Title	Columbian House
Subject	Business and Labor Taverns (Inns)
Place	Waterville (Ohio) Lucas County (Ohio)
Description	This photograph shows the Columbian House in Waterville, Ohio. Built by John Pray in 1828, the Columbian House served as a tavern, inn, general store, post office, and jail for the community. On May 3, 1818, John Pray set out from his farm in Smithfield, New York with his wife, four children, and a nephew. The year before he had been on a prospecting tour of "the West." Impressed by the area along the Maumee River, where a few settlers had already built farms, he determined to start a settlement there. In 1821, Pray built one of the first grist mills in northern Ohio. He eventually added a carding machine, distillery, and hemp machine to the water-powered system. Pray officially founded the town of Waterville in 1831. He died in 1872 at the age of 89.
Creator	Pray, John
Date of Original	1828
Source	Historical object(s) or artifact(s)
Submitting Institution	Waterville Historical Society
Rights	For rights and reproduction requests, go to the Ohio Historical Society's Audiovisual and Graphic Reproduction Services page at http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/audiovis/photodup.html; Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights and reproduction requests or more information, go to http://www.ohiohistory.org/images/information
Type	StillImage
File Name	Om70_943339_003.tif
Image Height	1536
Image Width	2362
File Size	942.387 KB
Format	picture; objects

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Columbian House