In St. Clair Township (Butler County), Ohio, this double-sided marker is at the former location of the Busenbark community that sprang up in the 19th century. The 1867 prize fight mentioned, between Mike McCoole and Aaron Jones, drew in over 3,500 spectators, went 34 rounds, and lasted 26 minutes (things were different back then). The other side commemorates the life of Butler County native Dr.

In Fairfield, Ohio, this marker was the very first in Butler County (the 1-5 in the bottom right corner) and is placed next to a restored portion of the original Miami Canal that linked Cincinnati to Middletown, and eventually Toledo. The work force on the canal consisted mostly of French and German immigrants, who were paid 30 cents per day and provided with food, shelter, and whiskey.

In Reily Township (Butler County), Ohio, this marker is at the location of the former Indian Creek Baptist Church and its associated cemetery. The burial ground was the first to be sold for public burial in the county. The first Baptist church in the area appears in the records in 1800. The great schism in American Baptists in the 19th century was, of course, over slavery, resulting in the more today’s mainline Baptists and conservative evangelical Baptists.

In Xenia, Ohio, this marker is at the suspected birthplace of Tecumseh, the great Native American leader and warrior. Born at a time of upheaval in the Thirteen Colonies, his father was killed in 1774, during Lord Dunmore’s War, his older brother was killed in 1792, fighting American settlers in Tennessee, and his homeland was ceded to the United States in 1795, following the disastrous Battle of Fallen Timbers, in which Tecumseh took part.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, on the Wilberforce University campus, this marker commemorates the tenure of Charles Young at the school. While on staff, Young befriended NAACP co-founder W.E.B. DuBois, who was also on staff at the time. While at Wilberforce, Young purchased a nearby house, which he dubbed “Youngsholm,” that still stands today. It was designated as a national monument in 2013.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker is on the campus of Wilberforce University. Attempts at establishing a college for Black students had been attempted before (namely, in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1830s) but had met extreme local opposition. The university was established here due to the large local Black population, a result of migration patterns and Xenia’s role in the Underground Railroad. In 2006, Wilberforce was named a space-grant institution, meaning that it is a key facility for space-related research and development.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, on the CSU campus, this marker honors former Wilberforce professor Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., the first African American general officer in the U.S. Army. Because of the Army’s racial policies at the time, Davis was typically assigned to duties that were considered less-than-prestigious, such as teaching military tactics at HBCUs, like Wilberforce. Despite reaching retirement age in 1941, he was kept on active duty to inspect black Army units and to advise on racial issues in the Army.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker is just outside the library named after Hallie Quinn Brown on the CSU campus. While president of the National Association of Colored Women in the early 1920s, Brown led the opposition to a monument, proposed by the Daughters of the Confederacy, memorializing the “mammy,” a racist depiction of Black women and a pillar of the Lost Cause myth of an idyllic antebellum South. The monument bill died in the House of Representatives.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, on the CSU campus, this marker is on the site of Galloway Hall, one of the most prominent buildings on the campus. Leontyne Price, one of the performers mentioned who sang at Galloway, was a graduate of CSU, who went on to be one of the leading singers of her day and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.

On this episode, Cody and Steve dive further into the Livingston family as they discuss Robert R. Livingston and whether or not Emperor Palpatine paid income taxes. Sources Benton, Geoff. “The Chancellor’s War.” Friends of Clermont State Historic Site. 9 Jun 2026. < Retrieved 14 Jul 2026. Dangerfield, George. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, 1746-1813. New York City, NY: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1960.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker sits in front of the main offices of Central State University. At the time of its establishment as part of Wilberforce University, post-secondary education was moving away from a solely classical liberal education and towards the teaching of more practical topics, such as agriculture and engineering. The Morrill Act of 1862 provided funding for institutions of this type through the sale of federal land, hence the name “land-grant” university. CSU is a land-grant university under the 1890 Morrill Act, which provided funding for HBCUs.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker commemorates the original campus of Wilberforce University, the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. The old campus is still in use by Central State University, which was split off from Wilberforce in 1951. The university is named for William Wilberforce, a leading English abolitionist in the 18th and 19th centuries (and a founder of the SPCA).

