“The love of music is a strong factor in welding the affections of your children to all that is good, pure and noble … [and] a Boston Piano should be looked upon as a necessity, as valuable to the welfare […]
Pottery by Doylestown native Samuel Routson
Stoneware bowls, pitchers, crocks, and jugs were essential items in the early 19th-century kitchens of Wayne County, and the Historical Society has several fine examples turned out by a local craftsman, Doylestown native Samuel Routson. After serving an apprenticeship with […]
WCHS mourns the passing of Dave Broehl
Like so many others in the community, we are mourning the passing of WCHS board member and past president Dave Broehl, without whom the Wayne County Historical Society truly would not be what it is today. Dave served as president […]
An invention ahead of its time
Wayne County native Hiram Swartz had a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, probate judge, president of the Wayne County Bar Association, and two-term mayor of Wooster (1877 – 1881). He was also an inventor, who devoted almost 30 […]
Rally to the colors!
It’s difficult to overstate the importance a unit’s colors to a Civil War soldier. To capture those of the enemy was the pinnacle of achievement; to lose one’s own, a source of shame. Typically, the national flag and a distinctive […]
Rebecca Beall is home again
When Stefan Dedecek, conservator of paintings at McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory, Inc. in Oberlin, Ohio, examined our oil-on-canvas portrait of Rebecca Johnson Beall in 2017, he found it to be in very poor condition. The painting was obscured […]
A beautifully crafted rifle from Sugar Creek Township
This .36 caliber black powder percussion rifle was manufactured somewhere around 1850. It has a 36-inch, octagonal barrel, dual triggers, brass patch box, and is 51.5 inches overall. On the top of the barrel is stamped “J. M. Myers” while […]
New video documents Juneteenth 2020 march
On June 19, 2020, residents of Wayne County gathered to celebrate Juneteenth as part of the Wooster-Orrville NAACP and Second Baptist Church’s 2020 Juneteenth Liberation March for Black Lives. Several videographers helped WCHS document this historic moment.
Money changes everything
Did you know that prior to the Civil War, banks were allowed to print their own money under the supervision of bank examiners employed by each state? It was an arrangement that often led to fraud or outright theft, leaving […]
Interested in Wayne County geology and archaeology?
Dr. Joseph H. Todd published a fascinating 45-page booklet on the Geology and Archeology of Wayne County, Ohio in 1910 and the Society recently turned this publication into a digital format and made it available for free to read on the Internet Archive. […]