The Weymouth Preservation Society is dedicated to preserving the history and enhancing the beauty of our historic Western Reserve village. We have restored the historic 1925 Weymouth School into a museum with exhibits of local history.
The Weymouth School building has been serving our community for 100 years! Weymouth mason Earl Nichols did the brickwork and noted Cleveland architect Paul Cahill designed it. Teachers Beulah Rockwood and Marjorie Dixon checking the progress.
The Weymouth Preservation Society again welcomes Carol Starre-Kmiecik, this time as the remarkable Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and in 1937 disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. The “Queen of the Air” was author, nurse’s aide, fashion designer and icon, editor, mechanic and advocate for women’s rights.
Followed by a yummy dessert reception.
Tickets $30 by QR code or by sending a check. Do include your email or text.
Annuals, perennials, herbs, ground cover, vegetables, and gardening items for your spring planting. Free to attend. Event, restrooms, and parking are adjacent and accessible.
Everyone whose heart is in the greater Weymouth community is welcome to come and visit with friends and neighbors. We will provide plates, silverware, tables, coffee, tea and water. BYO beer or wine. Please bring an entrée, side dish, salad or dessert to share. Free to attend. Event, restrooms, and parking are adjacent and accessible.
A tradition now spanning over 50 years! Check out our WPS Museum, learn from historic displays, play vintage children’s outdoor games, and enjoy live music, crafters, snacks, demonstrations, lunch, root beer floats, and lawn sales at local residences. Free to attend. Event, restrooms, and parking are adjacent and accessible. Free booth spaces are available. Free booth spaces are available.
The Western Reserve Historical Society will present Christmas in Northeast Ohio: holiday traditions from the settlers’ customs to Mr. Jingaling and our department store palaces. Lunch served. $35 by check to the WPS or QR code. Please provide contact information and with whom you would like to be seated. Event, parking and restrooms are accessible.
The cemetery, located on Remsen Road across from the WPS, has 277 historic graves. There are self-guiding brochures at the entrance. Free parking at the school. The graves include soldiers from the War of 1812, the township’s first schoolteacher Eliza Northrop, and other interesting people.
The WPS offers house plaques for houses in the township. They are 9″ x 15″, solid aluminum, with our pinecone logo. The plaques cost $90 each ($80 for WPS members). The WPS will underwrite half of the cost for buildings over 100 years old. The WPS will provide the date of the building and its original owner, and all available history and photos of the building and its residents over the years, which we will research for you.
We welcome your participation in our events and activities. Please provide your email address or phone if you’d like to be on our mailing list.
Individual: $15
Family: $25
Sponsor: $50
Benefactor: $100
If you have any photographs, artifacts or information to share, your items would be most welcome. We’ll take good care of them, or scan and return them.
Volunteers are always welcome!
We have accessioned over 1000 items and photographs relating to our history. Your donations are welcome and will be well documented and cared for. This “walking” spinning wheel was owned by the Blakslee family, pioneers to Weymouth in 1817.
Take a look in this document to see if you now live in a “Lost” Medina Place.
Have you ever driven over the Rocky River on Cook Road? We now have a brief history of the bridges from Cook Road. Check it out!
The WPS has discovered that 27 early Medina County residents braved the arduous trek west to California to discover gold and make their fortunes. Take a look at this document to learn more!
Weymouth Mural Restoration
In the summer of 1968, the owner of the Weymouth gas station, Zed Davis, paid Craig Staufer $200 to paint a mural of historic Weymouth
on the wall behind the bar. Craig was only 16 but already well known for his artistic abilities. Craig talked to some of the older village residents and did lots of his own research to come up with how the village may have looked in 1856. Over the years time took its toll on the mural. The current owners, Rob and Marlene Shurell, (at left) looked for years to find someone to restore the mural. Janet Baran, new to Medina but a life-long professional artist with ties to Weymouth’s Lathrop Seymour, answered the call. Thanks to Rob, Marlene, Craig and Janet for bringing this beautiful and historic mural to life. The Methodist Episcopal Church (1845-1906) above Marlene’s head was totally missing.
We have spent five summers restoring the original 1835 church windows, front doors, and cupola and built, painted and installed new cedar storm windows. The columns will be restored this year. This important building, the oldest church in Medina County, is listed on the Historical American Buildings Survey.
The WPS was awarded an Ohio Historic Marker for the Weymouth Church. It was built in 1835 as the First Congregational Society and served until 1920 when it became the Weymouth Community Church. Our 49-page application was also awarded a grant to cover the nearly $3500 cost. The church building is important because the facade, though sided, is a nearly original example of the Greek Revival architectural style. Also, it is the oldest church building in Medina County and one of the oldest in Ohio, and it had a strong presence in the anti-slavery movement. In 1848, the congregation drafted 14 resolutions against slavery that they expected the Northeast Ohio presbytery to adopt. When they were refused, they withdrew and joined the Oberlin presbytery. The most famous abolitionist of the day, William Lloyd Garrison spoke at the church in 1853.
A question that we hear often! The original area of Weymouth was the entire township, into what is now Medina City, and into Granger, Brunswick and Hinckley Townships. Weymouth had the only post office, “high school” (to 8th grade), stores, and churches in that entire area. People got their mail addressed as “Weymouth, Granger Township, Medina county, Ohio”. Other small neighborhoods in the Township were Hamilton’s Corners (one-room schoolhouse and cemetery), Fenn’s Corners (schoolhouse), Windfall (schoolhouse and cemetery), Bagdad, Northropville (schoolhouse and private family cemetery), and Medina Center (schoolhouse, cemetery and township hall). Weymouth had a post office from the 1820s to 1906.
Follow this link below to the diaries of Newman L. Van Deusen (1847-1930) that span 67 years of his life! Van Deusen lived in nearby Hinckley, Ohio, and wrote in his diary every day from 1863 to 1929. These notes were transcribed from over 24,000 pages in the original journals, now housed at the Hinckley Historical Society. His writings are valuable in understanding the incredible changes that took place during his lifetime, right in our own local area.
The township’s first school was a log church built on March 11, 1817. Eliza Northrop was the first teacher. Other Weymouth one-room schoolhouses were built in 1829 and 1840. In 1872 the Weymouth Sons of Temperance Hall was purchased by the school and a “high school” (to 8th grade) was added. In 1925 the village residents built a two-classroom brick school designed by noted Cleveland architect Paul Tressler Cahill. That school served until 1956. Of five schoolhouses from 1817-1956, four still stand. Follow this link to information about the teachers.
Here is a link to doctors who practiced in Weymouth from 1829 to 1937. Their biographies show the interesting careers that the doctors had in Weymouth and beyond. Dr Frank Young was our well-loved doctor from 1870 to 1895. He served as a surgeon in the Civil War and had a “cabinet of curiositie,” a collection of interesting and rare animals, birds and minerals.
Take a trip back in time and see how Medina played an important role in early aviation.