Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Wellsville Historical Society


Tuesday - November 17: The regular monthly meeting of the Historical Society was held at the River Museum located on Riverside in Wellsville. The meeting was presided over by Society President Robert "Brassy" Beresford.

It was voted on and approved to rename the Victorian Parlor at the River Museum the Mary Clark Room. Mrs. Clark passed away recently. She was a long time and very active member of the Historical Society. She was noted as being one of the foremost and knowledgeable persons providing histories of many of the older homes located in the village.

It was announced that plans are being made for 2010 to have special programs similar to what was done this year. This past summer season well researched programs on the history of bus and trolley transportation, the role the railroad played in our history and the history of the Wellsville school system were some of the programs presented.

Officers for 2010 were nominated and elected. They are President Robert Beresford, V.P. Bonny Beresford, Treasurer Pat Lawrence, Secretary Joan Davidson, Financial Secretary Jim Lawrence and three year Trustee Jeff Weekley. Weekley was in charge of the nominating committee.

Discussion was held on the annual Christmas dinner to be held at the River Museum on December 8. Bonny Beresford is chairing that committee. Members are asked to assist in setting up December 7 starting at 10 A.M.

In going through some old files Brassy Beresford said they came across three pieces of 1800's correspondence addressed to R.C. Watson, Esquire at Mayville, Columbiana County, Ohio. Even after consulting with Bert Dawson it was discovered there are no old maps that show the location of Mayville. If anyone can help in pin pointing a location please let us hear from you.

On the calender for this week it shows that in 1897 the new bell for Central School arrived in town. The total cost for the bell was $325. That's the same bell that is now on display at the River Museum.

The calender also noted that the Pumpkin Flood took place in 1810. In that flood it was noted a large number of pumpkins were seen floating all over the place from the growing fields along the river banks.

Donations received this month included 1943 & 1944 WHS yearbooks from the Bonny Nightengale family. Ruth Barlow donated a collection of wooden hangers from various merchants that use to be in the area. Newspaper clippings of the old Fairs In The Square were donated in memory of Edna Magliore.

Pictured above with Brassy, Lucille Huston provided the program for this month's meeting. Her topic was her over 40 year journalism career. Huston started in newspaper reporting in 1968 and just retired a couple of years ago. Her entire career was with the East Liverpool Review. Among the many interesting memories she related she said when she first started manual type writers were used. Then they progressed to IBM electrics and in 1985 she was the first to use a computer to write up her reports. The changes in newspaper operations over the years are remarkable.

The annual Christmas Dinner is replacing the December meeting. The next regular meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, January 19.


ole nib



7 comments:

Tyroneshoelaces said...

Nib, it took some digging, but I found this: ""The village of Kensington was laid out in 1852 upon the building of the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railroad, being first called Mayville, as a tribute to Samuel May Holland, who had owned the village site. The name Kensington was adopted in 1876.""

I passed it on to Brassy.

************* said...

Ty - Thanks for the info. While I was out yesterday Brassy left a message telling us the same. The correspondence in question was dated 1852. Just out of curiosity where did you find the info?

nib

Tyroneshoelaces said...

Nib,
Check out this link:

http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Columbiana/ColumbianaIndex.htm

It is the History of Columbiana County and Representative Citizens, written by William McCord of Salem, Ohio and published in 1905. It is available online and was uploaded about four years ago.

Fair warning, though.... It is very lengthy and extremely interesting. You will get sucked in for hours :-)

Anonymous said...

What is that website again? I can't get the site to come up. Thanks.

************* said...

I just copied and pasted into the browser bar & it came right up.

Ty was right on. I spent all afternoon skimming the info.

Now you know why I'm behind getting things written up!

nib

************* said...

Oh...it's: http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Columbiana/ColumbianaIndex.htm

nib

Marc said...

there is a link at http://www.oldmapsetc.com/old-maps-ohio-towns.html#Columbiana that has a listing of Maysville (with an "s") in their list of old Columbiana County maps for sale.

Also from a publication titled "
History of Columbiana County, Ohio – Harold B. Barth
Historical Publishing Company 1926"
you can find online at www.genealogypitstop.com/Barth/BarthIII.rtf

"Kensington was platted in 1852 by William Holland and Robert Miller. It was first named Maysville, but this was changed to New Kensington in 1876. Jacon Dutton was the first railroad agent in the town and B. C. Battin the initial hotel keeper, he starting in 1859. The initial church in the township was that by the Society of Friends which was organized by the Rev. James Robertson in 1830. He became its first pastor and the leader of the faction that formed the Free Presbyterian Church when the members differed on the slave question. William Craig, passed away in 1808, was the first person buried in the Friends Cemetery, the initial one so utilized in the township."