A VIDEO from The Delaware County Historical Society, Inc.
(IRS 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization, Educational in Nature}
"A Year 2000 Community Service Project"
As Reviewed in: The Delaware County News (Delaware Gazette)
September 11, 2000
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A VIDEO from The Delaware County Historical Society, Inc.
(IRS 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization, Educational in Nature}
"A Year 2000 Community Service Project"
As Reviewed in: The Delaware County News (Delaware Gazette)
September 11, 2000
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"400 Million years of county history now available on video
By MARGO BARTLETT
Features Editor
"Covers 400 million years," says a flier promoting the Delaware County
Historical Society's video of county history .
"Delaware County: Making History: One Day at a Time" does cover
400 million years, from the Devonian Period, when the county was covered by
sea water, to such recent projects as the Liberty Presbyterian Church
barn'raising in 1995.
And all in just over 40 minutes.
Historical society members headed by President Sharlene Shoaf, set
several Long-range goals in 1998 in anticipation of two 200-year
anniversaries: the founding of the county's first white settlement on May I,
2001, and Ohio's statehood, March I, 2003 .
One of those goals was to create a history of the county in video format.
It was a big project----members "kind of floundered" at first, said historical
society and video committee member George Cryder -- -but it all began to
come together when Judy Brozek and Jeffrey D. Hamilton joined the effort
The finished video was shown at Chappelear Drama Center on Ohio
Wesleyan University's campus Aug. 22, and is for sale by mail order and at 10
county sites. Cryder calls the videos "stocking stuffers" at $15 each.
About 250 of 1,000 copies have been sold. "We're just getting under
way," Cryder said. Many local residents have bought copies, and about 60
OWU alumni have ordered copies, as have several libraries and historical
societies. He suspects the latter are gearing up for their own state anniversary
celebrations, and want examples.
A copy of the video and an accompanying study guide have been given
to each of the four county school districts and St. Mary Catholic School, said
Marilyn Cryder.
The Cryders praised the "magnificent support" of Brozek and
Hamilton, who molded the video into "a very professional project." A PPG
Foundation grant began the seed money for the project, which also has been
supported by donations from local businesses.
Brozek said she managed the "creative side" of the production and
Hamilton, her husband and vice president of creative at FusionArts in
Columbus, handled the technical side.
FusionArts is credited with video post production in the program given
audience members at the public viewing.
As the video's executive producer, Brozek and writer Doug Price
reworked and polished the script, written originally by George Freshwater and
edited by Marilyn Cryder. Brozek said she added character voices "to make it
educational but also entertaining" and included some "cool stories" for the
same reason.
The result is a production that takes an audience back to millions of
years before the glaciers, through early Indian cultures to the first white
settlement, Carpenter's Landing in Liberty Township. An excerpt of a. letter by
one of those early settlers describes the arduous journey through "Pencilvany
State" to Ohio.
"In the Wilderness, my nearest neighbor was Franklinton," recounts
Prudence Powers. as read by Judi Turley. "There was not one house ...nor
one stick cut down east or west, north or south for 20 miles."
The video goes on to cover the founding of Delaware by Moses Byxbe,
who earlier had founded Berkshire. the story of the Wyandot Indian
Leatherlips, whose memorial is near the Scioto River in Liberty Township, and
the life of Ohio governor and U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.
"We lived in a new two-story brick house opposite the old brick
Methodist meetinghouse. Our garden, grass plot, and barnyard occupied, I
think, two village lots ...about 12 by 16 rods," Hayes, voiced by Tom Sapp,
recalls. Sapp, a narrator, also is the voice of Charles Dickens, who visited
Delaware in 1842 and described his stage coach trip up U.S. 23 in amusing
detail in his book American Notes."
"At one time, we were all flung together in a heap at the bottom of the
coach, and at another, we were crushing our heads against the roof ..." Dickens
wrote ruefully.
Train lines were established. William S. Rosecrans commanded his
Army of the Cumberland to many victories during the Civil War. George
Campbell built what is now the Delaware County Cultural Arts Center, using
blue limestone from the nearby quarry.
Branch Rickey, an OWU graduate who as coach of the OWU baseball
team in 1903 invited black student Charles "Tommy" Thomas to play on the
team, later brought Jackie Robinson, the first black player in the major leagues,
to the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The story of Frank B. Willis, an Ohio senator and governor who died in
1928 of a cerebral hemorrhage in the University Hall office of the OWU
president, also is covered in the video, as is the story of the flood of 1913,
which killed 18 people, washed away 23 homes and destroyed 40 bridges.
Included here is the story of the Frank Melching family, six members of
which drowned in the flood. Two children, Josephine, 12, and Vernie, 7,
survived.
Seven-year-old Sarah Dunnavant read Vernie's account after she was
rescued:"We Were all right till it hit the bridge and then it knocked the whole
end out of the house and threw us out. I was thrown over by a big piece of
timber. I hung onto that and it kept taking me down the river. Finally, I looked
behind me and I saw a big house coming down. I just thought sure I was going
to drown then I looked for papa and mama, but they didn't come by me."
Brozek said all the adult character voices featured in the video are
Delaware County residents. Sarah lives on Hinton Mill Road in Marysville.
"She was a real delight and a good find," Brozek said. She said Sarah's
first reading, at Magnetic Studios in Columbus and scheduled to coincide with
a school field trip, was excellent and would have been enough, but the tape
wasn't running. Her second reading was just as good, she said,
"We got goose bumps," Brozek said.
John Fippin of Magnetic Studios did audio post production and also
reads the part of Ana Thrall, an early settler who wrote about the fear of war
with the Indians in the county --- ('The war.cloud hung over the settlement in
Delaware County, causing anxious days ... and nights of fear... .") Bob North
is the voice of A11an W. Eckert and Branch Rickey. He also is the closing
narrator.
The Delaware County Fair, and the first Little Brown Jug harness race
in 1946 is included, along with F. Sherwood Rowland, a 1948 OWU graduate
who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995,
Numerous Delaware factories are recalled: the Delaware Fence Co., the
Delaware Shoe Factory, and the Delaware Chair Co.
Brozek said Hamilton took all the footage for the production, and she
usually came along.
"We just drove all over the county, just doing this," she said. "We did
have fun."
She said they were uncommonly fortunate in finding appropriate pictures
and documents. Usually a script must be revised to accommodate available art,
she said, but "we did not rewrite anything. We got lucky. It was like magic. ...
(Photo researcher) Maggie Webb helped me tremendously,"
George Cryder said the effort has been a "fun project," not least
because.., " it has put him in touch with a lot of old friends. He recently heard
from a 1955 OWU graduate "who immediately ordered a tape .., and also
thought I was dead and that I was my son."
He said he reassured that caller and others that he was "still around and
kicking."
Video planners wanted to include little-known county history along with
more major events, Marilyn Cryder said.
"We tried to pick up some things that were definitely history, but weren't
as well known," she said, such a Delaware's brief foray into cattle ranching in
1934.
The idea, George Cryder said, is "to inspire us to think about some
of the things that have long gone by."
For more information, call the historical society
at 740=369-3831 or www.midohio.net/dchsdcgs
All proceeds support The Delaware County Historical Society."--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------