A toast to the Confederation Congress and the Northwest Ordinance

State of Ohio and Summit County

borrowed shamelessly from Wickipedia

I am an unreformed history geek. I try to keep it to myself, for fear of inciting terminal boredom around me. Some questions were raised in my last post about the origins of towns, and villages. I set out today to write about physical therapy and ibuprophen cocktails, but saw such a visual of my township that I was obliged to pull off the road and hike a bit with cane and cell phone camera to record it.

Periodically I do go on about how my west was formed, six miles on a side and thirty six sections, one mile on a side. These were laid out in lots, some for sale, some for public grazing "on the square," some to produce revenue to support schools. There was a lot of land to deal with after the rebels won it from Great Britain, and the founding fathers did it in a mind boggling and orderly fashion.

There in red is my county, Summit, named for having the highest point on the Ohio and Erie Canal. The breakout map of Summit shows my township, Boston, in red. But it's not square! That is the result of political maneuvering and swaps and deals later on. If you look with your heart, you can see the original squares. The very intact square east of me is Hudson, where the girls go to school. It once was a township, but now is all incorporated as the city of Hudson, and still retains its public square.

The square to the west of Hudson is Boston. The little white nick at the top asked to be annexed to the township to the north; it made geographic sense. The grey nick at the bottom was an adverse annexation of a prime piece of Boston township property by the city to the south of me that I  refer to as greedy. That chunk is now a real estate and income tax cash cow housing development benefiting the greedy city.

The grey chunk chunk of the square between Hudson and us is Boston Heights, which separated and incorporated as a village in the early nineteenth century. It is located on the high ground of the township, and had better economic prospects for development, especially getting away from that rowdy canal village, Peninsula.

Peninsula became a separate village in 1837, but never legally separated itself from Boston township. Thus, I live in a township with a village in its center. We have two separate forms of government. Peninsula is a muncipality with a mayor and six member council. The mayor is the tie breaking vote. Boston is a township, with three trustees, no tie breaker needed. They must agree. The township hall and the village hall are one block apart. All we have in common is a traffic light at each end of the block.

Until I became the township clerk twelve years ago, I knew next to nothing about local government. Now I know too much. The animosity here is thick as the river fog on a cold autumn morning. No need to go into any of it; it just is. It's amusing to an outsider like me (I've only lived here thirty years, you see.) As a township clerk responsible for the best care of the peoples' money, I am sometimes frustrated past endurance. But no need for details.

We're almost up to the visual, don't go away. The food drive I wrote of yesterday is sponsored by the township trustees, with  hundreds of pounds of food and staples, and grocery store gift cards to fill in the cracks. All this is distributed to community, to the township and the village.

Here's what I saw on my way out of town today. I can't post it on the township website; half of us will be offended. Here it is for blogger amusement.

And on the other side of the road:

Treasurer for Life

Jan, Mom and I turned in our old homes and moved here twenty five years ago for the sole reason that Jan and I wanted to move our weaving business to the next level and needed a studio. 

We moved to the Township of Boston, a big square in Northeastern Ohio, exactly the size Northwest Ordinance of 1786 decreed, with a couple of chunks now gone due to the succession of Boston Heights a hundred years ago, and some annexation by the greedy city to the south.  The Village of Peninsula runs along part of the ragged edges of the Township.

The charming little village is locked into its canal days appearance by an historic designation obtained by some previous visionary in the village. The old houses have unchanged facades, failing septic systems and cisterns serviced weekly by the water truck.  It is so quaint it attracts tourists.  Peninsula is as art centric as they come. 

The man who locked up most of the village as an historic district had a vision without a plan, leaving behind a village that tourists love to visit, but tend to spend little money in.  It is hard to be comfortable lingering in shops when the nearest public restroom is in the next city.

Way back in the nineties, shortly after we moved here, a young whippersnapper with a vision to promote his hometown moved back and opened a gallery.  Then another.  He took over another.  A group of merchants coalesced around him.   We called ourselves the Peninsula Merchants Co-Op.  Another member and I opened the Co-Op’s first checking account, and I settled into being Treasurer for Life.

With our young visionary leading, the Co-Op promoted the town, organized events, took advantage of events already in place such as the national Boston Mills Art Festival, held in the township.  We started the village web site.  Funding came from grants written by young Turks with local businesses to promote. 

Jan’s and my business is up the hill from Peninsula and around the corner, off in the township. I resisted the urging of friends in town to move shop to the village.  Our overhead was too darn comfortable and our art show business model wasn’t compatible with moving our work to a place in town.  But I liked my associates, and was learning a lot.  Treasurer for Life was OK, until they got the first five thousand dollar grant and were working on another.  The checking account had my social security number on it!

Thus, I am responsible for the existence of the Peninsula Area Chamber of Commerce.  I got the federal ID number, filled out the reams of paperwork, chased down other officers for life to get signatures and filed in time to open a Chamber checking account with its own ID for the money on hand and the grants zooming down the pipeline.

Ten years into Treasurer for Life our own business had grown to twelve employees, our own accountant was retiring and a new business came to town.  A young public accountant set up business in her kitchen.

She dropped in to visit us and see what weavers do.  I engaged her on the spot and also asked her to be Treasurer for Life of the Chamber. She agreed.  As I recall, she showed up at the next meeting with the records and said “Hi, I’m your new Treasurer for Life.”  She’s been at it for the last thirteen years.

Some post scripts:  my friend, the young whippersnapper, eventually filed for bankruptcy, a not unexpected turn for a visionary in a town with no facilities.  He is now an international designer.

Mr. Bob, our accountant of many years, was in his eighties when he retired.  Every single year, because of the amount of cash he knew I could have on leaving a show, he asked me if I carried a gun.  Every year I said “No, Bob.  I carry a phone.”

My accountant for life outgrew her kitchen and now has an office in the township hall, down the hall from mine.  Her cat is so pleased.