Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
This is the final part of our series exploring the impact Genoa and Clay Township soldiers had both during and after the Civil War.
Gaylord Sheldon, a long-time resident of Genoa who is the president of the Genoa Historical Society, said he remembers when the town hall building also housed the fire department and the garage was later used for the town’s dump truck.
“We also used part of it for the first town library and out back was the town's first water tower,” Sheldon said. “When I was a kid, they used to show movies on summer nights and project them on the back wall.”
The town hall's use as an entertainment venue was likely one of its originally intended purposes, as the second floor of the building featured a 19th century opera hall when it was built in 1885 — where plays, melodramas, concerts, parties, and dinners were frequently held. It was a popular venue and still is to this day.
The Genoa Historical Society has also recently determined that one of the original purposes of the Town Hall was to serve as the Memorial Hall for Genoa and Clay Township's veterans of the Civil War — specifically the Elliot Wyman Post of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R).
But the veterans also had another meeting hall in Genoa, and it too is still standing.
The old building with many secrets
For many decades, Washington and 6th Streets featured an old wood frame building that by anyone's standards was a worn and tattered antique.
The origins of the derelict building were a mystery. No one really knew that much about it, and by the 1970s it was used primarily as a convenient place to store the town's holiday decorations — a sad fate for a building that research now shows was built in 1856 as a one room schoolhouse at 4th and Main.
It may even be the oldest building in Genoa.
The structure was moved in the 1870s to downtown Genoa and was sold to Leander Gregg for the office of the Wyman and Gregg Lime Company. In 1896, it was given a new purpose as the meeting hall of the Women's Relief Corps (WRC), the organization of wives, daughters and orphans of the Union soldiers who were to care for the aging veterans of the Civil War.
Records show that Genoa's WRC chapter was very active and held regular meetings at the hall through the 1960s.
The G.A.R. Hall is discovered
A point of history not confirmed until about 20 years ago was that the old building had also been the meeting hall for G.A.R members of Genoa.
Jeff Eversman, a Toledo-area Civil War researcher and author, said he had been contacted to help local Genoa historians attempt to locate a rumored G.A.R. Hall in Genoa.
Eversman explained that they had come across information that this century-old WRC structure might have been the elusive G.A.R. Hall in Genoa.
Along with the late Ellen Bergman (Thomas Bergman's mother), he wanted a closer look and once inside, they dispatched Ellen's teenage son, Henry Bergman, to the attic to see if he could find evidence of any G.A.R. activity.
Within minutes, Eversman said: “Henry handed down through the ceiling the largest G.A.R. star emblem I've ever seen and said, ‘Will this do?’
By the end of the attic excavation, they had unearthed newspapers, old paperwork, tattered old flags, banners, posters, a parade noisemaker, and 24 kerosene parade torches.
“It was like finding King Tut's tomb,” Eversman said. “All that time, this stuff had been up there, and it was undisturbed. We were excited.”
Further examination of the building revealed that on one interior wall was a special rack to hold the Civil War era muskets that the soldiers carried.
A further check using a replica Springfield musket of that era showed that when inserted into the rack, “It fit like a glove,” said Thomas Bergman, who now serves as Genoa’s village administrator.
News articles have also been unearthed that show the WRC and the G.A.R. members did share the hall for many years until the last Civil War veterans passed away in the 1930s.
It's been two decades since those initial revelations that this nearly 170-year-old, 500-square-foot building — once a candidate for demolition — was in fact a treasured house of Genoa history and memories.
It is also one of only a few G.A.R. Post buildings still standing in Ohio, which had 750 at one time.
Members of Genoa's Historical Society have been actively improving the exterior and interior of the hall in recent years. One of the priorities of the group is to have a new antique sign made for the building to depict its significance and its new name, “Heritage Hall.”
Meanwhile, just steps away at the Genoa Town Hall, work is also underway by the historical society to recognize and preserve the town's lost Civil War stories.
On the first floor of council’s chambers, several of the G.A.R. banners, posters and flags that were recovered 20 years ago from the attic are on now proudly displayed — framed in glass on the walls.
Other efforts are in the works to construct a large narrative exhibit that will recognize and honor those citizen-soldiers of the Genoa area who played a significant role in this most critical period of American history.
The Genoa Historical Society invites responses from any area residents who might have more to contribute — such as letters, photos, artifacts, or family stories — that relate to the Civil War. You may contact us at genoahistoricalsociety@gmail.com.
