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The Southern School was established in 1874 for Chillicothe’s African American children. Its principal, Joseph D. Hackley, and teachers, Sara K. Fidler, Jennie Gilmore, George Hackley, and Annie E. Nickens, taught children grades one through six. When the Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional through Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, citizens of Chillicothe petitioned the board of education to integrate their schools. Southern School held its last day of class on June 1, 1956. The building was razed later that year, and the property is now a public park.

Southern School (1874-1956)

This tour starts at the Majestic Theatre with stops at the former site of Ohio’s first statehouse and its replica as well as the birthplace of Lucy Hayes. The tour also features sites important to African American history, such as the David Nickens Historical Center. 

Historic Chillicothe Walking Tour

The Majestic Theatre started out
as the Masonic Hall, built in 1853. After the building was enlarged in 1876, it
became known as the Masonic Opera House and was considered one of the finest
theaters in Ohio. The theater featured a variety of live performances, from dramatic
plays to comedic vaudeville acts. In 1895, the opera house was equipped with electric
lights, making it one of the first buildings in Chillicothe with electricity.
In fact, the building even sold electricity from its generator to parts of the
city. One year later, the theater began showing motion pictures with the Edison
Vitascope, making it the first movie theater in town.



In 1904, a man named A.R. Wolf bought the Masonic Opera House and remodeled it. He enlarged the stage and added permanent seats and stained-glass windows. In 1907, Wolf constructed an arch across Second Street to add to the grandeur. It still stands today. Wolf sold the theater to the Myers brothers in 1915. They were the owners who changed the theater’s name to the Majestic and who chose the exhibition of movies over live performances. Still, there was the occasional vaudeville performance over the years. Of the top one-hundred performers of the time, the Majestic hosted at least eighty-eight.

The brothers also added the words “vaudeville” and “Majestic” in neon lights to the arch in 1918 (vaudeville was later removed). That same year, Chillicothe was dealing with the Spanish influenza pandemic. Hundreds of soldiers died at the nearby Camp Sherman, and their bodies were brought to the Lowery Mortuary across the street from the Majestic. When the mortuary became overcrowded, bodies were stored in the dressing rooms of the theater and embalmed on stage. Because the bodily fluids from this process were tossed into the alley by the theater, it is still known today as “Blood Alley.”

The Majestic Theatre was restored in the 1970s after being purchased by Harley and Evelyn Bennet. New seats and doors were installed while the restrooms and lobby were updated. The roof and marquee were also refurbished. In 1990, three local businessmen, Robert Althoff, Robert Evans, and David Uhrig, bought the theatre as a non-profit organization. Today, the Majestic Theatre hosts live performances, community events, and classic movie nights. Visitors can also request a tour of the historic theater.

The Majestic Theatre claims that it is “America's oldest continuously operating [movie] theater.” The theater opened in 1853 as the Masonic Hall and began showing motion pictures with the Edison Vitascope in 1896. Since then, the theater has exhibited films and live performances ranging from operas to vaudeville acts. Today, the Majestic operates as a non-profit and hosts community events, live performances, and movie nights.

Majestic Theatre, Chillicothe, Ohio

Chillicothe had a revolving Native American population. Because no group stayed there very long, the arrival of settlers did not cause much friction. Instead, Chillicothe remained a peaceful area where groups could meet and talk. In 1796, the town was officially founded by Colonel Nathaniel Massie. About four years later, it became the capital of the Northwest Territory. It follows, then, that when Ohio became a state in 1803, Chillicothe was the capital. Chillicothe’s case was also helped by the presence of influential men like Ohio’s first and sixth governors Edward Tiffin and Thomas Worthington. The capital of Ohio moved to Zanesville in 1810, though it changed back to Chillicothe by the War of 1812. Columbus became the final capital in 1816.

Efforts to build a courthouse in Chillicothe date back 1798 with Thomas Worthington and Samuel Smith, Esquire in charge of the plans. In 1799, $1,200 was levied to pay for a courthouse and jail in town because it was the seat of the Northwest Territory. The stonework was done by Revolutionary War veteran William Rutledge, and the carpentry was done by William Guthrie. During construction, it was decided that the courthouse would become Ohio’s first statehouse. The statehouse was completed on the new Public Square in 1801. Ohio’s first General Assembly met here in 1803. When Ohio was admitted to the union that same year, the statehouse’s bell (now on display in the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus) rang out in celebration. It did not take long for the members of Ohio’s legislature to outgrow the building, however. A new brick building was erected to house members of the state’s senate, while the state’s House of Representatives remained in the statehouse.

