Gordon, Ohio is that tiny hamlet in southwestern Darke County on State Route 722. Cars tend to fly through town, or did when I lived there. But there was a time when Gordon didn't have a "North Street" and 722 didn't come from the east. It was a small community seemingly lost in the middle of a forest of hardwoods. Philip Gordon was the first settler in the area and his son-in-law, David Lair, platted the village with 26 lots. The cemetery was at the south end of town and the land was donated by Philip Gordon. The first school was also located outside of the cemetery fence and kids from Gordon attended — it was a Baptist school.
Gordon, Ohio was thought to be the place to live in Darke County, Ohio. The original building lots were carved out of the wilderness that was the haunts of wolves, bear and panthers. In spite of the wildness of the place, the newspapers proclaimed its potential and how it would become a big town—larger than Arcanum and rivaling Greenville, the county seat.
It had the new school and church, and several businesses with products and services that were widely distributed by the new railroad that ran through town. Passengers rode to Gordon; coming from Dayton and places like Wengerlawn, Bachman, and Verona to the south.Some of the houses rented upstairs bedrooms by the day or week to people who rode the train and worked for one of the local businesses. The Ohio Pure Food Company was famous for its chocolate and advertised: “Townsend's Chocolate are good enough for queens, preachers and sweethearts.”
This was a small village surrounded by hardwood forests and a large steam-powered sawmill that cut the logs into salable lumber. Barrel hoops were made here by coopers who moved into town from as far away as Piqua. Many families in Gordon kept boarders—people who lived in private homes and worked in local industry. The families in this book lived in Gordon from the year 1848 to 1998.
The first church in Gordon, Ohio was the Philip Gordon Baptist Church. It was a log structure beside the family cemetery.
Philip Gordon and his family were Baptists and nearly all of his relatives were baptized in this church.
The local Methodist group abandoned their log "Thomas Meeting House" located on the former Lynch Farm (Gordon-Landis Rd half-mile north of County Line on west side of road) and began meeting with the Baptist society in town.
The Methodist cemetery is still located there hidden from the road and obscured by deep undergrowth - It is called the Lynch cemetery. Dwight Ressler and I used to hunt rabbits there over 50 years ago. At that time the stones were toppled over and mostly obscured by litter. Groundhogs also invaded many of the old graves and had dug up some of the bones and at least one wedding band was found on top of the ground. The cemetery has been abandoned.
The old log cabin church built by Philip Gordon was repaired and the slab seats from the Methodist meeting house were transferred to the log church owned by the Baptist society.
After that, the Baptist Church in Gordon fell into ruin and the congregation had to meet at other locations.
A 1911-newspaper clipping describes the death of Andrew Gordon's widow, Sarah Ann Gordon and announced that the funeral services would be held at the Gordon Baptist Church, Monday, March 6, 1911 at ten o'clock. Services by Frederick Fischer of Greenville. She was buried beside her husband in Ithaca Cemetery.This photograph was taken in 1947, the last year Miss Beatrice Brown taught at Gordon School. She was a no-nonsense kind of teacher, and set very high standards that she kept herself. She seldom missed a day of school and in those days the roads were not plowed and salt was not used in the winter. Coal stove ashes and pea gravel were thrown, by hand, at major intersections to aid in stopping.