount Washington during action against the enemy in the Nansemond River, 14 April 1863. When the USS Mount Washington drifted against the bank and all men were driven from the decks by escaping steam following several successive hits which struck her boiler and stopped her engines, Wood boarded the stricken vessel and, despite a strike on the head by a spent ball, continued at his gun for six hours as fierce artillery and musketry continued to rake her decks." He was reinterred from Columbus State Hospital Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio in June 1998 to the Grove Hill Cemetery, Hanoverton, Ohio.

Coming into Niles Ohio, the first thing you notice is the bright orange sign, you certainly can’t miss it!

The second thing you notice is the 20-foot-tall sculpture titled “The Steelworker.” He has stood at the entrance to Niles Iron and Metal Company’s scrapyard on state Route 46 in Niles. The sculptor, Sidney Rackoff, was 74 years old when he created the sculpture. It took him over a six-month period at the scrap-metal company’s maintenance shop, finishing it in 1993. Like much of his work, Rackoff made the piece out of scrap he found at the business. He was a steel worker at Youngstown Sheet & Tube when he was in his 20s. At about age 50, he was ordained a rabbi and served in several cities until he was 83. He took up art at age 60 and created more than 70 major pieces of art, some of which are permanently displayed at buildings in the region.

The third thing you notice is the National McKinley Birthplace Memorial. On March 4, 1911, President William Howard Taft, authorized Congressional funding for a national memorial to be located in the town of McKinley's birth: Niles, Ohio. The same act of Congress had also officially established the National McKinley Birthplace Association. Association President Joseph G. Butler, Jr., who had been a childhood friend and schoolmate of McKinley, began a $100,000 local campaign to raise funds for the Memorial in 1912. The cornerstone of the Memorial was laid on November 20, 1915, and an inscribed plaque on it read "Erected 1915. To Perpetuate the Name and Achievements of William McKinley, Twenty-fifth President of the United States of America. Born January 29, 1843. Died September 14, 1901." The United States Marine Band played "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" (a favorite of Mrs. McKinley's) and "Lead Kindly Light" (reportedly a hymn sung at McKinley's deathbed) after a parade of organizations to which McKinley belonged proceeded down Niles' Main Street.

President William McKinley had been dead for over 16 years when this memorial and museum opened on October 5, 1917. The temple-like memorial features an open colonnade with a 12-foot-tall, 35-ton marble statue of McKinley by sculptor J. Massey Rind. It's surrounded by a "Court of Honor" of bronze busts of other powerful men of 1917, including former Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and future President Warren Harding.

As we drove through Cortland Ohio, we were lucky enough to see a ceremony being conducted at the Veterans Memorial. We learned that past and current servicemen and servicewomen were honored during the Cortland Veterans Memorial Committee's 2019 Armed Forces-Memorial Day Service today. Base Commander Col. Joe Janik of the 910th Airlift Wing was the event's guest speaker. Organizers picked Sunday for the ceremony since it fell between the two holidays.

They can honor both those currently serving and those who have served, and who have lost their lives and those who came home safely. They decided to just to celebrate out of our gratitude to all the veterans that have served. The event was the first Memorial Day observance at the new memorial on South High Street. The committee raised $180,000 through donations to build it.

We continued on OH Route 5, then turned north onto OH Route 193. We took a right onto US 322 E and entered the last town in Ohio, before we enter Pennsylvania. Here we saw a homemade Ohio bicentennial barn. It has some of the same characteristics as the Ohio Bicentennial Barns.

We crossed the Ohio Pennsylvania State Line and quickly arrived at Pymatuning State Park and the Jamestown Campground. This will be our home for three nights.