Iberia native opens abolition museum

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

The Museum of Mar­ion and Mor­row County Abo­li­tion­ists, on State Route 309 in Iberia, was estab­lished in the last month and a half and is open by appoint­ment. Call Wayne Rine­hart at (419) 845‑3936 to visit the museum.

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Arti­facts, maps and pho­tographs that once filled Wayne Rinehart’s bed­room have found a new home in a one-room for­mer doctor’s office and shoemaker’s shed in Iberia. The small build­ing adja­cent to B&K’s gro­cery is slowly being trans­formed, by Rinehart’s hand, into a museum com­mem­o­rat­ing the town’s part in the Under­ground Railroad.

“I think he’s doing an awe­some job fix­ing it up,” said B&K owner Mary Fra­ley, who also owns the small build­ing and sup­plies its elec­tric­ity. She’s also glad some­one is tak­ing the ini­tia­tive to help peo­ple under­stand Iberia’s his­tory, she said.

The name of the “Museum of Mar­ion and Mor­row County Abo­li­tion­ists” reflects the locale’s shift when Mor­row County was formed in 1848 from parts of sur­round­ing coun­ties. Iberi­ans of that era “were well orga­nized and they had a plan,” Rine­hart said. Accord­ing to his­tor­i­cal sources he cited, almost every house there was a stop on the Under­ground Rail­road, includ­ing sev­eral that are still stand­ing today.

One of those houses—in fact one of the most active—was the house where Rine­hart grew up. Allen McNeal owned the farm that Rinehart’s par­ents later bought, at the cor­ner of Wash­ing­ton Town­ship, named for the Scotch-Irish settlement’s for­mer home in Wash­ing­ton County, Penn­syl­va­nia. Hun­dreds of fugi­tive slaves came through McNeal’s home.

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

Wayne Rine­hart, 74, spent his life­time gath­er­ing records about the Under­ground Rail­road activ­ity in Iberia and has recently put maps, pho­tographs and some arti­facts on dis­play in the Museum of Mar­ion and Mor­row County Abo­li­tion­ists, of which he is curator.

As a boy, Rine­hart was sur­rounded with the his­tory of the abo­li­tion move­ment and was encour­aged to research it by his mother, a mem­ber of both the his­tor­i­cal and genealog­i­cal soci­eties in Mar­ion County. “It’s been the love of my life,” the 74-year-old said. His ances­tors and dis­tant rel­a­tives pop up in the his­tory of the move­ment, espe­cially in the Marion-Morrow county area but also back in Penn­syl­va­nia and on westward.

“The abo­li­tion­ists were of the same spir­i­tual men­tal­ity as the peo­ple who wrote the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence,” Rine­hart said. “These were the sons of serfs who escaped slav­ery in Europe.” The rea­son they joined the abo­li­tion move­ment, he said, “wasn’t that they were pas­sion­ate for the under­priv­i­leged or the plight of the black man, but because their dad­dies told them that if the serfs didn’t do what the lords told them, they burned their houses down in the mid­dle of winter.”

Among a vari­ety of old shoe­mak­ing tools, Rine­hart put sev­eral his­tor­i­cal maps on dis­play and refers to each one while telling the tan­gled story of the growth of the abo­li­tion move­ment in Iberia, then called Clyde Set­tle­ment. Since the area was orig­i­nally part of Mar­ion county, he quotes that county’s his­tory as he devel­ops the story, as well as the county his­to­ries from states far­ther west, where Iberia abo­li­tion­ists moved after the Civil War. Other source mate­ri­als, from fam­ily photo albums to his­tory books, stand on shelves near the back of the hut, with more doc­u­ments in cub­by­holes behind the front door and under a map table.

The num­ber of arti­facts is com­par­a­tively sparse. “You’ve got to get the doc­u­men­ta­tion before you get the arti­facts,” Rine­hart said, so he’s focused on trac­ing maps, genealo­gies and other offi­cial records in his research.

One doc­u­ment he has been unable to find is a book that con­tained a list of names, prob­a­bly of fugi­tive slaves, found in Iberia abo­li­tion­ist and Ohio Cen­tral Col­lege founder George Gordon’s house when it was cleaned in the 1950s. The book was given to Doyle Rusk and upon his death may have made its way to Dr. Bernard Mans­field at the Galion His­tor­i­cal Society.

Small edu­ca­tional ses­sions are in the works, but won’t be held until Rine­hart gets a reli­able wood stove installed in the small build­ing. Until then, peo­ple may visit the museum by appoint­ment by call­ing Rine­hart at (419) 845‑3936. E-mail him at capnwfr@yahoo.com for more information.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Dec 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.