Huge Things Actually Happened In These 5 Small Towns Near Cleveland

I know, you're probably thinking... this one sounds like a stretch. But John Brown, a famous abolitionist who was at the forefront of moving abolitionists to Kansas in the hopes of making it a free state (and, yes, he was also the "Raid on Harpers Ferry" guy), once had a tannery in Hudson, Ohio. Believe it or not, he employed Jesse Grant, the father of President Ulysses S. Grant. If you keep digging further, Brown had roots in various aspects of 19th century politics, but much of it started right here in Northeast Ohio.

Oberlin, Ohio, is one of my favorite historical hubs near Cleveland. In addition to being rich in history and full of tour-friendly landmarks, this community has a surprising connection to the Civil War. By 1835, Oberlin was home to abolitionists who fought for equality, and they started by shaping an equal community amidst a repressive era. Black and female students were welcome at the local university at a time when neither group was offered such opportunities, both could start businesses, and the town ultimately became a coveted stop on the Underground Railroad. After all, Oberlin was what freedom looked like. However, the passionate locals just couldn't keep their utopia out of the news... due mostly, of course, to those aforementioned passions.

The famed Oberlin–Wellington Rescue followed the capture of a runaway slave, John Price, in Oberlin. The slavecatcher only got as far as Wellington before an estimated 600 Oberlin natives caught up. Locals pulled John through the window, took him home to Oberlin, and eventually helped him make his way to Canada. In 1858, those rescuers were indicted for violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Public opinion was in favor of the rescuers, and locals protested around Cleveland Public Square on their behalf. Eventually, the case was dropped, but the news spread so quickly that it's truly no surprise how Cleveland came to be known as "Hope" on the Underground Railroad.

Century Village Museum in Burton, Ohio preserves the legacy of one petite rural community in Northeast Ohio. However, one of the biggest innovations in this petite community is actually a rather simple concept: the first telephone came to Ohio.

This early phone line stretched just two and a half miles, connecting the depot and the bank and vice versa. The Burton Telephone Co. emerged to manage these and future lines, and eventually, the small town telephone company was bought and controlled by the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. Believe it or not, that company still exists, though it's now known as AT&T Ohio.

We all know the story of how Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully completed the first flight of an engine-powered aircraft in 1903. It happened near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, though the brothers ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. While Wilbur seems to have drawn up the initial plans for their early planes, the brothers worked closely together and presented their success as something wholly shared.

Interestingly, this historic flight wasn't all over the news. Not at first, at least. The very first publication to report on the Wright Brothers' success was Gleanings In Bee Culture, a periodical penned and published by Medina resident Amos Ives Root. He was a personal friend of the brothers, and he recognized the importance of their scientific milestone. Today, Root's legacy lives on in Root Candles, his historic factory that still operates in Medina.