Spooky Cementry

Spooky Cemetery

          Let’s take a trip down to a cemetery make sure your heart isn’t in your sleeve, or you don’t have fear crawling all through you’re body.

We’ve just stepped foot into the cemetery and you can smell decay mixed with the freshly planted flowers. You see gravestones from all different era’s   And you stop to notice one head stone that looks to be a lot older than all the others. 

It says Joshua on it and it seems to be an elder that passed away way before the massacre had taken place where at the bottom it reads “Oldest Memorial in Ohio.”You keep walking and you look over to your right and you see a huge white obelisk  that’s probably falling apart since it has been there since

the centennial of the massacre to honor those that had lost their lives. You notice an Ohio Historical marker  We’re going to travel back in time to about March 8^th, 1782 when the “Day of

Shame” happened. Imagine being ripped from you homes weeks before and then sent back to the place you once called home to fetch food for you family who is on the brink of starvation. Well that’s that the Moravian Indians that lived in Gnadenhutten, Port Washington (Salem) and Schoenbrunn. They had been ripped from their homes by British Soldiers where they had taken the Indians up to the Sandusky-Michigan area.  After weeks of being up there their food supply had run real low and a small group of Indians could go back and harvest the corn they had planted a while back. While they were harvesting a militia from Pennsylvania thought they were a group of raiders whom captured them seeking revenge for the captain whose wife and daughter had been taken by a previous group of Indians. They separated the men and women along with children into two separated cabins and begun brutally killing them. 

While you’re there you start to feel goosebumps run across you’re arm as you see one of the tour guides come out from the museum and tells you that sometimes you can hear the shots being fired from two replica cabins that all those people were killed in. Then you look at the mound that sits right beside the museum and the ur guide tells you that it’s full of bones and skulls from all the massacre victims what they could find of them anyway, but they still dig up bones every now and then.

When I think of this place I think of something that has been lost in history through all the years. Not too many people know of the history of what happen especially in the county it happened in. It such a big part of history and why it can be important in our local history today.

New Towne Mall

New Towne Mall

New Town mall is the biggest retail landscape in Tuscarawas county and opened its door on October 1988. The mall located in New Philadelphia, near interstate 77. It’s an easy drive from anywhere in the area. The mall serves the surrounding counties of Coshocton, Harrison and Carroll, because it’s convenient location. The mall has more than 50 retail stores, compare to the big city like Columbus or Cincinnati, this mall is so small and not much shopping selection, but for the small area and small town, for people whom live here, we love this mall, it’s our mall and it’s our community.

I have worked at the New Town Mall since 2005, and I am very thankful for our mall. I spend seven days a week here for most of the time, and I feel this is my second home. This mall is a good place to hang out with friends and family. Many years ago, the mall had more decent shops and was packed with shoppers. The rent prices were so high, caused several good stores to leave over years. Someone from the mall management office told me the mall used to attract 2.1 million visitors. Now, you can easily count heads in the mall during the weekdays. Even on the weekends, there are a lot less shoppers than before.

Many visitors didn’t come the mall for shopping. They are come to the mall for walking exercise, especially during the bad weather. Some people come to the mall only to hang out in the food court area, and I often saw people play poker at food court. The food court had seven fast food restaurants, but now only three are stay open. The rest of the spaces are still vacant for many years. Not only have a few fast food restaurants left, but many small retail stores have closed as well. The big department have taken over those empty space and expanded their store size. It looks like most of spaces are occupied, but in reality, the number of retail stores are less. The mall often has different kind of events and bring many different groups people here. The events like Home and Garden show, T-County Patriot show, and children story time bring many people to the mall. These events really help to bring business to all the retail stores. However, this kind of stimulus is limited, people are so use to online shopping, and there is not much to selection in the mall.

Many people have witnessed its prosperity and decline, but no one wants to see it eventually disappear like Monroe mall. We all need to go out shopping. Why drive elsewhere and not support our local economy? The local businesses really need our T-county residents support. With your support, it can help to increase employment, and local the government can collect more sales tax etc. However, the mall can not prosper if nothing else attracts shoppers. The management may have to consider reducing the rent to bring more retails store. All this requires the joint efforts of local people to see it re-emerging prosperity.

Blog 1: Dover Public Library

http://www.doverlibrary.org/

Dover Public Library is truly a wonderful resource for our local community. It is located just across from Dover High School on Walnut street in a cute little building adorned with lots of windows. Though the library is single story, it is split into several different sections inside including a computer room, a children’s books/dvds room, and an adult books room. Between books to check out, DVD’s to rent, and activities to participate in, it is difficult to get bored! If you have small children, Dover Public Library is a great place to go for them to have fun. Some of the kid friendly activities on their Event calendar include raffles, crafts, and story telling!