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker commemorates the life of Martin Robison Delany, a prominent Black leader in the 19th century. He was one of the first Black students admitted to Harvard Medical School, in 1850, but was kicked out after a few weeks due to the opposition of white students. Delany also participated in the Colored Conventions in the postbellum period, which were meetings of prominent Black leaders from across the country, the purpose of which was to plan and advocate for community goals.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker is out front of Payne Theological Seminary, one of three post-secondary educational institutions in the immediate area (we’ll get to the others in the next few days). Its namesake, Daniel Payne, was one of the most important people in the development of the AME Church. After the Civil War, he organized missionary work in the South among the newly freed former slaves, expanding membership in the church by over a quarter million.

In Xenia Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker is at the Stevenson Road Covered Bridge, another example of a historic covered bridge that has been restored to its former glory. I’ve visited and posted about similar bridges previously, so I won’t rehash that subject, but instead talk about why historical preservation is important, even for places like this. Everyone and everything have a story.

In Clifton, Ohio, this marker highlights the town’s history as a milling center and hub during the 19th century. The Clifton Mill, still in operation today, draws in crowds from all over the Miami Valley around Christmastime, as the mill is covered in Christmas lights and is a stunning spectacle to see at night. Legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes was from Clifton.

In Miami Township (Greene County), Ohio, this marker sits at the edge of the Clifton Gorge, a geologic feature carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago. During the Wisconsinan Glaciation, which lasted from about 35,000 to about 12,000 years ago, much of Ohio was covered by an ice sheet, with the exception of the southeastern part of the state, where the Appalachian Mountains are.

In Yellow Springs, Ohio, this marker outside the local library is about local author Virginia Hamilton. Her books are staples of children’s literature (The House of Dies Drear is the first mystery book I ever remember reading), and the American Library Association’s lifetime achievement award for African American authors is jointly named for her and Coretta Scott King.

In Yellow Springs, this marker is on the campus of Antioch College, one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African Americans on par with whites as students. Rebecca Pennell, niece of the college’s first president, Horace Mann, was the first female college professor in the U.S. to be on equal pay and standing with her male colleagues.

In Yellow Springs, Ohio, this double-sided marker denotes the life of Moncure Conway and of the colony he established here. Conway himself, despite being from a Virginia slaveholding family and several prominent relatives fighting for the Confederacy, was a leading supporter of the abolition of slavery in the United States. No longer feeling welcome in his home state after the war, he lived abroad, including time in the United Kingdom, where he was an early supporter of women’s suffrage; when he proposed personally endowing a non-denominational women’s college at the University of Oxford, the Church of England quickly financed the establishment of Lady Margaret Hall, the first women’s college at Oxford.

In Bath Township (Greene County), Ohio, on the grounds of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, this marker is next to the Huffman Prairie Flying Field, where the Wright brothers continued to perfect their invention and train the next generation of pilots. Some of the earliest military aviators were trained here, including Henry “Hap” Arnold, the only five-star general in the history of the United States Air Force.

In Bath Township (Greene County), Ohio, the marker is in Huffman Metro Park, near the site of where the Mormons camped during their migration westward. This caravan was composed of some of the poorest members of the church, who could not afford the journey west themselves. After initially starting in New York, the LDS Church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, establishing a temple there.

The only marker in my hometown of Vandalia, Ohio (come on, Ohio History Connection, Vandalia deserves several more), this one is a mile-long hike into the Taylorsville Metro Park at the site of the former village of Tadmor. While an important transportation hub for three major travel-ways, the village was a victim of the Great Flood of 1913. After the flood, several dams were constructed along the Miami Valley’s rivers, including the Taylorsville Dam on the Great Miami River, next to Tadmor.

In Union Township (Miami County), Ohio, this marker memorializes the Hanktown community, formed from the settlement of the former slaves of John Randolph of Roanoke, a cousin of Thomas Jefferson and one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia. Their initial attempt at settlement in Mercer County was thwarted by a violent mob, and so they were turned south into Miami County.

On this episode, Steve and Cody begin a trilogy of Livingstons with Philip Livingston, a scion of Livingston Manor, philanthropist, possible goldfish, and all-around nasty dude. Sources Brandt, Clare. An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons. New York City, NY: Doubleday, 1986. Liao, Sharon. “’A Merchant’s College:’ King’s College (1754-84) and Slavery.” Columbia University, 2015. Wiles, Richard C., and Zimmerman, Andrea K.

In Newton Township (Miami County), Ohio, this marker sits next to the 1804 home of Benjamin Iddings, an early American settler in the area. Originally from Pennsylvania, he came to the area after initially settling in Tennessee, following the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, negotiated by his cousin, General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. The treaty ended the Northwest Indian War that has been going on for the previous decade and ceded much of what is today Ohio to the U.S.

In West Milton, Ohio, this marker notes the life of Charles Furnas, the first passenger on an airplane and the first employee in the aerospace industry. The military plane that the brothers developed for the U.S. Army, the Military Flyer, was based off of their Model A design, and first flew in 1909. The Wrights were paid nearly a million dollars (2026) for the aircraft. Furnas himself is included on the Wall of Honor of aviation pioneers at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

In Union Township (Miami County), Ohio, this marker denotes the location of the first church built in the township, on the grounds of the West Branch Cemetery. The Quaker monthly meeting was just the second to be approved in southwestern Ohio. Quakers would continue to be active in the area up to the present day, and many were participants in the Underground Railroad network, risking their own freedom to assist those escaping slavery to theirs.

In Blue Ash, Ohio, this marker details some aspects of the struggles to keep the black community of Hazelwood going over the 20th century. In 1949, five years before Brown v. Board of Education, Sycamore Local School District was created, which included Hazelwood and several neighboring white communities, creating the first intentionally integrated school district in Ohio. Parents in the white communities attempted to withdraw their students from the integrated system but were stopped from doing so by protests from the black community.

In Kettering, Ohio, this marker is just outside the corporate headquarters of Cassano’s, a Dayton-based chain of pizzerias. The main fare is a St. Louis-style pizza, which is cut into squares and is a bit crunchier and saltier than a regular pizza. At one point in the 1980s, Greyhound (yes, the bus company) bought Cassano’s with the intention of vastly expanding the number of stores and to complete directly with Domino’s.

Outside the Engineer’s Club in Dayton, Ohio, this one commemorates another of the city’s inventors, Charles Kettering. As mentioned on the marker, one of Kettering’s inventions was Freon, with Thomas Midgley Jr. Freon, along with most other chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), are banned worldwide due to their effect on ozone depletion and contribution to climate change. Midgley, while employed by Kettering, also developed leaded gasoline in the 1920s.

In South Salem, Ohio, this marker sits next to Salem Academy, a former educational institution that served the area for nearly 60 years. In rural areas such as this, local churches often took the lead on education. As nearby towns developed and more efficient modes of transportation became widespread, area high schools began to pull away at the academy’s student body, until the academy became unnecessary. Today, the building remains in use as a community center.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker is a bit more unique, in that it’s not freestanding but is instead affixed to the side of a building, the historic Victoria Theater. The theater itself opened in 1866 and is one of the oldest continuously operating theaters in North America. The subjects of the marker, the Schwarz sisters, were patrons and instructors of dance at the Victoria.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker is just outside the Dayton Woman’s Club, established in 1916 as a social club for women in Dayton. Some of its earliest members and patrons were Julia Carnell, who helped found the Dayton Art Institute and the Dayton chapter of the NAACP, and Katherine Haskell, sister of the Wright brothers. Other members supported the suffrage and civil rights movements. Today, the club functions as a nonprofit, running awareness programs and other learning experiences.

In Dayton, Ohio, the marker for today commemorates the life of Sister Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, a Roman Catholic order. While living in Brazil, she advocated for the rights of locals over the economic and social oppression forced on them by large ranchers and corporations, who wanted to take their land. Her murder in 2005 by thugs likely hired by those same ranchers and corporations was a brazen attempt to intimidate others from the same sort of activism, but Brazil has a strong grassroots environmental movement to this day. In 2020, Pope Francis officially declared Stang a martyr, and there are discussions about putting her on the path to sainthood.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker sits at the former location of Henderson’s Printing, one of the foremost Black-owned businesses in the city. The Hendersons’ involvement in education was also profound, with John Sr. teaching at Wilberforce University, the first Black-owned and operated college in the United States, and Mary Esther teaching in the Dayton public school system.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker is outside the home of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the city’s preeminent authors. His play “In Dahomey” was the first on Broadway to be solely written and performed by African Americans. Paul’s wife, Alice, was a poet in her own right, and would be a prominent figure and in the Harlem Renaissance.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker sits in front of the Mt. Enon Missionary Baptist Church. The building was originally the Euclid Ave. United Brethren Church, with the Wright family as parishioners. The building sits only a few blocks away from the Wright family home and the brothers’ bicycle shop. The original stained-glass windows from the 1910s are still in place, despite some modernization of the building.

