Mohican canoe adventures began with an inspired idea in 1961

CENTERBURG -- How can a place be long-gone, yet still hanging around?

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally published on Richland Source in 2014.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published on May 11, 2020 by the Ohio History Connection. Richland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites. This story will take a look at a historic pandemic in Ohio. As our lives change to fight COVID-19, this can be a tough topic. Please put this post aside for later if the topic is too heavy to carry at the moment.

On the sweltering and sun-baked weekend that this column is first being published, we can all relate to Knox County famer Harvey Devoe, who began fighting a long battle with drought in July of 1861.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published on May 8, 2020 by the Ohio History Connection. Richland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites.

MOUNT VERNON -- If you've been following History Knox this long, you've probably detected one of my themes: There weren't really any good old days.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published on May 22, 2020 by the Ohio History Connection. Richland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites.

MOUNT VERNON -- Once a month, we feature a pair of vintage cabinet card photographs taken in Knox County which do not have names identifying the people in the pictures.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published on Feb. 12, 2016 by Ohio Memory, a collaborative program of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio. Richland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites.

MOUNT VERNON -- Collaborative journalism is fun, and several readers have jumped into the mystery posted a couple of weeks ago about a person apparently attending a funeral in Mount Vernon, and losing his or her hat in the process.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published on July 1, 2020 by the Ohio History Connection. Knox Pages has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites.

On the sweltering and sun-baked weekend that this column is first being published, we can all relate to Knox County famer Harvey Devoe, who began fighting a long battle with drought in July of 1861.

A vintage postcard preserves a glimpse of one of life's little dramas, but leaves us in the dark about whom it happened to.

MOUNT VERNON -- Once a month, we feature a pair of vintage cabinet card photographs taken in Knox County which do not have names identifying the people in the pictures.

LOUDONVILLE -- In the 1950s the Flxible Company began manufacturing an 11-column cigarette vending machine for the Mercury Vending Company of Cleveland.

The Morris Chapel Cemetery is one of the prettiest and best-kept country graveyards in Knox County. Located on Hyatt Road right off Old Mansfield Road northeast of Mount Vernon, the small cemetery was originally the graveyard for Morris Chapel, which is now a private residence.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the sixth installment in our year-long examination of the adventures of Knox County farmer Harvey Devoe, who kept a diary for the year 1861, which has been annotated and published by historian Alan Borer and is available through online retailers.  The series began on J…

MOUNT VERNON -- Last week, we looked at a souvenir from the 1899-1900 term of Sunny Side School in Monroe Township. The photo of that souvenir caught the eye of reader Aaron James of Pike Township, who has a similar souvenir.

LOUDONVILLE -- Loudonville native Charles Kettering invented the world's first guided missile -- then called a flying bomb -- in 1918, nearly 26 years before the Germans debuted the V-1 flying bomb.

ASHLAND -- Signs were erected and nearly every business in Ashland took out an ad in local newspapers to acknowledge the Ashland homecoming of Col. Robert (Bob) Clyde Springer in late May, 1989.

MOUNT VERNON -- Sue Lindsey of the Black Walnut Holler antique shop in Mount Vernon recently posted a photograph in the Knox Time group on Facebook.

MOUNT VERNON -- This week we debut a new recurring feature which will occupy us for about a year and a half. Once a month, we will be featuring a pair of vintage cabinet card photographs taken in Knox County which do not have names identifying the people in the pictures.

LOUDONVILLE -- The First National Bank of Loudonville once issued legal U.S. currency bearing its, and the town's, name.

GAMBIER -- The Civil War tore the United States apart. Many families and friends were split on ideological lines, some supporting the North, others the South.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth installment in our year-long examination of the adventures of Knox County farmer Harvey Devoe, who kept a diary for the year 1861, which has been annotated and published by historian Alan Borer and is available through online retailers. The series began on J…

LOUDONVILLE -- Louis Bromfield, local author and conservationist, was well known for hosting Hollywood elites at his farm, but he was also close friends with many literary figures.

SPARTA -- Back when I used to labor away in the news mines at the Mount Vernon News, I always enjoyed the assignments of covering small-town festivals. All you had to do was show up, observe, get a picture, and then drive — slowly — back to the newsroom.

MOUNT VERNON -- A. Banning Norton's History of Knox County, Ohio, from 1779 to 1862 Inclusive is a storyteller's dream and a historian's nightmare.

LOUDONVILLE -- In 1948, Eugene "Jeep" Allerding, of Loudonville, suddenly fell ill from a severe attack of the polio virus.

