Western Library Association 1804 The Coonskin Library
Inscription
In the years leading to Ohio statehood in 1803, Ames Township citizens decided to establish a stock-owned circulating library. Since cash was scarce during Ohio’s frontier era, some citizens paid for their $2.50 shares by the sale of animal pelts, which were taken to Boston for sale in the spring of 1804 by merchant Samuel Brown. There he acquired fifty-one volumes, primarily books on history, religion, travel, and biography, as the first accessions for the Western Library Association. Senator Thomas Ewing later related that he paid his share with ten raccoon skins, thus suggesting the collection’s popular name “the Coonskin Library.” Judge Ephraim Cutler was the first of many librarians who kept the library until 1861.
[Side B]: Same
Location
Sources
More markers in Athens
Athens National Guard Armory
Athens, OH
In the first years of the twentieth century, Athens’ citizens formed a new National Guard company.
Ohio University Peden Stadium
Athens, OH
Ohio University’s Peden Stadium is the oldest of the Mid-American Conference stadiums and one of the oldest of its type in the country.
Dow Finsterwald Day September 25, 1958
Golfing greats Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus first met on the golf course at the Athens Country Club in Athens, Ohio.
Athens County Infirmary
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the general public believed that the insane and paupers could be rehabilitated into...
The Hocking Valley Coal Strike 1884-1885
Nelsonville, OH
Following a wage reduction from 70 to 60 cents per ton after many Hocking Valley coal mines consolidated in 1883, the Ohio Miners’...