I thought Disunion Averted would be straightforward. Union City, Indiana was on one side of a state boundary and Union City, Ohio was on the other. Fortunately I could search on the Indiana location because the town in Ohio kept generating false positives. Search engines wanted to point me towards the City of Union instead.
Thus we had Union City and the City of Union, and just 36 miles (58 kilometres) between them. However, don’t forget about Union County either, about 90 miles (145 km) to the east. I started getting a headache. My older son, when he was younger and not quite in command of the English language, used to say “I’m so infused!” Yes, I agree, this is a very infusing confusing situation.
Ohio seemed to be a unifying place. Naturally I wondered whether her borders nurtured other unions. A quick trip to the USGS Geographic Names Information System confirmed my theory. We should not confuse Union City with the City of Union or Union County or Uniontown or Unionville or West Union for that matter. They were all distinctly different places.
Then I eyeballed an optimal route and figured that a determined individual could probably hit all six major Unions in under ten hours. This could also form the basis of a great Traveling Salesman Problem exercise like The Full Grassley. Maybe someday I’ll revisit the issue and examine it from that perspective. Perhaps then I’ll calculate an optimal round trip. Or maybe not.
Nonetheless, I still wanted to make sure I could separate each of the Ohio Unions in my mind. So I examined them in a little more detail.
Union City (1849)
I talked about Union City already. “Union” means a joining together, and in this case a village arose where five railroads converged [link no longer works].
“The Dayton and Union railroad, coming from the east, reached its destination Christmas day 1852, and was the very first railroad to reach this location in the wilderness. A few days later, the Bee Line from Indianapolis reached the state line from the west… The east part of the Bee Line coming from Bellefontaine, reached here in perhaps July, 1853… The Panhandle (now Pennsylvania Railroad) from Columbus to the state line was finished in 1856. The part from here to Logansport… was pushed to completion in 1867 under the title of Union and Logansport.”
That’s a lot of union.
City of Union (1816)
Most residents of the City of Union shortened the name to Union (without City) for general purposes, as if it were the only Union that mattered. I discovered the names of the individuals who named it Union upon its establishment — Daniel Razor and David Hoover. However, I never learned why they did it nor what they hoped to unify.
Union County (1820)
Union County, on the other hand, provided an easier explanation. The Ohio Legislature cobbled the county together from parts of several other counties. From the History of Union County, page 95:
“Be it enacted, etc., that so much of the counties of Delaware, Franklin, Madison and Logan, and also so much of the territory within the limits of this state laying north of the old Indian boundary line as comes within the following boundaries, be and the same is hereby erected into a separate and distinct county, which shall be known by the name of the county of Union.”
Uniontown (1816)
Well, I couldn’t find much about Uniontown other than it’s part of the Canton–Massillon Metropolitan Statistical Area. Supposedly two stagecoach lines met here and inspired the name. I’m sure someone in the 12MC audience could find a better answer.
Unionville (1798)
Actually, Unionville may have been the most significant, at least historically. Connecticut relinquished much of its western holdings to the Federal government and in return the Federal government assumed the state’s American Revolutionary War debt. However Connecticut held onto a chunk that now forms a portion of northeastern Ohio. Then in 1796 they sold title to their Western Reserve lands to the Connecticut Land Company. Finally they ceded control to the Federal government in 1800.
The settlement of Unionville happened during that time period, circa 1798 and the Connecticut Land Company opened their land office there. Unionville became a gateway to the Connecticut Western Reserve.
The Old Tavern in Unionville (pictured above) dated to that same time period. An historical organization is currently attempting to preserve it for posterity. Preservation Ohio named it one of “Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites for 2013. They noted:
“Established in 1798, the tavern served as a focal point for travelers to the Western Reserve. It remains the oldest tavern in Northeast Ohio and possibly the oldest in the state. In the 1820s the tavern served as a “station” on the Underground Railroad, with ties to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
No, I couldn’t figure out the origin of the Unionville name, either.
West Union (1804)
West Union is the seat of government for Adams County. Ohio History Central said:
“West Union grew very slowly. Several miles away from the Ohio River, the main transportation source during the early 1800s, people bypassed the village. West Union remained isolated even after the advent of the railroad in the 1840s. The community was the only county seat in Ohio to never be connected to a railroad.”
That was a neat piece of trivia! — the only county seat in Ohio to never be connected to a railroad. Feel free to use that one the next time you’re at a cocktail party and need to make small talk.
I never did figure why it was West Union. However, it’s located southeast of Union (the city) and south of Union (the county). It wasn’t west of any of the other Ohio Unions. I guess it’s kind of west of the Unions in West Virginia and Pennsylvania although I couldn’t establish a direct connection to any of those locations. Also, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Western Union either.
This might be a great roadtrip opportunity for the 12MC audience in Ohio.
Leave a Reply