250 and Counting

Category: Ohio History

  • Abraham Shepherd–August 13, 1776

    Cover art for August 13, 1776: logo for the Ohio House of Representatives, whose basic design hasn't changed in many years.

    Abraham Shepherd hails from Shepherdstown, West Virginia, but when he was born it was Mecklenburg, Virginia.

    As near as I can put it together, there were originally two large tracts of land belonging to Shepherd families; one was over 200 acres and the other was a 750-acre plot of mostly farmland.

    In 1776 there were five Shepherd brothers, whose father, Thomas, died in 1776. John Shepherd, one of those five, moved to Wheeling Creek (Ohio, not WV), then Limestone Kentucky, then Red Oak, which was in Adams County, about 50 miles east-southeast of modern-day Cincinnati.

    Meanwhile, back in Mecklenburg, the town changed its charter and, in 1798, extended its corporate limits and changed its name to Shepherdstown, likely to honor Thomas Shepherd. Thus, in 1862 when the trans-Alleghany Virginia counties voted to secede from Virginia and become their own state, Shepherdstown was instantly one of the oldest towns in the state. That vote was challenged, and in 1866 the US Congress passed a resolution recognizing the transfer. Ultimately in 1870 the Supreme Court decided in West Virginia’s favor. Maryland also had something to say about who owned some of that land, which is why West Virginia has that peculiar hook in the northeast corner, but again the Supreme Court sided with West Virginia.

    Last week, a Maryland legislator put forth a bill that would secede the Eastern Shore of Maryland from the rest of the state, but he somehow also included a county from Delaware and the part of Virginia that’s part of the Delmarva Peninsula and separated from the rest of the state by the Chesapeake Bay. How counties in three different states could become their own state, and whether the potentially affected counties in those states actually feel about such a move, is not known. I suspect that it’s largely a performative action on his part to protest gerrymandering, and he’s right in that many of Maryland’s districts have ridiculous shapes. But these days it’s much more complicated to just break away from another state, for political and fiscal reasons.

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  • Philemon Beecher–March 19, 1776

    Cover art for March 19, 1776: Gravestone of Philemon Beecher. via findagrave.com.

    Philemon Beecher is an unusual name (said the guy named Claude Call, sigh), but that’s on us for not recognizing it as a name from the Bible. Philemon was a man to whom the apostle Paul wrote while in prison. He was in prison more than once, but it’s not entirely clear which stretch Paul was doing when he wrote it.

    Philemon was a leader in the Colossian Church, and Paul’s letter—one of a very few that scholars generally agree was actually written by Paul—touches on themes of reconciliation, forgiveness, and Christian fellowship, addressing themes of slavery, freedom, and ethical conduct within the Roman social context. While it doesn’t explicitly condemn slavery, it reframes master-servant relationships in spiritual terms, highlighting the moral and social transformation encouraged within early Christian communities.

    But I digress. Philemon Beecher was a successful attorney and a semi-successful politician who was one of Ohio’s first House members once Ohio became a state. Beecher also got married in 1803, so that was a pretty good year for him. He was one of ten children, one of whom died at the age of three and who coincidentally was also named Philemon Beecher. They recycled that name two years later! Some of his other siblings also died relatively young but they had reached adulthood.

    I don’t imagine he had an especially distinguished political career, given that I couldn’t find an image of him in any of my usual haunts. What’s more, I couldn’t ascertain whether he and his wife Susan had any children, though it appears the answer to that is “no.” Nevertheless, he remained a prominent citizen as an attorney and member of the board of the Lancaster, Ohio Bank. He also participated as a member of The Colonization Society in Lancaster, a group dedicated to repatriating Black people back to Africa as an alternative to slavery.

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