Western Ohio was once home to thriving Black communities
Ohio Historian Mary Ann Olding shared her knowledge and efforts to preserve the history of pre-civil War rural Black communities and settlements in Western Ohio. Her virtual presentation was given in partnership with the St. Marys Community Library.
Olding felt history about black settlements she had been taught was inaccurate; her research spans decades of work.
“We have taken a few instances and generalized them across the state — we don’t even know why they came,” Olding said, adding most Black people weren’t runaways. Some arrived and bought land while others had land purchased for them.
Olding said one of her aunts showed her a photo from 1925 of a Carthegena school with multiple Black children. The photo piqued her interest when she began her research in 1980 — she wanted to know more.
Olding said she started researching Carthegena, Van Wert, and Middle Creek along the Miami Erie Canal.
She noted the east window of six stained glass windows in the St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Carthegena depicted Black people with St. Peter Claver, which was
unusual.
Olding said she discovered in her research that Augustus Wattles, a reformer, was responsible for some of the area settlements. Olding said he vowed to find land for Black people to settle on after riots in 1829. He and his family organized schools for Black people in multiple areas in Ohio. Wattles started the Emlen Institute, and played a role in forming a Black settlement in Carthagena. He left the area in 1850 to fight against slavery in Kansas.
She said noticed that in the Carthagena area there were several small frame houses that looked like cabins, which she tied to Black settlements. She found 95 houses in the area and put them on a map. She said in was in 1832 that Black people also started coming into New Bremen and Minster.
In her research into the Carthagena area, Olding looked at court records from 1859 and made a map of all the land owned by Black people.
“I said wow that’s like 10,000 acres,” Olding said.
She did further research with the tax assessors books and saw that it denoted the race of who owned the land. She said 1860s census records also denoted white, Black and mixed races.
She decided to try and find out as much about the early settlers as she could as far as what their jobs were. She researched Gilbert Robinson’s farm, in particular. She also filled out forms with the Ohio Historical Society to mark these areas as historical sites, such as a Black cemetery in Carthegena and Black churches in the area.
She said a church in Rumley close to Mcartyville was used by the Black community. She also found census records from 1859 and 1860 that showed a Black community was active in that area. Olding
also interviewed Doris Bowles, who was friends with her aunts and lived in the area in the 1920s
Olding discussed Ohio’s Underground Railroad trails, which Wilbur Siebert wrote about.
She said several different communities such as the Amish, Quaker, and Black communities were living close together.