Dover Public Library first came into existence in 1902 (originally located on Tuscarawas Avenue) and was first in the charge of a Mr. and Mrs. Simpson. After a few location changes and library director changes, the current library director is Jim Gill, who received the position in 2010. Currently on the library’s web page, they proudly display their mission statement to “support life-long learning by providing information and opportunities for personal enrichment and enjoyment to people of all ages..”

I personally love this part of their mission statement and I think it is wonderful to have an establishment that has been so dedicated to being a source of entertainment and information for our community for over a century. Being a Dover native myself, I have always valued the parts of our community that add to our little town’s history, particularly our library. Through the many years that I have been going to the library I’m so happy to see that there are always quite a few other people in there along with myself. Whether it be chatty high school kids after school waiting to be picked up or loners quietly skimming through each bookshelf, the library is truly never a ghost town. It has been a pleasure to see the Dover Public Library grow and develop along with the rest of the town, and I am glad to see that our library remains to be a well utilized resource and pillar of our community.

Blog 1: The Cabin

Picture by Alan Hicks

What makes a community a community? What makes a special place a special place? What makes something so loved by so many people so loveable?... Let me answer those questions in a way I believe I can. A community like mine is such a special place. Each little nook and cranny of Tuscarawas county is different, personable to someone, and special. These places come together to make T-County a community...

A special one at that.

Some of these places are public, such as The Daily Grind, Funday's, or scattered diners here and there, however some of these places aren't so public.

The cabin.

The cabin is my special place that is part of what makes my community a community to me. Now the question is what makes this special place so special?

I'm glad you asked... Thirty-six years ago my grandpa built a pond on some land in Uhrichsville that he owned. Then five years later the cabin was built on a hill right above the pond. It was built with beautiful western hemlock pine. Up until four years ago it didn't even have electric or plumbing. There has always been a darling little outhouse outside. It has a little wooden walkway to enter it from the driveway, and a small crescent moon is carved at the very top... To some it may just be an outhouse, but to me it represents the sleepovers I would have there with my grandpa and my cousins. We would lay out a bunch of mattresses up on the balcony in the cabin. We would jump on them, play tag, put on plays, and go go go until we finally had no more air in our lungs left to spare. We would all lay down on the mattresses, cover up with warm blankets, and listen to my grandpa's tall tales. He would tell us about his hunting trips, put on his wolf cassette, and tell us story after story... After we were scared of every animal out there from his crazy stories one of us were bound to have to go to the bathroom by the time it was time to fall asleep. My grandpa would walk us out into the dark night with a brightly lit sky from all the stars. The walk always felt so long- as if every animal that had sharp teeth was out there ready to pounce. The only animals I truly ever had to worry about though were the mice... 

That's what I think of when I see the outhouse.

The cabin isn't a special place just for me though. It's a special place for everyone that has ever been there.

Every year since 1988 the men in my family along with several friends have gone there on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and spent the night for Deer Camp. They all bring food that real men eat, they play poker, and they pull on their hunting clothes to face the cold. Some come for the food, some come for the poker, some come to hunt, but the all come to make memories, to see each other, and to be with the people they love.

The cabin, in a way, represents a community.

You see, a community brings people together, and that is what the cabin does.

Brings people together.

The cabin is a place where people make memories.

Since 1988, five proposals, a wedding, youth group outings, overnighters, and even field trips have all happened at the cabin. Every other year the family gathers with warm food, we light the fire, and spend it together under the cabin roof. Then when the spring comes, every Easter we all meet again and celebrate. We hide Easter eggs all over the place, the little ones go find them, and afterwards we all celebrate the true meaning of Easter together.

The cabin has always been a place for family.

Imagine a cold winter day, the pond is frozen over, the snow is falling, and everyone is bundled up. We all get on the four wheelers, and drive onto the frozen water. We do donuts, we do laps, and we go faster and faster. All of a sudden my grandpa and I flip the four wheeler that we are sharing... But just like all the other good things he has taught me- we stood up, laughed it off, brushed the snow off ourselves, and got right back on the four wheeler.

The cabin is more than four walls. The cabin is a place that brings life, laughter, and love to everyone that enters that beautiful log cabin. The cabin is a special place, because of the people there.

That is what community is.

Blog #1

My name is Tate Bardall and this will be the first time I have ever been around a blogging  environment. I live in the small town of Freeport Ohio and my family farm which I have grew up working on.

Welcome, new authors!

Hello, CWII students! This will be our class blog for the next few weeks. This is a forum where you can craft and post entries on the assigned topics in a way that gives them more relevance than they would have with a standard academic essay. This way, you aren't just writing for me (your instructor)--you're writing for a potentially much wider audience, who could learn a lot from your ideas about living in and around Appalachian Ohio.

So if you would like, feel free to post an introductory entry to tell us who you are and where you're writing from.

My name is Amanda, and I'm writing from and about two places: one is my family's farm in Guernsey County, and the other is New Philly, Ohio.