Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
“That service to their country and state was no small investment for these brave comrades, for such a sacrifice never comes without a heavy price.”
When Genoa’s town hall first arose above the landscape at 6th and Main, it was more than just a government administration building.
The year was 1885 and the exterior of this imposing crimson brick edifice, with a soaring bell tower and slate roof, was an impressive vision. The interior was equally as impressive, offering a modern opera hall theater on the second floor, while there was a sizable meeting hall on the first floor along with several other rooms for town functions and activities.
Constructed at a cost of around $7,000, Genoa could boast of a handsome and grand-looking landmark as the community's new centerpiece.
For a small, rural farming community of less than 1,500 people, it was remarkable and begs the question, why did the townspeople of Genoa invest in such a grand structure?
As we fast forward 140 years, an answer has been found.
Recent research by members of the Genoa Historical Society reveals that the building was actually constructed not just as a simple town hall, but as a very special “memorial hall,” dedicated to the soldiers of Genoa and Clay Township who served their nation in the Civil War.
Thomas Bergman, Genoa Historical Society board member and the village’s administrator, said several historical discoveries were convincing.
“From the day we realized that the 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry reunion was the first event ever held at the town hall, we knew there was an undeniable link between the town hall and the Civil War veterans,” he said. “The breakthrough was an article in a newspaper about the reunion and mentioning that regiment leader, General Patrick Slevin, had dedicated Genoa's new ‘Grand Army and Memorial Hall.’
“Suddenly it made perfect sense as to why the town hall was so grand.”
Bergman said there were other clues that strengthened the link between Genoa's veterans and the new town hall.
“The only picture we have of these veterans is in front of the town hall, and Memorial Day services were held on the town hall lawn for the next 40 years,” he said. “The town hall itself was the memorial.”
This revelation is the result of several years of research conducted by members of the Genoa Historical Society, who have been working to identify the scores of men from the area who answered the call of the Union from 1861-65.
The results of the study have been eye opening.
“We set out to see if we could find the names of the Genoa men who gave their lives for freedom in the war,” Bergman said. “We thought maybe we’d be lucky to find six or seven. We were shocked to find the number is much higher, and we can claim with complete confidence that –- at a minimum –- the Genoa area had over 200 men recruited during that era and lost 22 men to the war effort.”
Of those who lost their lives, some were killed in battle and others succumbed to disease and sickness. Other men perished while in the confines of the brutal Confederate prisons after they were captured.
Hundreds of local boys volunteered
From the very start of the war in April 1861 in Charleston Harbor, when Confederate cannons first fired on Fort Sumter, there was little hesitation on the part of many young men to drop whatever they might have been doing in their personal lives, to join the noble effort to hold the nation together.
This included scores of young men and boys from Genoa and Clay Township who selflessly enlisted.
They could choose between numerous new regiments being formed. Each regiment was made up of about a 1,000 men. The Ohio 14th and the Ohio 21st were mostly recruiting young men from Northwest Ohio, and many Ottawa County men found a place in their ranks.
By 1862, a new regiment called the 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was being formed. One of its “companies” of about 100 men would be made up from a large contingent of Genoa area soldiers.
A news article in the Toledo Blade said of Genoa's recruitment: “We are informed ... that Captain Frank Rundell, of Genoa, has obtained 23 men for the 100th Regiment ... few towns have done as well as Genoa in furnishing soldiers for the Union Army.”
Rundell ultimately recruited more than 40 Genoa men to join the newly formed 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
For those who joined, it was a three-year enlistment and thus a major commitment for many of the young men. Many were fresh off the farm fields and countryside of the former Black Swamp, with little experience outside of their rural traditions and culture.
Armed with new uniforms and Austrian muskets, they departed Toledo in September 1862, heading south. Left behind on the home front in Ottawa County were scores of worried wives, parents, and children who could only watch the war from a distance –- praying and hoping for the safe return of their loved ones.
Sadly, for some, the hope they held was lost. Many Genoa and Clay Township families would learn over the course of those years that their sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands were not coming home.
In fact, some remain buried to this day in Southern graveyards. And while hundreds of men did make it home to resume their lives after the war, they often returned with severe and crippling wounds, by bullet, or bayonet –- or the just cruel anguish of battle.
Through all that, however, many Genoa area soldiers who endured the indignities of the war returned with dignity and persevered to build a community, provide leadership and incorporate the town by 1868. They started businesses, built churches and schools, and built the town hall by 1885.
Now, 140 years later, that building still stands tall as a testament to their sacrifice and courage.
In part two of our series, The Press will take you to one of the Civil War battlegrounds of Utoy Creek near Atlanta, Ga., where Genoa's soldiers braved a storm of deadly gunfire in the hot summer of 1864.
