Learn about early Springfield’s ‘clash of cultures’ at The Heritage Center

Credit: HANDOUT

Credit: HANDOUT

In 1799, Simon Kenton, who had been a guide for General George Rogers Clark during the 1780 campaign against the Shawnee, came up from Kentucky to settle near Springfield.

The town was laid out and formally founded by James Demint in 1801. As early white settlers moved into the area, there was a definitive clash of cultures, represented best by an exhibit on the second floor of the Heritage Center.

The exhibit features an early map, the Virginia Military Land Survey book, a surveyor’s chain, and the very compass that was used to lay out much of the area and a large part of Ohio.

These items demonstrated that the settlers approach to land ownership was far different than that of Native Americans, who had no concept of personal land ownership: land belongs to no one and to all.

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