Ask any old timer about life in Fredericktown and Fink's drugstore will surface sooner or later. The store, located at 115 North Main Street, was a local fixture for many years, run by Charles F. Fink and later by his son, Norman.

LOUDONVILLE -- In early January, 1949, the majority of residents in Loudonville fell violently ill. Over 225 students alone were absent from schools with an unknown sickness, but the illness affected nearly all ages in the community.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth installment in our year-long examination of the adventures of Knox County farmer Harvey Devoe, who kept a diary for the year 1861, which has been annotated and published by historian Alan Borer and is available through online retailers. The series began on J…

MOUNT VERNON -- Browsing the Knox Time collection of photographs on Facebook, I noticed a picture that had been posted asking for estimations of the date.

MOUNT VERNON -- Viral epidemics come and go, with one occasionally becoming such a nuisance, it effectively shuts down the world for a while.

What do stories matter? In a world where we're busy trying to head off contagion and its associated economic problems, maybe stories don't seem so important.

LOUDONVILLE -- If you were a fan of crossword puzzles in the 1960s, and found yourself stuck on such ambiguous definitions as "Dickens character," "African boat," "oleoresin" and "Peleg's father" you had Loudonville resident George Frank to thank for your misery.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third installment in our year-long examination of the adventures of Knox County farmer Harvey Devoe, who kept a diary for the year 1861, which has been annotated and published by historian Alan Borer and is available through online retailers. The series began on Ja…

LOUDONVILLE -- One Loudonville neighborhood was once -- and occasionally still is -- referred to as Black Town. Despite what many may think, this designation was not derived from the skin color of its inhabitants, nor the color of the soil ... but rather from the passing trains.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Part II of a series that began last week at this link.

ASHLAND -- Thomas C. Vanosdall, Sr. was born on July 19, 1911, here in Ashland. He was the son of Charles and Maude Burns Vanosdall.

MOUNT VERNON -- Whether it's a matter of choice or fate, some people collect drama the way others collect knick-knacks.

MOUNT VERNON -- Valentine's Day, 1910, was a heart-breaker for Mount Vernon.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a gradually unfolding series of articles about the ancient prehistory of the area. Later articles will look at the Native American residents of Knox County around the time that white settlers moved into the region. Part 1 published on Dec. 29, 2018. Part 2…

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second installment in our year-long examination of the adventures of Knox County farmer Harvey Devoe, who kept a diary for the year 1861, which has been annotated and published by historian Alan Borer and is available through online retailers. The series began on J…

CENTERBURG -- One of the hazards of historical research is what I call “The BS Factor.” Back in a time when it was not so easy to cross-check information, stories sometimes ended up in print that had no factual basis whatsoever.

Henrietta "Jennie" Bull Culver was born in 1846 to Thomas and Sarah Bull (who lived in the beautiful brick home next to the fountain in Central Park).

MOUNT VERNON -- Most of the hamlets of Knox County have histories that stretch back well into the 1800s. Not Artanna.

Dick Cox was born July 25, 1928. He grew up in Mansfield's Woodland neighborhood, graduated from Mansfield Senior, and earned an appointment to West Point. He was last seen Jan. 14, 1950, when he was just 21 years old. No one really knows what happened to him after that night.

LOUDONVILLE -- Before the dawn of the automobile era, everyone relied heavily on horses for transportation.

MOUNT VERNON -- There's an old saying that says some things never change. The weather's not one of them, though, for if this winter continues like it has the last few weeks, we won't see the exact accident described in this column reenacted any time soon.

PERRYSVILLE -- In 1854, Perrysville and surrounding Green Township were home to no less than nine commercial distilleries.

In the fall of 1987, Alan Borer, a recent college graduate with an interest in rural history, was browsing at a flea market in southeastern Ohio. At one table, he picked up a small, leather-bound volume. It was a diary kept by Knox County farmer Harvey Devoe (1828-1914) in 1861.

LOUDONVILLE -- Loudonville was once the home to one of America's most beloved comedy acts, the Madge Kinsey Players.

MOUNT VERNON -- Whether in its modern incarnation or one of its earlier versions, the Curtis Hotel has dominated the square in Mount Vernon for over 140 years.

August Imgard, of Wooster, was once widely credited as the first person to bring the Christmas tree to America.

LOUDONVILLE -- Loudonville High School once had an Audio/Visual Club that operated a local cable channel for the Loudonville community.

MOUNT VERNON -- Cars are so common today, it's easy to forget that even though they were invented in the late 1800s, it was still quite a while before they became common.

Loudonville's history is built upon the ashes of many tragic fires, such as that of 1901, when nearly half of downtown Loudonville was reduced to rubble.

Everything is connected.

In 1972 the Mohican Historical Society revealed plans for the construction of a historical museum in Loudonville.

MOUNT VERNON -- Not a lot of people know that one of the founding fathers of Mount Vernon was a black man.

ASHLAND -- Jeanne Griffin doesn't recite Loudonville's history from a book. The 94-year-old volunteer at the village's Cleo Redd Fisher Museum has lived it since 1939 when her family moved to the area from Connorsville, IN. 

LOUDONVILLE -- On April 15, 1912 (the same day the RMS Titanic sank), Loudonville hosted famed orator -- and former three-time Democratic nominee for President -- William Jennings Bryan.

In the surviving photo, Henry Fawcett stands at the door of the Pipesville post office — the only commercial building in evidence — as if waiting for something to happen.

UTICA -- A reader recently asked me, “How do you find this stuff?”

The Loudonville area was once home to possibly the world's oldest person. The following was written for the Mansfield Shield and Banner newspaper, and reprinted in the Loudonville Times (Sept. 26, 1901).

BRINKHAVEN -- With the recent onset of bitter cold weather, perhaps now is a good time to reflect on the classic days of summer camp.

Overshadowed by the contributions of Charles Kettering, Loudonville native Robert Bacher was considered one of America's most brilliant minds, who eventually helped bring an end to World War II.

FREDERICKTOWN -- It pays to keep a sharp eye out for potential material for a local history column.

Although Loudonville is now known as the "Canoe Capital of Ohio," it once held the moniker "The Switzerland of Ohio."

LUCAS -- It was the second time I talked to Ellen Bromfield Geld that a chill ran up my back.

Around 1937, Wilbur Corell and his parents opened Corell's Potato Chips in Strasburg, Ohio. The business did well, but Wilbur went off to World War II, and when he returned he settled in Mansfield while his parents and brother continued the family operation.

The last time I did a talk for the amazing 'Elixir Presents' Chautauqua Series in Mount Vernon, members of the audience specifically requested me to look into the infamous murder that happened on the grounds of the Maplehurst mansion in 1905.

Long before America's love obsession with McDonald's and other fast food began, one restaurant chain dominated the Midwest and perhaps the country: Isaly's.

MOUNT VERNON -- No period of Knox County's history was more volatile than the extraordinary period of seven months in 1905 where the county saw five murders, two assaults, a suicide, and an accidental death that made international news.

In 1947, Irvin Mumper introduced Loudonville to the self-serve supermarket when he opened the Red & White store.

DANVILLE -- One of my favorite photographs from the Knox Time collection on Facebook is this one, featuring Dr. David A. Shaffer and his car.

ASHLAND -- Ashland’s original courthouse was used for 75 years after being opened in 1853 at a cost of $20,000.

In 1896, a triple-murder was committed in Pleasant Valley that still lingers with a haunting chill that traditionally arises again this time each year as a true-life Halloween tale -- although it took place in the heat of summer, and with a matching passion.

MOUNT VERNON -- At the Knox County Agricultural Museum, there is a wealth of displays featuring artifacts from rural life.

PERRYSVILLE -- The Mohican area has raised a number of politicians and military officers, but perhaps the highest ranking was a Perrysville native born on Nov. 18, 1835.

GAMBIER -- The first glance might make you blink your eyes. It looks like a little British church from long ago, inexplicably dropped down on a Knox County hill surrounded by cornfields and woods.

One gold mine for these columns has been the excellent collection of community photos housed at the Knox Time page of Facebook.

Reader David McKay recently alerted me to a little-known historical incident from the Civil War.

MOUNT VERNON -- A couple years ago, I was with a group of friends visiting Gallia County, Ohio.

There's nothing better than poking around in small town museums.

ANKENYTOWN -- I had a great time Thursday night talking to folks at the Butler Historical Society. Their president, Lonnie Beveridge, invited me to come talk to them about Ankenytown, which I have written about here previously.

MOUNT VERNON -- What is it about humans that makes us gawk at anyone different? And if the difference is different enough, it can become fodder for not just a proverbial, but a literal freak show.

LOUDONVILLE -- In 1818, War of 1812 veteran Isaac Wolf came to Ashland County and settled on 160 acres in the northwest quarter of section 25 of Green Township.