Stories of Ohio by William Dean Howells

Two names well-known in literature belong to Ashtabula County. Albion W. Tourgee was born there in 1838, and made a wide reputation by his novels, "A Fool's Errand" and "Bricks without Straw," -- impassioned and vivid reports of life in the South during the period of reconstruction; and Edith Thomas, who was born in Medina County, made Ashtabula her home till she went to live near New York. While she was still in Ohio, the poems which are full of the love of nature and the sense of immortal things began to win her a fame in which she need envy no others of our time.

One of the earlier Ohioans of note was John Cleves Symmes, of Butler County, who believed that the earth was penetrated at the poles by openings into a habitable region within it. He petitioned Congress for means to explore the Arctic seas and verify his theory; of course he petitioned in vain, but he won world-wide attention and made some converts. He had been a gallant officer of the United States Army, and had fought well in the War of 1812, but he died poor and neglected. He was of New Jersey birth, and of that stanch New Jersey stock which gave character to the whole southwestern part of Ohio.