Time Immemorial -- Paleo-Indians
Paleo-Indians pre-date the other Europeans that came to Ohio by beau-coup years. Paleo-Indians are white folks that claim to be Indians. Nobody knows how they got here for sure, but the general consensus is that they came to Ohio from the Caucasus, and are thus probably Russian spies.
This time, at least, those curious and avaricious Spanish, French, British, Dutch, Swedes, &c were beaten to the punch by the Russkis.
Some of the most famous of these Paleo-Indians, whose names live on in famy (not in infamy, because that would be a bad thing), are: Bob Feller, Larry Doby, Lou Boudreau, Bob Lemon, Satchel Paige, Tris Speaker, Early Wynn, and Cy Young. Fake Indians all!
One of the palest of these Paleo-Indians was the aforementioned Levi “Carpetbag” Sheets, seen here in this BIA mugshot:
1663 -- The Ohio country Becomes Part of France
In 1663, the Ohio country became part of New France. The Paleo-Indians didn't try to prevent the French from taking the country. But, tired of the phony Paleo-Indians, once France took over the region, the real Indians in Ohio immediately traded in their headdresses for berets, and stopped eating buffalo meat in favor of foie gras and escargot.
Thus, Ohio's original inhabitants reversed the trend of “going native” by turning the tables and “going colonizer.”
Here is a shared vision quest of the Paleo-Indians, who filled the vacuum left by the Frenchified genuine Indians by carrying on the old ways of healing arthritic bison with acupuncture:
1763 -- The Treaty of Paris
The Francophile Indians got the buffalo rug pulled out from underneath them when, in 1763, the French decided to go back to Paris and treat themselves to some cheese and Bordeaux. This left the British to take up the wide man's burden of living in the Ewe-Knighted States and hogging everything.
The British stuck around longer than the French, because they had no good vittles to return to on their native island, and thus no reason to leave.
Here is a daguerreotype of a group of the former Paleo-Indians at Chuck E. Cheese's in Paris, with one of them about to sign the “check.” He's trying to calculate in his head the proper amount to leave as a tip:
1813 – Battle of Lake Erie
In 1813, a year before Johnny Horton took a little trip with Andrew Jackson down the mighty Mississip, there was a little dust-up near Put-in-Bay, Ohio.
Oliver “Dukes of” Hazard Perry started it. He was kind of cantankerous that way, always putting his oar in when and where it wasn't wanted or needed.
This pointillistic painting by Vincent Van Staygh shows a scene from that event:
1852 -- “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowaway scribbled some notes about a cabin her uncle Tom had lived in somewhere in Ohio. Her writings became such a sensation that slave labor was needed to chop down all the trees necessary to keep the book in print.
This led to all sorts of arguments between the lumberjack union and the slave drivers, eventually bringing about the Civil War.
The ultimate result of the extreme popularity of “Uncle Tom's Cabin” was that Abraham Lincoln blamed the whole thing on Stowaway, accusing her for the war by sarcastically asking her, “So you're the little lady who started this whole ruckus, eh?!?”
1861 -- Copperheads
In 1861, during the inconvenient back-and-forth between southerners and northerners, some southern spies and sympathizers snuck (or “slithered”) their way into Ohio with bags upon bags of copperhead serpents (snakes).
They emptied these bags of venomous vipers in the middle of heavily populated areas, such as Cleveland, Cincinnati, Winesburg, Cedar Point, and Sandusky. Their intent was that these rascally reptiles would bite and thus disable the “Yankees” who might, if left unbitten, take up arms for the Union cause.
1869 -- Cincinnati Redlegs
In 1869, the first professional baseball team, then called the “Cincinnati Redlegs” (later shortened to the Cincinnati Legs), opened up shop.
1890 -- “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
In 1890, Ohioan Ambrose Bierce (born 1842 in Meigs County) wrote the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
This true-to-life account was based on a meeting Bierce had had with A.A. Milne, who ended up stealing a character of Bierce's for use in his “Winnie the Pooh” nature documentaries.
Bierce compared himself to a wise old owl, while he compared Milne to a sneaky and squirrelly squirrel.
1893 -- Anti-Salon League
In 1893, the Anti-Salon League was founded in Oberlin. This group of killjoys ultimately played a role in the passing of the Volstead Act in 1918.
The Volstead Act called for the outlawing of all beauty salons. No longer would women (or men, for that matter) be able to get their hair permed or styled, conked or frizzed or frazzled, etc.
Where would they get manicures and pedicures now? They would be sadly on their own in handling these affairs.
This state of affairs caused some desperate housewives to manufacture their own hair products at home. When these illegal liquids were discovered, though, they were destroyed by government agents, as this archival police sketch shows:
1903 -- Puppy Hawk
The Wrong brothers, Orval and Willard, bought a paper airplane from the five and dime store just down the street from their house in Dayton on December 7th, 1903. Their parents wanted to get away from cold and snowy Ohio, so took the family on vacation to Puppy Hawk, located on the Inner Banks of South Carolina.
There in Puppy Hawk, the rambunctious boys played with the Wrong Brothers’ paper airplane, while making “vroom vroom” sounds with their mouths.
Their paper airplane was so large that Willard tried riding on it once a good gust of wind blew their way. Since he had just gorged himself on potato salad and hot dogs during the family picnic, though, Willard’s weight was too much for the airplane to withstand, and it crashed onto the beach.
Orval was really mad at his brother for ruining the airplane, and thus their vacation (as far as he was concerned).
Here's a picture their mother Judy took of Willard's outrageous shenanigans just before the crash:
1970s -- “The Big Red Machine”
During the 1970s, the Cincinnati Redlegs (whose nickname was subsequently shortened to simply “Legs”) fielded a dynasty of sorts, a group of players that came to be known as “The Big Red Machine.” In that decade of the 1970s, they won the National League pennant four times, and the World Series twice -- in 1975 and 1976.
The Reds dominated the decade with such players as Johnny Benchpress, Joe “Armflapper” Morgan, Ken Griffey (Sr.), Toe-Knee Perez, and Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose (just to name a handful). They were managed by George “Sparky” Anderson.
George the manager wanted the team's nickname to be “Sparky and Our Gang,” but the name didn't stick, despite his best efforts.
2016 – Cavaliers Cavalierly Win it All
After forty-six years, the Cleveland Cavaliers finally won the NBA championship in 2016, cavalierly, without calling in the Cavalry.
Coached by Tyrannosaurus Lou, the team consisted of Channing Tatum, Thomas Jefferson, James Jones (following his football career with the Green Bay Packers), Genghis Khan, Kevin Indifference, Tam O'Shanter Molokov, “I'm a Man” Slumpert, and (of course) the star of the show, LeJames Braun (great-grandson of Eva and Werner Von).
. . .
Each Saturday and Tuesday an excerpt of one State’s (satirized) history will be posted here, in alphabetical order (from Alabama to Wyoming).
For “the rest of the story,” the (32-page) complete book “The New All-too-True-Blue History of Ohio” is available here.
The regions of the U.S. have been combined into volumes, too; Ohio is included in the volume The New All-too-True-Blue History of the American Midwest
You can listen to this excerpt here.
Blackbird Crow Raven is also the author of the book “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle”