places change,
St. Martin, O.
In Ohio, any municipality with a population greater than 5,000 is considered a city and any municipality with less than 5,000 people is considered a village. St. Martin had about 130 people living in it when the village council asked the citizens to dissolve the corporation and be absorbed by the township. I remember the letter that my parents got from the village council asking for their vote - yes for dissolution, no to remain incorporated. St. Martin no longer exists as a village in the state of Ohio. Rather, it is considered an Unicorporated Community - part of Perry Township.
I grew up in St. Martin. When I was very young, the green signs that normally welcome you into corporation limits were white and black and they said “St. Martins”. When they replaced the white and black signs with green and white signs, they said “St. Martins” too until whoever places signs came back and afixed green squares over the last ‘s’. On old maps, this place is called “St. Martins” too. My family doesn’t have much generational history in this place. My parents built a house in St. Martin 6 months after I was born in October of 1990. We moved from a farmhouse that had been in the family for over 80 years into this new home and my parents still live there today. I think I may be the only person in my family to say that I am from St. Martin, Ohio. You see, when we would get mail it would say: The Wiederholds Anderson State Road Fayetteville, Ohio 45118 St. Martin was too small to have its own post office by the time I entered the world. I’ve always wished for it to have its own post office.
St. Martin Contained ~129 humans ~16 goats ~86 chickens ~25 horses ~27 ursuline nuns 1 diocene priest 2 catholic churches 2 catholic cemeteries 1 pioneer and indian cemetery 1 book mobile barn 1 old high school turned parish hall 1 boarding house, now a home and music venue 3 commercial buildings, now 2 homes 1 one-room schoolhouse, now a home 1 drunk man on a bike named “Bones� 6 fifteen acre fields of wheat, corn, or soybeans 1 fork of the Little Miami River
St. Martin Contained Cont. 1 magnificent tree lined drive 1 lake with a spillway 1 pond so deep it goes to china 1 mother house 1 convent 23 virgin mary statues 14 concrete geese 1 burnt down bar 1 two year college 1 creepy gymnasium 1 natatorium used for storage 1 secret garden 1 rusty playground 1 tennis court 1 baseball diamond 1 barn where we store the turtle racing booth 1 water tower with a pointy top and round bottom
Contents of St. Martin no longer exist as listed.
The boundaries of the village were so iconic. Sharp, diagramatic. Contained, assymetric. Aspirational, realistic. The type of shape that makes a good tattoo.
St. Martin Pathways State Route 251 Anderson State Road Brown County Inn Road Church Street Park Road Kelly Road Savage Road Eubanks Road Boarding House Walk Tree-lined Drive to Chatfield Various Lanes in Chatfield Gravel Path from Chatfield to Kelly Road Road from Chatfield to the Ursuline Cemetery Road between St. Martin Church and Cemetery Paper Roads behind Old Commerical Buildings
19th Century St. Martin St. Martin is very old for its location - it existed as early as 1830, at least 45 miles from any navigable waterways, along an old road that was an attempt to connect Cincinnati to Ohio’s twice capital, Chillicothe - Anderson State Road. The land where St. Martin exists was deeded to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, John Baptiste Purcell, by General John Lytle. There was already a frontier church, St. Martin, established in a cabin in the woods by the time Purcell made his request to Julia Chatfield to establish a school for girls in the country. Thus, the School of the Brown County Ursulines came into being. Much of the economy of St. Martin catered to the girls boarded at this school. Girls came from New York and California, Canada, and South America and places in between. They would stay on the school’s campus, or in the Brown County Inn. There is a tunnel that connects the Brown County Inn to the shops across the street in which abolitionists would hide escaped slaves from the south. Archbishop Purcell is buried in St. Martin, Ohio. Next to his tomb is the wooden cross that adorned the top of the first cathedral of Cincinnati. This cross was brought to St. Martin and erected atop the log cabin church. Some of this account may be true.