History of Marengo, Ohio

The following excerpt was taken in entirety from the book:

History of Morrow County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests

 
by Baughman, A. J. (Abraham J.), 1838-1913; Bartlett, Robert F. (Robert Franklin), b. 1840
Published 1911

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Marengo.

Marengo is an attractive village and an important station on the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad, south of Mt. Gilead, in Ben- PUBLIC SCHOOL, MARENGO. nington township. The town is situated upon an elevation and the topography of its site adds much to the beauty of the village. Marengo, with a population of two hundred and eighty-three, has one church — the Methodist Episcopal — and a post office from which five rural routes supply between six and seven hundred families. M. W. Steritt is the post master, and seems to be a very obliging one. Five post offices have been discontinued since these  routes were established, namely: Pagetown, Fargo, Penlan, Stan ton and Bennington. The village has also a well conducted public school. The village has a bank, several general stores and the usual amount of business for a place of its size. L. W. Mead is the mayor of the place, and the physicians are Drs. Piatt and Thompson. Marengo has been so unfortunate as to have a number of disasterous fires, in years past, which destroyed much valuable property, including the mill and the railroad depot. The steam grist mill there at present is on the site where the depot stood, and the planing mill is near where the old grist mill was. There is also a creamery near these plants, which is a branch of the Sunbury establishment. The village has two hotels where the public can be hospitably entertained. Curfew rings at Marengo at 7 o'clock, and the children seem to be very observant of the rule. The first building erected in what is now Marengo* was a log cabin, built in 1843, by Isaac P. Freeman. Two years later he erected a two story frame building for a store room and placed in it a stock of goods valued at about fifteen hundred dollars; this made Marengo quite a central point for the northern part of the township. A post office was secured in 1847 and named Marengo, honoring the victory of Napoleon over the Austrians at Marengo, in 1800. The early merchants of the place were Freeman, Mc- Masters, Standish, Green, Ingraham, Powers, Livingston, Evans, Hance and Noe. Both in 1871 and 1874 Mr. Noe suffered by fire. In 1873 Marengo was surveyed and platted into thirty lots, Robert L. Noe being the projector and proprietor. Additions were later made by Mr. Noe and Mr. France of one hundred and five lots. After the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad was built through the town, it improved at a rapid rate and new business interests were opened. The Noes were prominent in the early settlement of northern Bennington. Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Noe came to where Marengo now is at an early date. Mrs. Noe is yet living, and at the age of eighty-three is yet well preserved, looking at least ten years younger. She has the full possession of all her mental faculties, and talks very interestingly about the early settlement of the town and township. As she expressed it, she came there in the ** deadening. ' * Lest some of the readers of this work may not understand the meaning of that word, an explanation may here be in place. Preparatory to clearing the forest the trees should be deadened, and this was done by barking and cutting a ring around the trees about two feet above the ground; then in a year or two the trees could be felled, cut into length and made into log-heaps and burned, thus creating a bi-product of ashes, which could be profitably marketed. Marengo was laid out upon the Noe land, he having bought it of Isaac P. Freeman, who had come to the vicinity from New Jersey at a still earlier date. Mrs. Noe lives in the large, handsome frame house which was built in Jersey style by Mr. Freeman, and which is located in a grove of native trees at the south limit of the village. Major Johnson, of Marengo, is the only Mexican war survivor in Bennington township.