Before Alliance: New Opportunities, New Outlooks in Ohio 1805-1850

The Alliance Area Preservation Society (AAPS) President Robb Hyde, and friends, will present Before Alliance: New Opportunities, New Outlooks in Ohio 1805-1850, at the Alliance Area Preservation Society's Annual Meeting, Monday, March 25, 2017, at 6:30 p.m., in Rodman Public Library Auditorium. Much of Alliance’s history actually predates the founding of the city. The 1840 census showed that there were over 10,000 people living within the confines of Lexington, Marlboro, Washington, Smith and Knox Townships. The area was filled with homesteads, farms and a scattering of small villages, none with more than a few hundred people. Before there was a town of Alliance there were established businesses, churches and schools. Social and political movements were part of community life, and local residents were leaders in these nationwide movements. Perhaps because of the direction of immigration, this area had much closer ties to Salem on the east than Canton or Massillon to the west; many of those ties involved family, faith, businesses and money. For centuries, Native Americans had revered and valued the area for its exceptional hunting and natural resources. The Haines House stood almost a decade before the first train whistle was heard in the area. Sarah Grant Haines’ father, John Grant, one of the area’s first settlers who started building the home in 1826, was still the owner. Mount Union Seminary had already completed several school years with final exercises. Local women joined over 500 from around the State at the first Ohio Women’s Convention in April 1850 in Salem, Ohio. Marius Robinson and Edward Brooke were instrumental in creating a utopian community on Brooke’s Lair Road farm, one of over 80 Utopian experiments across the nation in the 1840s. Samuel Brooke and Dr. Abraham Brooke, Edward’s brothers, were essential members of Ohio’s abolitionist community. Anna Briggs Bentley, cousin of the Brooke brothers, settled in nearby West Township and her letters tell the story of many families who tried to build a life in Ohio, full of honesty, fear and hope. Rodman Public Library is located at 215 E Broadway St. in Alliance. Free Parking is available. The Alliance Area Preservation Society is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic structures through education, research and documentation. It also owns and operates the Haines House, 186 W. Market St. in Alliance, (www.haineshouse.org) an Underground Railroad site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be offered and a brief membership meeting will precede the program. No registration is needed. For more information, call the Main Library at 330-821-2665.