Massillon Public Library in partnership with the Massillon Local History & Genealogy Society invites you to learn about Ohio Canals.
Local historian Richard Haldi will tell the story of the 310-mile hand-dug ditch that lifted Ohio up and out of a wilderness existence. The presentation will explore the canal's remarkable story from its inception in the 1820s to the appearance of the first canal boats in Massillon in 1828.
Haldi is the author of Cornelius Aultman: Ohio's Great Civil-War-Era Industrialist, and a trustee for the Canton Preservation Society. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Ohio University and was employed by Diebold, Inc., in Canton from 1966 to 2001.
Registration is required for this free program.
For more information, contact Christine Bowman at 330-832-9831 x325.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Massillon Local History and Genealogy Society | History |
TAGS: | History |
In 1897, local public servant and storekeeper George Harsh willed $10,000 for “public library purposes.” The funds purchased nearly 10,000 volumes for Massillon’s first public library. Also in 1897, J.W. McClymonds announced his gift of an endowment of $20,000 for a library. The Russell sisters, Flora and Annie, who married the McClymonds brothers, donated the Nahum S. Russell home, located on Prospect Street (now Fourth Street NE), in memory of their parents. The McClymonds Public Library opened on January 1, 1899, and was funded by private subscriptions and an annual disbursement of city funds. In 1922, the McClymonds Public Library became the Massillon City School District Library and was now funded by tax revenue.
In 1930, Annie Steese Baldwin willed her home “as the site for a new public library.” Built around 1835, the brick home overlooking downtown Massillon from Hill Street (now Second Street NE) was first the residence of the city’s founder, James Duncan.
The current Massillon Public Library (Main Location), located at the corner of Lincoln Way East and Second Street NE, opened in 1937. Designed by Albrecht & Wilhelm and funded in part by a Works Progress Administration grant, the Duncan/Baldwin home was connected by a Jeffersonian portico and rotunda to a west wing Reading Room and Children’s Room. The Massillon Museum was also housed at this location until 1996 when it moved to its present location at 121 Lincoln Way East.
