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Welcome
to Point of Interest Road
Signs! A
collection of photos of road and trail signs. Click
here for more Ohio Signs
Western Library Association
Historical Marker
Location
of sign - Main Street Jackson, Ohio
Photo
taken - September 2007
Photo
courtesy of Jimmy Wayne
Text
of sign:
Western Library Association
1804
The Coonskin Library
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.
The
Ohio Bicentennial Commission, The International Paper Company
Foundation, The Ohio Historical Society 2003
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can find more information about the state of Ohio here.
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