Across the street from yesterday’s marker, in Dayton, Ohio, this one marks the significance of one of Dayton’s most striking buildings, the Masonic Temple. Most of the construction workers were members of local Freemason lodges, 14 in total. Dayton’s first Freemason lodge was established in June 1809. Freemasonry in Ohio came with the first permanent settlers, led by General Rufus Putnam, in 1788. Today, over 60,000 Ohioans are Freemasons, one of the largest concentrations of the group in any state.

On this episode, Cody and Steve discuss the Eeyore of the Revolution, Francis Lewis. Sources Burlingham, Charles Culp. Francis Lewis: One of the New York Signers of the Declaration of Independence. New York City, NY: New York Historical Society, 1926. See General Sources page for additional sources

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker is outside the Dayton Art Institute, overlooking the Great Miami River. The DAI collection holds over 27,000 objects, including ancient artifacts and paintings by Monet, O’Keefe, Degas, and Warhol. In 2005, it was one of the few galleries to host the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts to ever travel outside the country (which your humble poster had the privilege of seeing).

In Dayton, Ohio, along the Great Miami River, this marker is at the site of McCook Field, an early site of aeronautical research. It was one of the first airfields to have a paved runway, instead of a flat grass runway. The Army Air Service quickly outgrew the tiny airfield, prompting the creation of what is today Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker notes the location of the first game in the nascent National Football League. The Dayton Triangles, one of the NFL’s founding members, had been competing in various pro leagues before the NFL’s inception, winning the Ohio League championship in 1918. After a few seasons in the NFL, the Triangles became less and less competitive, owing to the fact that the team was still largely comprised of local talent, while other teams signed star players from across the country.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker is in Triangle Park, just north of the confluence of the Stillwater and Great Miami Rivers. Site of the first NFL game (more on that tomorrow), the city and the league planned to construct a new artificial turf football field in the park, in honor of the league’s centennial season in 2019, but construction was halted when a lawsuit (and subsequent investigation) revealed that the park may sit atop a prehistoric Native American burial ground.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker is at the entrance of Woodland Cemetery, Dayton’s largest cemetery and the resting place of the most famous Daytonians, the Wright brothers, as well as two people whom I’ve previously posted about, Erma Bombeck and Charity Adams Earley. The founder, John Van Cleve, was the first male child born in Dayton after its founding in 1796. The highest point in the city lies within the cemetery, and it served as a refuge during the Great Flood of 1913.

In Dayton, Ohio, on the campus of the University of Dayton, this marker honors UD grad and Dayton native Erma Bombeck. One of her earliest writing contributions was humor columns in the company newsletter for Rike’s, a former local department store (and a onetime place of employment for my late mother). When Bombeck lived in Centerville (just south of Dayton), she lived across the street from another famous Daytonian, Phil Donahue. Since her death, UD holds a writing workshop in her name every few years and named an educational family learning center after her.

In Dayton, Ohio, just a few feet from yesterday’s marker, is one honoring Daniel Cooper and the park named for him. Cooper’s takeover of the town was an effort to save its existence. Judge John Cleves Symmes (mentioned in a previous post) had purchased the land, with investment from Governor Arthur St. Clair, General James Wilkinson, surveyor Israel Ludlow, and Congressman Jonathan Dayton.

In Dayton, Ohio, this marker sits in front of the Dayton Metro Library, honoring author and poet Natalie Clifford Barney. She was one of the first notable authors to live openly as a lesbian, and hosted a literary salon in Paris, with several notable figures in attendance, such as Jean Cocteau, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, and T.S.