During the War of 1812, the previously small communities north of Chillicothe became more populated as a large military center. This large increase in population led to the decision to move the capital from Chillicothe once and for all. The town of Franklin was chosen but abandoned in favor of Columbus after an incident of drunken disorder at a tavern near the site of the proposed statehouse.

The Ross County Courthouse was built in 1801. That same year, Chillicothe became the last capital of the Northwest Territory. In 1802, Ohio’s first constitution was written here, and on March 1, 1803, Ohio's first General Assembly made it the official statehouse. It continued to serve as the statehouse until 1810 when the capital of Ohio was moved to Zanesville. When Chillicothe became the capital again in 1812, the building was used as the statehouse until the capital moved for the last time to Columbus in 1816. The building was demolished in 1852 so a new courthouse could be constructed in its place. In 1940, a replica of the statehouse was built nearby for the Chillicothe Gazette, the oldest newspaper to continuously operate west of the Alleghenies.

Ohio's First Statehouse (1801-1852)

The Chillicothe Gazette, originally called Freeman’s Journal and Chillicothe Advertiser, began publication on April 25, 1800. It is the oldest continuously operating newspaper west of the Alleghenies and the second oldest in the United States. Its first publisher and editor Nathaniel Willis was a Boston printer who supposedly apprenticed under Benjamin Franklin. He used the paper to advocate for westward expansion. The Gazette kept up with the times by reporting news transmitted by telegraph in 1847 and by publishing daily starting in 1849. In 1941, the Chillicothe Gazette moved into a replica of Ohio’s first statehouse. 

The Chillicothe Gazette (Replica of Ohio's First Statehouse)

During the late 1790s and early 1800s, Methodists in Chillicothe met in private homes. When a church was established on Second Street, Black and white Methodists worshipped there together. The African-American members still faced discrimination, however. They had to sit in the balcony, separate from the white congregants, and had to wait until after all the white members had taken communion before they could do so. In 1821, the African-American congregants left and organized an independent church under the leadership of Richard Allen. For years, they were known as Allenites.

On May 30, 1821, Quinn Chapel was organized by Reverend William Paul Quinn at the home of Reverend Peter James. In 1823, the church became a part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The congregation bought its present lot from Isaac Turner in 1857 and built a brick church there. This was the same year the church adopted the name Quinn Chapel. The present-day church was dedicated on December 10, 1910 and has undergone minor improvements over the years.

The Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church was also a stop on the Underground Railroad. Many of its congregants worked to help enslaved African Americans escape to freedom further North or in Canada. One of these brave members was Thomas Woodson, who had previously been a slave to Thomas Jefferson.

Chillicothe’s Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest A.M.E. church in Ohio and the oldest west of the Allegheny Mountains. Before it was established, African American Methodists in the area attended church with white congregants. After years of discrimination in this church, the African American members left in 1821. Quinn Chapel was organized later that year, though it did not go by that name until 1857 when it moved to its present location. The current church building was completed in 1910.

Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church (Chillicothe, OH)

The David Nickens Heritage Center is home to three permanent exhibits: The Underground Railroad, African American Women in the 19th Century, and The Black Church in America. The Heritage Center is also the original site of Nickens’s church, now called First Baptist Church of Chillicothe. In 1836, Nickens moved with his family to Cincinnati, where he remained until his death in 1838. Nickens also helped establish the African Union Baptist Church, which was formed due to discrimination faced in the white-dominated churches of Cincinnati.

Nickens was ordained as a minister at the First Regular African Baptist Church of Christ in 1825, and once ordained, the new congregation established articles of decorum, pledging them to work for the abolition of slavery. In 1867, the church was relocated to 65 West Fourth Street from the New Jerusalem Society. Along with the move came a new name, the First Baptist Church of Chillicothe.

