{AMISH COMMUNITY NEWS} Vol. 5 No. 11
August 21, 2013
History of the Great Geauga County Fair Celebrating the 191st Year
The Great Geauga County Fair is Ohio’s oldest continuous county fair and one of the oldest existing agricultural fairs in the nation.
First Agricultural Society Takes Root in Geauga Information taken from the Great Geauga County Fair’s Web site
In 1823, James Monroe, our fifth President, was proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine, the United States was still a young nation, the State of Ohio was only 22 years old, much of Ohio’s Western Reserve was yet a rugged wilderness and the invention of modern conveniences, like the telephone, television, automobile and Internet, were decades away. Yet, in Geauga County in February 1823, a hardy group of pioneers, some of whom were among the first settlers to Ohio’s Western Reserve region at the turn of the century, had the vision to band together to form one of the state’s earliest agricultural societies— The Geauga County Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. The Society, one of the nation’s oldest such organizations still in existence, was designed to “promote Agriculture & Domestic Manufactures”. Members of the Society then set out to formally organize the annual county-wide fair that would showcase the development of agricultural products, plus the newest farm labor-saving devices and also would celebrate and preserve the nation’s economic independence, bountiful harvests, common New England heritage and ideals. In the spirit of hard work, perseverance, fellowship, American Yankee ingenuity and good old- fashioned fun they prevailed and thereby began a tradition that endures to the present.
First Geauga County Fair Held in 1823
Thus, The Great Geauga County Fair was officially born in 1823, with the first “Fair & Cattle Show”, held on Oct. 23 in Chardon, lasting just one day. Rail pens were built on the square for livestock and agricultural and domestic products were exhibited in the old log courthouse. Premiums were awarded for the best exhibits in each class, among them were awards for the best: bull-$10 to Eleazer Hickox; heifer-$8 to Edward Paine; buck-$6 to Lemuel Punderson’s Administrator; ewe-$6 to Edward Paine Jr.; piece of woolen cloth-$6 to Mrs. Sophie Howe; piece of bleached linen-$5 to Mrs. Catherine Kerr; table linen-$4 to Mrs. Alice Beardslee; grass or straw bonnet-$4 to Miss Caroline Baldwin. Agricultural society president Judge Peter Hitchcock, later Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, gave the public address at the 1823 fair.
Geauga County Fairgrounds circa 1905, photo courtesy of Geauga County Historical Society, shown are Domestic Arts Hall, built 1856, rebuilt 1889, and Flower Hall, built 1890, two of the oldest existing buildings on the Fairgrounds. Both are listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.
History of the Great Geauga County Fair continued on page 3