Week 7: Logan County

This week, I traipsed around Bellefontaine in Logan County, Ohio, searching for Manumission records. Logan County was founded in 1818 and is named after Revolutionary War Colonel Benjamin Logan. Bellefontaine is the county seat as well as the largest city in Logan County.

Flags of Logan County, Ohio, and America.

Logan County Courthouse.

Pineapple fountain in front of the courthouse.

Bellefontaine is also home to America's shortest street, McKinley Street, and America's first concrete street, Court Avenue. Although cars are no longer driven down Court Avenue, it is still well-maintained by the City of Bellefontaine.

America's oldest concrete street, Court Avenue.

My first stop in Logan County was to the Recorder's office to search the deed records from any bills of sale or freedom papers.

Exterior of the Logan County Office Building which houses the Recorder and the Auditor's offices.

Interior of the Logan County Recorder's office.

I searched through a multitude of indexes from 1818 until 1863 and saw some interesting things. A man named Job Davis had sold land to "Nobody," Simon Kenton sold and acquired different lands, and I saw a man with the last name Starbuck buying and selling a lot of land. Unfortunately, there were no Manumission records to be found at the Recorder's office, so I made my way to the Logan County Library.
Libraries are always great sources of information no matter what you're looking for. Like most of the libraries that I have visited, the Logan County Library has a genealogy/local history research room. Anyone can do research in it, all you have to do is check in at the desk and they will unlock the door for you. Two employees set me up in the room and provided a lot of African American historical files for me to go through to help in my journey. An interesting item they had was a photocopied book titled, "Register of Black, Mulatto and Poor Persons in Four Ohio Counties 1791-1861." This book was great as it had a lot of names of freed Blacks in Logan County that I could use in my search.

Book cover from Logan County Library.

Another interesting item they had was a newspaper clipping reporting that freed Blacks living near the Indian Lake area had been stricken with malaria. It seems that one John W. Warwick of Amherst County, Virginia, freed 300 of his slaves in 1850, bought land for them near Indian Lake, and gave them enough supplies for a year. The land that Warwick purchased, however, turned out to be infested swamp land. The article states that one-sixth of the population at the Indian Lake settlement contracted malaria and "died within a short time."

Newspaper article from the Logan County Library.

While the article gave me the name of an emancipator, John W. Warwick, I still had no actual Manumission or Emancipation records. I decided to head to the Logan County Historical Center.

Logan County Historical Center, Bellefontaine, Ohio.

The Logan County Historical Center is a museum, archive, and genealogy center all rolled into one. While waiting for the archivist to take me to the archives, I walked around the museum and found a room dedicated to the Underground Railroad and the Logan County Abolitionists who helped Blacks escape slavery in the south. The docents were all incredibly friendly and knowledgeable, I highly recommend going!
The archives are located on the second floor, with the genealogy room across the hall. I was able to search through a township journal and a common pleas docket, but names continued to elude me. I did learn that Logan County had a Free Black and Mulatto Registry that was microfilmed and the original stored at Wright State University's Special Collections and Archives, so I will be going back there shortly to view the original document.
So that's all I have for this week. I hope you all enjoyed and tuned for next week when I revisit the Champaign County Clerk of Courts office and Wright State University for the Free Black and Mulatto Register of Logan County.
Thanks, and be good!