Nickens was one of many Underground Railroad “conductors” in southern Ohio. &nbsp;He and other members of his church risked everything to assist slaves in running away from slave masters to freedom in the north. Those caught harboring or helping fugitive slaves could lose their jobs, home, or even their lives. The Underground Railroad came under use by Ohio residents by 1810. The state of Ohio played a vital role in getting runaway slaves across the river to the border, into Canada. Some newly-freed slaves would remain in Ohio and move into Black neighborhoods, but most sought complete freedom out of the country. Racial prejudice, opposition to anti-slavery, and the threat of violence made those who had escaped slavery want to completely escape the country.

The Heritage Center’s goal is to preserve and display both national and local African American heritage. On this guided tour, documents, photographs, and artifacts from all over the country are on display so one can feel how very real and close to home this chapter of American history took place. This museum serves as a hub for local and state history on the Underground Railroad as well as national history regarding the post-Civil War struggle for Black freedom.

David L. Nickens was born in Virginia as a slave. Although it is uncertain how he obtained his freedom, by the early 1800s, Nickens and his family arrived in Chillicothe. Nickens became one of the first African American ordained ministers in the state of Ohio, and he helped found the First Regular African Baptist Church of Christ in 1824. He and other members of the church were committed to ending slavery. According to multiple sources, he and other members of the church regularly helped slaves escape slavery by helping them find places to hide as they traveled north. Like many other African American families in antebellum Ohio, the Nickens family hid runaway slaves in their home and helped them get to another safe location as they made their way towards northern communities. The church was so dedicated to this movement, they changed the church name in the 1830s to the First Anti-Slavery Baptist Church of Chillicothe. It is important to recognize that Ohio barred African Americans from entering the state without documents proving their status as free people and a $500 bond, so each time Nickens and others assisted an African American refugee they were not only breaking the law, they were risking being arrested for being in Ohio as an illegal resident of the state despite being born in the United States. 

David Nickens Heritage Center

"Instead of being considered the slave of man, she is considered his equal in all things, and his superior in some."&nbsp; Educated and outspoken, Lucy Ware Webb considered women intellectual equals with their male counterparts in an era where little suffrage was to be found, though she partook little in the organized women's suffrage movement. Well before the Civil War, however, she was an ardent opponent of slavery.Future president Rutherford B. Hayes, then only a young lawyer, met Lucy Webb while visiting relatives in Delaware, Ohio. Lucy was a recent liberal arts graduate of Cincinnati Wesleyan Women’s College--destining her to be the first First Lady with a college degree. Lucy and Rutherford courted for two years and were married in Cincinnati, Ohio on December 30, 1852. Lucy and Rutherford married in her mother’s parlor. The couple went on to have eight children.Lucy was extremely involved in her husband's political career--he was elected to Congress for two terms during the Civil War despite refusing to campaign--and supported his decision to volunteer for military service in the Union Army, where he later rose to Colonel of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, spending much of its time in garrison duty in neighboring West Virginia. Lucy and the children spent much of this time living with Hayes in the regimental camp.&nbsp;While her husband was elected governor of Ohio after the war, Lucy worked for the welfare of children and secured funding for an orphanage for the children of Civil War veterans. Nor did her tireless work cease after Rutherford was elected President, often persuading Cabinet members and Washington elites to donate substantial money to the poor communities of Washington D.C. She frequented children's hospitals and a school for the deaf and blind, bringing national attention to their causes. By the end of her husband's term in office, she was considered the "most widely known and popular President’s wife the country has known." Lucy passed away on June 25, 1889 after suffering a stroke at the Hayes home, Spiegel Grove, in Fremont, Ohio.Her childhood home in the modern heart of Chillicothe now serves as the Lucy Hayes Heritage Center, offering several rooms dressed with period furnishings and cases with memorabilia and artifacts belonging to Lucy Hayes.&nbsp;

Lucy Webb Hayes, the third child of Dr. James & Maria Cook Webb, was born in this small frame house on August 28, 1831. Lucy married Rutherford B. Hayes December 30, 1852. Lucy's kindness, great moral courage, and earnest religious convictions contributed greatly to her husband's success. The first in history to be called "First Lady" by the press, she was the also the first wife of a president to hold a college degree. The Lucy Hayes Heritage Center, which preserves the structure of her childhood home, also contains a number of furnishings, memorabilia, and artifacts relating to America's first "First Lady."

Historic Chillicothe Walking Tour

Southern School (1874-1956)

Introduction

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Additional Information