Editing Berea, Ohio (section)

==History==
[[Image:JohnBaldwin.jpg|thumb|left|upright|John Baldwin named Berea and produced the grindstones that made the town famous.]]
Berea was established in 1836. The first European settlers were originally from [[Connecticut]]. Berea fell within Connecticut's [[Western Reserve]] and was surveyed and divided into townships and ranges by [[Gideon Granger]], who served as Postmaster General under President Thomas Jefferson. Abram Hickox, a Revolutionary War veteran, bought the first plot in what is today [[Middleburg Heights, Ohio|Middleburg Heights]] and in 1808 traveled west from Connecticut to his new purchase. Dissuaded by the swampy and heavily forested land he decided to settle in Cleveland. He became successful as Cleveland's first full-time blacksmith. His plot of land was sold to his nephew, Jared Hickox, who came to the area with his wife Sarah and family in 1809. They followed an ancient Indian highway down through the forest from Cleveland and then, at what is now the corner of Bagley and Pearl roads, began to hack their way directly west. About {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} in, they found Granger's plot markers and set up their homestead. Today, this area is a strip mall on Bagley Road, just down the road from Berea. At the time Hickox discovered Granger's plot markers, the area was a swampy lowland and, as fate would have it, the Hickox's two grown up sons died from typhoid fever shortly after the family's arrival. The family farm was in dire straits, having been so severely depleted of male laborers. Love came to the rescue, however; and the area's spirits were lifted by its first marriage, that of Jared's daughter Amy Hickox to a recent arrival, Abijah Bagley. Bagley ended up taking over the farm and managing it into a successful concern. Today, Berea's largest street bears his name.

In 1827, educator [[John Baldwin (educator)|John Baldwin]] moved to Middeburg Township where he joined forces with James Gilruth and Henry Olcott Sheldon, [[Methodist]] [[circuit preacher]]s who wanted to form an ideal Christian community. In 1836, they pledged to pool all their properties to create a Utopian "Community of United Christians." Members of the Community vowed to avoid all luxuries and temptations that would prevent them from achieving the Methodist ideal of "sanctification," or perfect love of God. In 1836, Baldwin and the others of the Utopian Community tried to think of a name for their new town. Nehemiah Brown proposed Tabor (perhaps from the biblical [[Mount Tabor]]), but Henry Sheldon suggested Berea, citing the [[Berea (Bible)|biblical Berea]] in the [[Acts of the Apostles|Acts 17:10-11]]. They decided to let God decide the Community's place name by flipping a coin, and the coin came up Berea. Financial disputes led to the dissolution of the Community and the departure of James Gilruth within a year. John Baldwin and Henry Sheldon then teamed up with [[Josiah Holbrook]], the founder of the American Lyceum movement for adult and community education, to found the Berea Seminary, a central instructional facility for Lyceum teachers, and a Lyceum Village composed of community members dedicated to creation of an educated population. The Lyceum Village concept never caught on in Berea due to the 1838 Public School Act, but the idea of an ideal community centered around a school continued even after the Berea Seminary closed.<ref>Indira Gesink, "The Community of United Christians," Barefoot Millionaire, 2nd ed., 2015.</ref>

The failure of these two Utopian experiments left John Baldwin and Henry Sheldon in deep debt. However, Baldwin had since 1838 been making grindstones from sandstone in the creek bed of the Rocky River. In the 1840s, Henry Sheldon began selling them via the Erie Canal in New York State. This was the beginning of the Berea quarrying industry.<ref>Gesink, "Grindstone Salvation," Barefoot Millionaire, 2nd ed., 2015</ref>{{sfn|Webber|1925|pages=45-46}} After the [[Big Four Railroad]] was built from Cleveland to [[Cincinnati, Ohio|Cincinnati]], Baldwin built a railroad to connect his quarries to the Big Four Depot.{{sfn|Webber|1925|page=50}}

In 1845, Baldwin convinced the North Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church to charter a new school: a new Utopian venture of sorts, because the new school, the Baldwin Institute, would provide education to all, regardless of sex, race, religious creed, or ability to pay. In 1855, it was renamed Baldwin University.<ref>Gesink, "Open to All," Barefoot Millionaire, 2nd ed., 2015</ref> By the 1880s, the quarries had begun to intrude on the site of the university.  In 1891, the school broke ground for a new campus at Front Street and Bagley Road.  New buildings were constructed and old buildings were moved.<ref>Ohio Historical Marker 61-18 (2003)</ref> In 1866, James Wallace purchased the site of the Lyceum Village from the German Children's Home to become the German Wallace College Campus.<ref>Ohio Historical Marker 23-18 (2001)</ref>  In 1913, Baldwin University and German-Wallace College merged to become [[Baldwin–Wallace College]], now Baldwin Wallace University. [[Berea High School (Ohio)|Berea High School]] was the town's first high school, founded in 1882 and closed in 2020. The current [[Berea–Midpark High School]] opened in 2020.

===Berea sandstone===
[[Image:GrindstoneBerea.jpg|thumb|[[Town sign|Welcome sign]] featuring [[Grindstone (tool)|grindstone]]]]
The geological stratum on which the city rests is the sedimentary formation [[Berea sandstone]], a geological formation named after the city which extends across Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and northern Kentucky.<ref>Pepper, J. F.; de Witt, Wallace, Jr.; Demarest, D. F., 1954, '' [http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0259/report.pdf Geology of the Bedford shale and Berea sandstone in the Appalachian basin]'', USGS Professional Paper 259, retrieved 25 November 2015</ref>  This comprises a [[sandstone]] laid down during the early [[Mississippian (geology)|Mississippian]].<ref>deWitt, Wallace, Jr., ''[http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1294g/report.pdf Age of the Bedford Shale, Berea Sandstone, and Simbury Shale in the Appalachian and Michigan Basins, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan]'', GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 1294-G (1970), retrieved 25 November 2015</ref>  In the 19th and early 20th century, this formation was extensively quarried,<ref name="Berea History" /> with the quarries eventually displacing the original main street of the town, as well as the original location of Baldwin University, which sold its five-acre campus to the quarries for $100,000 in 1888,<ref>Turner, Karl, "[http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2007/08/sandstone_made_bereas_main_str.html Quarry gobbled up Berea's Main Street]", cleveland.com, August 31, 2007, retrieved 25 November 2015</ref> moving to a new location to the north.

After beginning of quarrying of the Berea sandstone in the 1830s, Baldwin initially shipped [[Grindstone (tool)|grindstones]] to [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]] by ox carts, and later the quarries were connected to the railroad by a [[Branch line|spur line]]. Berea proclaims itself "The Grindstone Capital of the World".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kucinich |first1=Dennis |author-link1=Dennis Kucinich |access-date=2013-06-16 |url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:E21SE2-0166: |title=In Honor of the City of Berea |publisher=[[Congressional Record]] |date=2012-09-21 |archive-date=2014-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140701091801/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:E21SE2-0166: |url-status=dead }}</ref> The town's symbol is a grindstone, a tribute to the many grindstones that came out of its quarries.

The quarries also provided sandstone that was extensively used as a construction material, in the form of Berea [[dimension stone]]. Huge amounts of it came from Berea, and were used architecturally in many important buildings.<ref name="Berea History">{{cite web |url=http://www.bereahistoricalsociety.org/site/Sandstone.aspx |title=Berea Grit Sandstone 2014 |publisher=Berea Historical Society |access-date=November 7, 2014 |archive-date=November 8, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108165631/http://www.bereahistoricalsociety.org/site/Sandstone.aspx |url-status=dead }} from {{cite book |title=Then There Was None |year=1996 |first1=Mickey |last=Sego}}</ref><ref name="Quarries">{{cite web |url=http://www.clevelandquarries.com/ |title=Cleveland Quarries: Home of the legendary Berea Sandstone |publisher=Cleveland Quarries |access-date=November 7, 2014}}</ref><ref name="16-18">{{cite web |url=http://www.remarkableohio.org/HistoricalMarker.aspx?historicalMarkerId=355 |title=Marker #16-18 Berea Sandstone Quarries / The "Big Quarry" |access-date=November 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108165444/http://www.remarkableohio.org/HistoricalMarker.aspx?historicalMarkerId=355 |archive-date=November 8, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Kanaan">{{cite web |url=http://www.bereaohio.com/history/history.cfm |title=A History Set in Stone |first1=George D. |last1=Kanaan |access-date=November 7, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141027120514/http://www.bereaohio.com/history/history.cfm |archive-date=October 27, 2014 }}</ref><ref group=upper-alpha>Nearby [[Amherst, Ohio]] claimed to be "The Sandstone Center of the World".</ref> The quarries closed in the late 1930s, when [[concrete]] came into wide use for construction. Several lakes in the area are former quarry pits that have been allowed to fill with water, including Baldwin, Wallace and Coe lakes.

===National Register of Historic Places===
*[[Baldwin-Wallace College North Campus Historic District]]
*[[Baldwin-Wallace College South Campus Historic District]]
*[[Berea District 7 School]]
*[[Berea Union Depot]]
*[[Buehl House]]
*[[Lyceum Village Square And German Wallace College]]
*[[John Wheeler House (Berea, Ohio)|John Wheeler House]]
*[[George W. Whitney House]]