Tag: 1840s
Before the canal, Auglaize County’s trade crawled by river. The Miami & Erie Canal changed everything—linking towns like St. Mary’s and New Bremen to national markets, fueling mills, factories, and breweries, and transforming isolated settlements into industrial hubs.
From makeshift courtrooms to $5 tax contracts, Mercer and Auglaize counties built civil government from the ground up. This article traces the counties’ earliest officials, records, and courts—showing how law and order took root in Ohio’s former Indian lands.
In 1843, Mercer County settlers rose up against the State of Ohio, cutting the Miami & Erie Canal reservoir to reclaim flooded farms. This dramatic act of defiance—now known as the Reservoir War—reveals how frontier justice collided with state power in early canal-era Ohio.
Introduction: A County in Time-Lapse It’s a rare privilege in historical work to find a tool that allows you to watch a community being built, year by year. We can piece together stories from letters and land deeds, but to have a series of documents that function as annual snapshots of a society in motion […]
Post offices were the lifeblood of early American communities, often serving as the first and most tangible connection between new settlements and the nation. Guided by the Postal Act of 1792, which prioritized communication for all citizens, the U.S. postal system expanded rapidly, knitting together a growing country (Source: Richard R. John, Spreading the News). Nowhere […]
The historic 1891 St. John Church building in Maria Stein, a sacred edifice that stood for over a century as a commanding spiritual and architectural presence, was gutted by fire on May 29, 2025. This event struck at the heart of a community whose identity has been deeply intertwined with this landmark. As the St. […]
The creation of Auglaize County in 1848 was not a straightforward process but rather a contentious event that revealed the complexities of Ohio’s mid-19th-century political landscape. The new county, directly and indirectly carved from portions of Allen, Mercer, and Putnam counties, sparked heated debates and strong opinions both in the Ohio General Assembly and among […]
The origins of Celina, Ohio, trace back to a pivotal newspaper advertisement published in 1834 and the collaborative efforts of four founding partners. Through legal agreements, careful surveying, and strategic promotion, these men transformed what was once swampy wilderness into the county seat of Mercer County. This account draws on period newspapers, historical compilations, and […]
Post offices were vital to early American communities, often serving as one of the first government institutions in new settlements. They connected rural areas to national and international networks of news, commerce, and communication, helping to knit together the expanding United States during the 19th century (Source: USPS, History of the United States Postal Service). […]
